#i feel awful and gross and now i wasted food that i never even deserved in the first place

[angelstrawbabie420]

[homerjacksons]

Sonny Carisi Week Day 2: off duty Word Count: 1847 Pairing: Rollisi, pre-bensler? Summary: Sonny and Amanda host a dinner party for the squad. AO3

As Jesse chattered away to him, stirring the pot diligently, Sonny heard the door open again, a string of barely-discernible greetings ringing through the apartment, and his heart felt fit to burst.

He’d been wanting to do this for a while; have everyone get together, cook for them, pamper them, show his found family just how much he loved them. He’d never had the space to host in his tiny apartment, though, and he couldn’t ask someone else to host just on his behalf, so more often than not, on the off chance they did all get together, it was for takeout, and a kid-free night.

This was different. Special. This was what he’d been wanting all along.

Amanda slid up behind him at the stove, winding her arms around his waist and pressing a kiss to his shoulder which Jesse pretended to find gross despite the absolute glee in her eyes.

“You doin’ okay in here?” She asked softly.

The question was directed at Sonny, but Jesse piped up with a very happy, “We’re great, momma,” which startled a laugh out of Sonny.

“Yeah,” he said gentle, turning in her arms to press a kiss to her cheek. “We’re great.”

“You’re behaving?” She asked Jesse, who nodded solemnly in return. “Good.”

“Go,” he said, punctuated by a chaste kiss to her lips. “Entertain our colleagues.”

“When you were planning to use my apartment to host this, you said they were our friends.” She tried to look stern, but she couldn't quite manage it and he laughed, turning back to the stove.

“Go,” he insisted. “I’m doing what I do best here. And it’ll be done in 10 minutes so make sure the kids have washed their hands.”

He could feel her watching him, and he turned to shoot her a smile before she left.

 --

 He felt warm and fuzzy again as he brought out plates piled high with homemade spaghetti and meatballs for everyone. He couldn’t help but watch as his friends helped themselves to salad and garlic bread, laughing and talking all the while, as though his food wasn’t an interruption to their previous conversation but merely a welcome addition.

“This smells great,” Kat exclaimed, eyes wide and hungry as she grinned at Sonny.

“Tastes great,” Fin added around a mouthful of pasta.

“Thank you for inviting us into your home,” Garland said gently, giving his wife’s hand a squeeze.

“Uh, it’s Amanda’s home, but—“

“Shush,” she said, swatting his arm playfully. “It’s just as much your home as it is mine.”

His heart melted at that, and he had to take a moment to let that sink in as the conversation started up around him once more. On a surface level, he’d known this was his home too. He spent just as much time here as Amanda did, maybe even more now. But he still had his tiny apartment going to waste, slowly emptying of everything he could ever need as his belongings migrated here, and they hadn’t discussed him moving in, officially.

“You okay?” Amanda asked, mouth close to his ear so they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Course,” he said with a grin, squeezing her hand under the table.

And he meant it. He was sure he’d never felt better.

 --

 “Never known you to be this quiet,” Elliot said, settling beside Sonny and handing him a beer.

Sonny laughed. “You barely know me at all.”

“Touche.” 

Elliot was quiet for a moment, watching Liv and Amanda where they sat on the couch, heads close together, cheeks flushed with wine and eyes alight with laughter.

“Feel like I do, though,” he said after a beat, not tearing his eyes away from the scene across from them. “The way Liv talks about you all, I feel like I’ve known you just as long as she has.”

Sonny turned to look at him, not sure how to respond to that. He couldn’t return the compliment—Liv had never mentioned Elliot directly in the time he was gone, and even since he’d come back, she’d kept whatever was going on between them private, barely spoke about him unless prompted—but it felt wrong to leave a comment like that hanging.

“She’s a good woman,” Sonny said thickly, looking down at the beer in his hand.

“The best,” Elliot agreed with a grin, clapping Sonny on the shoulder. “Although you didn’t do too bad.”

That startled a laugh out of Sonny and he looked back over to Amanda again, warmth thrumming through his veins.

“Yeah,” he said a little breathlessly. “Still pinchin’ myself, y’know.”

Elliot nodded slowly, finally tearing his gaze from the women to look at Sonny. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“So you and Liv…” he trailed off, not sure it was really his place despite Elliot starting this thread of conversation.

“Getting there,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. But she’s worth it.”

Sonny nodded. He knew what that felt like, knowing someone was worth every bit of effort and pain, knowing someone was worth waiting forever for.

 --

 “Carisi!” Kat called from the kitchen, beckoning him over excitedly.

Sonny feigned annoyance, grinning the whole while, as he left Fin and Garland to continue their conversation without him.

“Watcha doin’ in my kitchen?”

“Your kitchen?” She raised her eyebrows. “Thought your kitchen was on the other side of Manhattan.”

Sonny felt his cheeks heat up, and he hoped the alcohol and warmth of the room would have already given him enough of a flush that she wouldn’t notice.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved a hand, still grinning. His cheeks hurt but he couldn't quite stop.

“This s’posed to be you?” She asked, pointing to a stick figure drawing pinned to the fridge, front and centre, Billie’s name scrawled in the corner.

“Yeah,” he said proudly, almost like he was challenging her.

He knew he was listed as daddy in the drawing, knew that topic had stayed between him and Amanda as they worked out exactly how they wanted to proceed and what was the right way to go about all this, but in that moment, with love and affection and alcohol flowing through his veins, buzzing in his brain, he couldn’t help the way his chest puffed with pride or the way he stood a little taller in the face of someone else seeing, someone else knowing.

Kat softened, giving his elbow a squeeze. “I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, turning to grin at her. “Me too.”

He was about to say something else, but at that moment, Billie barrelled into his legs, tears welling in her big eyes, and everything else was forgotten in favour of helping his little girl.

 --

 “Noah, come on,” Liv insisted from the doorway, exasperated and tired and fond all at once. “It’s time to go.”

All she got in response was a shriek of laughter and pounding footsteps as Jesse and Noah continued to chase each other around the table, high on far too much dessert and the leftover excitement of being part of a ‘grown ups party’.

Liv sighed, rolling her eyes, but she didn’t insist again. Instead, she settled a hand on Sonny’s arm, expression soft and warm.

“I’m really happy for you, Sonny,” she said quietly, giving his arm a squeeze for good measure. “You deserve this; to be happy.”

Sonny glanced past her out into the hall where Elliot waited, checking his phone for their Uber.

“So do you,” he said with a nod in Elliot’s direction.

Liv followed his gaze, a soft, wistful look taking over her face for a moment before she turned back to him, looking so much like his boss again that he instantly stood a little straighter.

“I know,” she eventually said, expression softening again. “Just making sure he knows that first.”

Sonny laughed, covering her hand with his own where it still rested on her arm. “Trust me, he knows.”

She studied him for a moment before looking back over at Elliot, who was now looking at them in return.

“Uber’s here,” he said, waving his phone.

Liv turned to call for Noah again, but he came bounding towards her just in time, eyes bright and curls bouncing.

“Thanks again,” Liv said softly, taking Noah’s hand in hers to join Elliot.

“Thanks, Uncle Sonny,” Noah echoed, waving behind him.

Elliot nodded to him from the end of the hall, raising a hand in farewell, and then they were gone.

He closed the door behind him, resting against it for a moment, letting the success of the night sink in.

“Uncle Sonny!” Jesse squealed, wrapping her arms around Sonny’s legs.

“Shh,” Sonny stage whispered. “Your sister’s asleep.”

“Uncle Sonny,” Jesse repeated in a whisper. “Read me a story?”

Sonny looked up to meet Amanda’s gaze across the room where she was gathering plates and glasses to take back to the kitchen. She gave him a small shrug and a warm smile in response, and he, once again, felt awed that she trusted him enough to make any decision about her children without consulting her, even if it was just a bedtime story way past her actual bedtime.

“Okay, Jess,” he agreed, ruffling her hair. “You go get ready for bed and pick out a story and I’ll be in in a moment.”

He gathered a few stray plates and glasses, following Amanda to the kitchen to dump them beside the sink.

“Hey,” she said softly, turning to face him at the counter.

“Hey,” he echoed back, heart thumping against his ribs almost like he was nervous, or excited, or both.

“We’re real adults now, huh?” She joked, straightening his collar before winding her arms around his neck.

His arms fell easily to her waist, pulling her in close. “Dinner party, tick.”

She laughed, tilting her head back, eyes shining in the light, and god, she looked so beautiful she took his breath away.

“I love you,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

She kissed him properly, pulling him in close, almost desperate, like she’d wanted to do this all night and was just waiting to have him all to herself.

“Careful,” he mumbled into her mouth, reluctantly withdrawing. “I still gotta read Jesse a story.”

“Your mistake,” she said with a sly grin, pressing one last kiss to his lips before letting go. “Off you go, then.”

He watched her for a moment, just as she had done earlier that night, thinking of the ring he had tucked away back at his apartment, the only thing of any real meaning he still had there.

If anyone had asked him even a month ago, he would have said he wasn’t sure she’d say yes, but as he watched her washing dishes after helping him host their first ever dinner party as a couple, with her eldest waiting for him to put her to bed and her youngest already calling him daddy, he knew. He knew he could ask at any moment, and she’d say yes without a moment's hesitation.

[sleepdeprivedheretic]

Those Shoes (Ch.1)

Notes: The title is referenced to a song by The Eagles, it’s a classic song about exotic dancers, as well as a popular song to play in the clubs. Rita, or @youtubequeens and I brainstormed this piece, and I was so excited to finally write it :3

Warnings: Language, Exotic Dancers and their life, talk about sex, Trigger Warnings!!!: Mentions of and non-consensual acts such as groping and touching, and other horrors.  

Notice: Dancers should be treated with respect, and this is not a fic to downgrade them, nor to spread false truths. It sheds light on what can and does happen in real life, and how that it can be a dangerous job. The warnings are here for a reason. Thank You.

 “Honey, I neeeeed your help!” Your mother whined through the phone. You sighed loudly as you sat on the bed. You’ve just finished with a hefty amount of homework, two tests, and you had another coming up, soon. Not only were your friends squealing that they need to celebrate your upcoming graduation, but your mother had called you, needing something. Again.

“Before you hang up!” She started as your thumb hovered over the red button. “I know that you’ll be graduating college, soon, and you’re needing a job, asap, sooooo, I was wondering if I could hire you, soon?” She baited, and you felt a chill of dread down your spine.

“No way in hell.”

“Oh, Come on! You know that you’ll need a job! I can’t find decent hire, anywhere. How about I hire you until you find a better job? Please? These outfits need to be patched up, and I need makeup expertise! Other than my own!” She added.

You felt your stubborn nature wilt as common sense pile drove in. Your mother was a crafty, sneaky, snake, and she knew that you were needing money to make end’s meet, especially when you were about to move to a better apartment. There were good businesses waiting to hire, and some even were willing to sponsor you, but of course it could take months until you could officially land a good job.

Unfortunately, your mother knew this.

“Above minimum wage, and I get to wear what I want.”

“Deal.” She didn’t even hesitate.

“Fine. I’ve got tests…and the girls are throwing me a surprise party, of all things at the end of the month, so I’ll see you when I see you.” You breathed out, and your mom giggled.

“Oh, a surprise party? Maybe I could send-”

“Mom, no.” You blurted out, and she laughed.

“Oh, my baby girl!” She cooed. “You don’t need physical experience to enjoy-”

You clicked the red dial, ending the call as you sighed with defeat. How did your life turn out like this?  More than likely, she’ll gather your small group of friends and convince them to try to get you to loosen up. It was not only your graduation day, but also your birthday, coming up.

 Your mind froze with fear at the memories of past birthdays. After you’ve turned eighteen, she tried multiple times to send out one of the male dancers, scantily dressed in an ice cream sundae uniform, holding a card that basically said “to pop your cherry”.    

Yeah, you didn’t really had any contact with her, really.

…………………

“Surprise! Happy Graduation and Birthday, Girl!” Your friends screamed with joy as you entered your apartment. Finally. After years of hard work and several job offers that will get back to you within a month, you were a certified beautician with a knack to patch and design clothes. Sure, it wasn’t your first idea of a job, but it grew on you. Dying hair, painting nails, mastering different techniques of applying makeup, and seeing the sparkly eyes of your patients as they admired your hard work, had won you over.

Of course, your mother had a major influence over you. Although you weren’t into dancing, you were happy to practice makeup and help patch up certain outfits. As you grew older, you went with what you knew, and soon, your school had paid for your college due to your good grades, and you made your way up, ever since.

“Oh hey, girls! Where’s the cake?” You wondered, and they wasted no time with mischievous giggles. You stilled.

“What-”

“Don’t worry, Babe! It’ll be here, soon. Try this cucumber Sake!” Rumi grinned as she held out the small cup. The white-haired woman had been your friend since late high school, the only one knowing about your mother’s business back then. She and your other friend, Keigo, had now opened up a pet store. Said man who had bird-like perception wasn’t here, right now, but your more…flirtatious friend, Nemuri, was here with her girlfriend and your attention-seeking friend, Yu. Both girls had worked for your mother, and although you were close, you were weary of their similar antics.

“You’re hiding something.” Your eyebrows furrowed. Nemuri smiled coyly as she slung an arm around a giggling Yu.

“It wouldn’t be called a surprise if we weren’t.”  

“True.”

The four of you had cut up and were laid back, enjoying small talk and stories that you all missed out on. Nemuri and Yu were doing great with the future wedding funds, Rumi had admitted that Keigo was trying his best to win over some goth from Hot Topic, and you, well, you were still doing the things that you loved to do, despite a busy schedule. Rumi smiled, knowing fully well that your more secretive hobbies had leaned towards being more humanitarian, despite your busy schedule.

You wanted to do things that you wanted to do, not gain attention from them, yet your close group of friends had known of your little skits: Feeding not only stray cats, but taking time to volunteer to help with the homeless and the orphanage. The conversation had quickly turned to about working at the strip club, and you were relieved that the subject had changed.

“Ugh. I hate it when they get up. They’re suppose to sit, and be obedient.” Nemuri huffed.

“Isn’t that against the regulations?” You wondered, and Yu nodded.

“Yeah. I heard that one girl in the private room was far into her dancing, she didn’t notice the guy standing up. Luckily there’s cameras, and so when the staff noticed that he pulled his dick out, they broke into the room and threw him out. Hah, he didn’t get his cash back or anything.” She finished, and you couldn’t help but feel sympathy.

You weren’t raised in the club, but your mother had told you plenty of stories, and dropped off the outfits or brought home a “dummy” to practice makeup on while she told you to never let your guard down. It wasn’t until you were nineteen when you fully knew what she had meant as you were working as a hostess at her building.

Although you were dressed in bartender clothes, it didn’t stop anybody from trying to make a grab at you. You were lucky that your mother had hired good bouncers, and she herself was like a tiger who prowled upon those who didn’t belong there.  

“That’s awful.” You admitted, and Nemuri nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. It’s especially gross when you’re giving them a lap dance, and you feel something gross and sticky on the back of your thigh.”

“Or when they kept saying that ‘you’re too pretty to work here’. I know I’m pretty, and I want the attention and attraction to work here. Just because I dance, doesn’t mean that I’m easy. I’m in a committed relationship for six years, thank you.” Yu bantered back while Rumi and you listened quietly.

“You girls go through a lot. Damn. Poor birthday girl had to wear a miniskirt while handing out food and drinks.” Rumi piped up, offering to say what she knew about the subject. Nemuri sighed.

“I remember that when Yu and I first started. Her mom’s not too picky when it comes to help, especially when it’s low pay and her own kid. Like a lamb in a den full of lions, I tell you. Luckily our ladies and gents knew how to swoop in to the rescue.” She finished, and you felt yourself blushing.

Everyone jumped as the doorbell rang, and you watched the Grinch-like grins spread on Nemuri and Yu’s faces, as Rumi let out one that was almost feral.

“Cake’s here.” They said, and you couldn’t help but feel a case of dread as Nemuri didn’t hesitate to waltz over there, and sling the door open, and you couldn’t help but to swallow thickly.

“You did not.” It was a whisper that died on your throat.

Of course you should have known. Of all things-

 He stood in the middle of the door, holding a prettily frosted cake, but it wasn’t the cake that caught your attention.

 Tall, blond, muscles, was sporting thin square glasses that were about to fall off of his nose, a sleeveless white vest with a loosened tie and one button undone. His pants were no better, the zipper and buttons were undone as it snagged nicely on his hips, leaving a blond treasure trail for the world to see, and of course, sleek black and orange high heels that looked as if they cost more than your rent.  

“I’m here to teach our Birthday Girl a lil’ lesson.” Came out the smooth purr as he twirled a red sucker in his mouth, and damn it did that not help you. You hated to admit it, but he was the handsomest ones that you’ve ever seen, and of course you knew who sent him. Pretty amber irises stared at you, drinking you thoroughly as if he was silently contemplating something.  

“Name’s Fatigue, Sugar.” He grinned, lolling the sucker within his mouth as Nemuri took the cake from his hands and set it down on your living room table.  

“Don’t work our girl too hard, Tai. Poor thing gets a little flustered, easily.” She giggled, pinching your cheek rather playfully. You gave her a small glare despite that your ears were burning, now. Tai, or “Fatigue”, let a slow, lazy smile stretch his face as he looked down at you with a cocky look mixed with hunger.

“Jus’ sit back an’ relax, ‘nd enjoy the show. You deserve it for workin’ so hard.”  He cooed with what seemed to be affection, and you swallowed thickly and nodded. Sure, you could do this. Giving an affirmative, he didn’t give you much time before he took out his phone and pressed some button, instantly music had started playing as he started.

He was like a magnet, snapping your attention to him in awe as he spread his legs wide, letting himself sink low to the floor, heels perfectly grounded into your carpet as his glasses stayed neatly perched on the crook of his nose. He grinned at your amazed stare, as if eating it up. Of course he had a bag full of tricks, and you couldn’t believe that you were finding yourself eager to know each one.

He didn’t fail to deliver, hopping back up with a dive of his hips, sliding a hand down to the side of his pants, palming his thigh as he bent low, ass in the air. Each movement was in sync with the beats, and was absolutely filthy as he used his body to curve and twist into movements that oddly made you feel hot and your throat dry. Who was he? Where did your mom even find somebody this good?

Your friends were no better. Rumi had sported a look of stupor, and to your own surprise, Nemuri and Yu looked impressed, a rare sight for you knew that their technique was high dollar and quality, too.

He was all over you, not touching, but close, not letting you take your attention away from him as he ran his hands close to his hips and inner thighs, his sharp focus was only on you as he gauged your reactions, seeing which little movements brought a spark to your eyes or a flush to your face.

Then, like his routine, he did another unexpected move. Taking your cake, he set it neatly on your lap. Not giving you time to really question anything, he gingerly took your hand, dipping your fingers into the frosting, and brought it to his mouth.

Hot. You couldn’t help but feel hot all over as your lips burned on how he licked and sucked at the frosted digits, lolling his tongue over each one as he gave you such a dirty, heated look, and you swore that you heard him groan. Or was it you? You couldn’t tell as he gave your digits one final suck, letting go with a wet pop as the last song ended.

“Delicious.” He purred, and you couldn’t help but bite your bottom lip at how he sounded it.

“Holy shit.” Nemuri broke the silence.

“Language, young Missy.” Fatigue tutted, waving his finger at her, laughing lightly as she gave him one of her own, before turning his attention back to you.

“Didja enjoy the dance, Sweetling?”

“Yeah.” You admitted in  choked voice, and he gave a small laugh of affection as he walked towards the door.

“You have a Happy Birthday. I do hope that I can see ya, again.” He gave one last final look at you that you couldn’t decipher, as he headed out.

Silence enveloped you girls, before Yu started laughing.

“You were so blushing! He looked as if he wanted to eat you up!” She noticed, and you could feel your lip starting to hurt from biting it constantly.

“Woah, did he even know that you’re the boss’s kid?” Rumi asked, and Nemuri shook her head.

“Nah. We hired him yesterday, and her mom didn’t say anything, other than that she had a very special job for him. Heh, I didn’t know that the new meat was this good.” Nemuri explained, staring at her nails.

“’I do hope that I can see ya, again’.” Yu mimicked before giggling with glee. “Somebody’s has taken a shine to our homebody.” She grinned and your face flushed with realization.

“I gotta go see my mom.” You blurted out, instead, and was rewarded with grins and knowing smirks.

“It’s so cute how you’ve finally began to open up, my little touch-starved Chickadee. A stripper, of all things, huh?” Nemuri laughed at the irony, and you couldn’t help but join.

“I guess that it’s time to admit that I don’t have to live my life as the Lone Wolf, anymore.”

“And finally get laid, right?” Yu said it ever so casually, and you rolled your eyes.

“Ah, leave her alone. It’s nice that those brick walls are falling down.” Rumi grinned, slinging an arm around you and you smiled.

“It’s getting late, ladies. I got to see my mom early, tomorrow. Before you leave, take some cake with you.” You admitted.

“Will do! I’ll tell her that the new guy had done the impossible, by gaining your heated stare.” Yu giggled as she wrapped an arm around Nemuri’s waist.

“Hah, Kei’s gonna have a laugh at this.” Rumi smiled as she got up, leaving for your kitchen to grab the plates and forks.

….………….

After cake was cut and eaten, and the girls hugged you and kissed your cheeks before heading out, you were now laying on your bed, face flushing furiously as your heartbeat quickened. A stripper of all things shouldn’t have done that to you. You grew up with your mom’s flirty attitude towards strangers, and from an older teen, had been working in the club in a vest, shirt, and miniskirt with low heels, being constantly flirted with.

You didn’t know what made him to be so different, but like a magnetic connection, you were pulled, and despite you loner, homebody attitude, you kind of did wanted to see more of him.

…………..

He sighed, slipping off the expensive shoes as his feet and body ached for a hot shower. She didn’t know him, but he knew somewhat about her. Although the two of them shared the same college, he’d never shared a class with her, and she had lived in the apartments that was near, but not the dorms. Yet, he seen her almost everyday while either to or from his way to classes, work, or in general.

She tried to hide it, but he knew of the little empty cans of tuna near the dumpster that kept the stray mother cat and her kittens fed, was from her. He could hear her cooing to this day, smile rivaling the sun, as she looked down at the bunch with a touch of softness, not noticing the world around her as he took the same route past the alley every day.

 Of course, he was a little intrigued. He had a sweet tooth, and despite his refusal in ever taking a bite, he wanted to drink in on what this strange woman was doing. He knew that she was busy, if the bags underneath her eyes indicated anything, and yet she still took time to do small and big things. Picking up littered cans and tossing them in the recycling bin, helping struggling students study, and he’d even seen her face at the soup kitchens, pouring generous amounts of soup into the bowls which were held in the hands of the hungry.  

All around. She was all around and yet tried to make herself small and trivial. Others didn’t really notice, but he did. He couldn’t help it. Like a little magnet, she pulled him in, and she was unaware of it. Honestly, he felt like a stalker, yet he knew that he wasn’t. She was just…all around. Existing, helping, laughing, and smiling. It cut through a crack in his dark little world.

Of course, then she graduated, and he was surprised on how much he had missed her laughter, the softness in her eyes as she handled the kittens or gave out food. He didn’t know her. Didn’t speak to her, never went to the same classes, and yet, he felt a little empty when she was gone. It boggled and irritated him.

The literal icing on top was when he had finally gotten hired, the smirking woman telling him that he had a special job, and he couldn’t help but look in surprise at the address. The same door number that he seen her excitedly rush out from while he was on his way to class, was written on the address sheet with instructions. He had already met her friends, who were surprising her on her birthday. To be honest, he was surprised that the woman had friends such as Nemuri and Yu, but he didn’t question it further, as he felt the excitement build up.

Then, he couldn’t help himself when the two of them had finally met. He suppressed a shiver. He had a no touching rule. He didn’t want to touch, and he didn’t want to be touched, but something broke in him. He wanted to be touched by those shy inquisitive fingers, wanted to be stared at so innocently, and yet so dirty, and he couldn’t help himself. She was so sweet, and he didn’t mind letting himself having a taste, for once.

He really did hope to see her again

…………  

[nottragedies]

Faberge never should have let him fuck her.

She only had in the first place because, at the time, she believed that it was the right move to keep herself on top. Esmara had just begun to creep into the picture, and the ridiculousness of someone like her stealing attention was so completely bewildering that Faberge had to jump to drastic conclusions to even make an ounce of sense of it.

So maybe Faberge had made his dick so perpetually hard that the second some D grade floozy let him believe he’d have somewhere to put it he’d go and act like an idiot about it. He was an idiot, so that wasn’t even hard to believe.

So fine, all Faberge would have to do is give it up enough for him to remind him that she was the best there ever was to get it, and get him back to the point where it was all he ever thought about. Everything would go back to normal.

That’s how it was supposed to go.

The only thing more aggravating than the fact that it didn’t work, was the idea that she even let herself feel anything remotely comparable to threatened in the first place. He sure wasn’t even fucking worth any of it.

No one was, for that matter.

“Can I get you a refill?”

Faberge had become so fixated on her thoughts that she’d nearly forgotten where she was, seated at the bar of Uncle Lex’s very own new Nucleus. She turns her gaze to find that now, standing beside her, is a girl, looking back at her with shiny, hopeful eyes.

Faberge doesn’t yet reply, looking down to the drink in front her, also haven’t realized it was now nearly empty. Even if no one was deserving of enough of her attention to get invested in, that didn’t mean she couldn’t occasionally humor someone who rightfully wanted it, and this girl was cute enough, she supposed, so Faberge waved her manicured hand in acceptance.

The other girl grins, and wastes no time calling over the bartender to order two drinks, a replacement of Faberge’s and one for herself, then hops herself into the seat next to Faberge to officially join her. “Hyoeun.” She introduces. “Hyo.”

Faberge’s half listening, at best, focusing more attention on the new drink in her hand, not responding until after she’s set it back upon the bar with a sizable swig missing. “Faberge.”

“Pretty.”

Faberge knows, even knows that it’s meant to be about more than just her name. Usually she would have giggled and played coy, but tonight, maybe because of the drinks or souring her mind thinking about Jaeger, she can’t be bothered. So instead, she leans forward, resting her elbow on the bar so she can in turn rest her face in her hand, reply only with a “Yeah.”

A silence follows, if it could be called that with the music thrumming through the building. Faberge almost expects the other to get bored or dejected and leave, but to her credit she pushes on. “Come here often?” She asks, laughing. Probably at the fact that not only is the cliche itself likely a joke, but also at the fact that the place only just opened, here in Jonestown, anyway.

“Well, I do know the owner.”

“Oh wow, really?”

Faberge hums. “My uncle is his husband. My dad also fucked him once, but no one talks about that.”

Hyo’s eyes widen. “Cool.”

“He just used to manage the old one, but I guess he was like, good enough at it that they trusted him with his very own. Or whatever.” Even as Faberge started to say the words herself she could feel herself getting bored.

“Oh yeah, my friend Naomi used to go to that one. She was excited there’s now one closer to home, so it was her idea to come out. She’s the quintessential underground hacker kid so I can see how it’s totally up her alley.”

Faberge hums again, her only response this time. The more the conversation became less about herself the more boring and pointless she found it, but she was having trouble coming up with a way to turn it back around. This was why usually she didn’t drink very much. Threw her off her game. But there hadn’t been a game to play when she had left that evening, so where was the point in staying sober? And now that she was this far there wasn’t really any going back, so instead of bothering to try, she finishes off her drink.

And then they have another round.

~

Faberge wakes up on a couch in a house she doesn’t recognize, with a migraine and an aching gut. Sunlight pours in through the windows with a brightness that seems excessive. She re-positions herself, intending to get up completely, but instead settles on merely sitting for a few extra moments.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Comes a chipper voice from somewhere near, and soon there’s a pajama clad girl sitting on the other end of the couch. Faberge vaguely remembers her. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” Faberge replies, plainly, despite feeling like death. She only admits weakness when it’s advantageous to her, and letting a stranger think she’s comprised is not an instance where that applies. In fact, the lie almost seems to actually give her more strength.

“Oh good! You really weren’t in a state to drive, last night, so my friends brought you home. You kind of passed out on the way, or else we would have offered you something more comfortable to sleep in.” The girl (Hyo?) smiles, bunny like front teeth on display.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Oh, right!” Hyo hops up, extending her hand to offer assistance to Faberge, but Faberge is perfectly capable of getting up on her own. “Right this way!” Faberge is lead through the house, a quaint little thing, the occasional clutter scattered but mostly seemingly up kept. They pass by the kitchen, where a leggy redhead is working away at the stove.

“Here you go.” The other girl states, motioning to the bathroom. “I can get you that change of clothes now, if you’d like to take a shower?”

Using someone else’s shower and wearing someone else’s clothes doesn’t initially sound appealing to Faberge, until she realizes just how gross she currently feels, not to mention how she likely looks. “Fine.”

Hyo nods, scampering into a room nearby, returning after a few moments with an arm full of clothes, offering them to Faberge, who accepts, then steps into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her without another word.

“Oh, okay.” She can hear Hyo say with an attitude on the other side. Faberge does not care.

The shower does help, despite the fact that she hates to not smell like her own smells, the scorching water, and the end result of just feeling clean helps to alleviate the grossness she had felt just moments ago.

She stands with a fluffy towel wrapped around her as she picks through the clothes Hyo handed to her. She provided her with a selection, everything from pajamas to jeans, multiple tops, even a dress, in varying sizes, though Faberge figures that any of them would probably fit her well enough.

None of them are going to make exactly something Faberge would wear, but not all of them are exactly awful, either. Maybe Hyo had tried her to best to select things she assumed Faberge wouldn’t hate, based on what she had seen of her so far.

How cute.

Faberge picks out a pink miniskirt, a simple white tank top, and keeps her own underwear. After dressing herself in front of the mirror, she helps herself to a brush sitting on the sink, tackling her tangles. Standing in an unfamiliar bathroom, in clothes that aren’t hers, barefaced, is almost a surreal experience. The days following Valentines had been, too. Even when she had been in control, continuing to doll herself up just as she always had, she’d still often found herself in moments where everything seemed to fog over in a haze of ‘who had she become?’

Who had she become to let this happen?

If anything, in this moment, with it’s limited resources, Faberge is more determined than ever to not lose sight of herself to the sheer stupidity of her life. Faberge continues to help herself to these strangers' things, picking through the various make-up scattered around.

She was Faberge Welt, hotter and better than anyone, and nothing and no one was going to take that from her.

~

“Oh, you look pretty!” Hyo greets, popping out from the kitchen, Faberge assumes from hearing the door to the bathroom. Faberge smiles in response, and Hyo beams right back. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Faberge answers, following after Hyo when the other motions for her.

“Good! Would you like some breakfast?”

“That’d be lovely.”

They sit at a table with another girl already planted there, who Hyo introduces as Mihi. Faberge pretends it’s a pleasure to meet her. When plates of pleasant smelling food start to be brought out and set down, Hyo introduces Nina as well.

Hyo continues to go on about some other girl ‘who I talked about last night’ who’s probably not awake yet because of ‘the whole hacker thing’ but Faberge’s not really listening, instead watching Nina for a moment. Now that she’s got a better look at her, she’s vaguely familiar, and Faberge starts to remember that she’d seen her around the throb on occasion, with her boyfriend. When she thinks on it a little harder, she realizes that’s probably not the only place.

“Were you at the Valentine’s day party?”

Hyo stops whatever it was she was saying, blinking and looking between the two of them, settling on Faberge. “You were there too?” then, suddenly, she whips back around to face Nina. “You didn’t tell me that!”

Nina blinks down at Hyo from where she’s standing, but Faberge cuts in before Nina can vocalize anything, if she does recognize Faberge and the events of that night, Faberge’s determined to take control of her narrative before it can be tarnished by what anyone may have seen or heard.

“There was a bit of scene.” Faberge starts, careful not to imply she caused the scene. “I had just found out my boyfriend had been cheating on me. Twice over.” All three of the other girls turn their attention to her at that.

“Oh no.” Says the one named Mihi. “On Valentine’s Day?”

“That’s terrible.” Nina says, full of sincerity.

“Yeah it is.” Hyo is the last to speak, but she’s also seemingly the most riled up. “Oh my god.” She grabs the butter knife next to her pancakes. “Let’s kill him.”

Faberge’s thought about it, many times. “Aw, just him?” Faberge asks, putting on her best mock-pouty voice, even purposely making it sound fake, for the sake of ‘it’s a joke’. “What about all three?”

Faberge basks in the inner satisfaction when she notices Hyo’s eyes glint even brighter. “Oh hell yeah.”

Faberge laughs, and so does Hyo. From the other side of the table, Mihi’s giggling, and it doesn’t even currently bother Faberge that she suspects it’s more from laughing at them than with them. Even Nina’s got a look of fond amusement when she sets the last plate on the table and sits to join them, though she declares “No murder until after breakfast.”

Hyo whines and rolls her eyes, while Faberge can’t help but realize that currently, she’s not completely miserable.

[gurguliare]

garden-ghoul replied to your post “garden-ghoul replied to your post “garden-ghoul replied to your...”

so if I give you a prompt then you WILL owe us? let me dig through my brain for the most incomprehensible bullshit... listen I really want to hear your take on echo. I was just listening to their focus episode and being like "aw echo as an unwilling government official is darling." but also I want to see you try echo/grand

Okay........... I really have no handle whatsoever on Echo but wish me luck

“Wait,” said Ballad. “He’s working for you?”

Echo was so tired that it was hard to notice when they didn’t understand something; it took them almost a minute of frowning at their hands to be sure that the question had come out of nowhere. “No. What? I didn’t say that. I said he went to get coffee. He’s taking a really long time.”

“I heard what you said.”  Ballad had on that expression he got when he thought someone would make a fool of him if he tried to be patient. Clearly, he was trying anyway, which was quite the gesture---for Ballad. It didn’t count too much in Echo’s books. “And I heard what he said. And I heard---” He seemed to remember, all at once, that he wasn’t still trapped on a moon-sized casino, surrounded by dickheads. “Look, I just want to get things straight. If he was spying for you all along, why didn’t you tell me that?”

“He’s not spying for us. He’s Grand Magnificent, he doesn’t know how to file a report---I had to do his reports for him when we were an ex-con and an artistic visionary, back on Quire. He used to bribe me with... Actually, what the hell did he bribe me with? Werewolf lore?” Echo came back to themselves with a start; Ballad was listening, they could tell, but also struggling to keep awake. They had the uncomfortable feeling that Ballad, for once, was right to be suspicious of delay. Between the blood loss, the shame, and Echo’s own fund of strength, they could always wait him out. They didn’t have to answer.

“He’s really not on the Coalition’s payroll. At least, I think. That’s not why I saved him. I told you, I'm done losing things.”

“I believe you,” said Ballad, eyes shut. “But why did he let you save him? And---” a little halting now, before the killing stroke “---how come he keeps rubbing your back?”

“Uh.”

It was too late anyway. Fatigued by triumph, Ballad slept.

*

Grand came back with a cardboard drinks carrier, loaded down with three cups of differently-colored foam, and thank God one black coffee. “I decided to try all the breakfast flavors,” said Grand, sitting next to Echo, and didn’t offer them any of the interesting cups. Echo sipped their coffee---it was lukewarm---then wondered why they were sipping anything, and chugged it. There was no normal waste receptacle in the medbay. They got up and left the room, trusting that Grand would follow. And he did, still mid-stream: “So far, egg’s ahead.”

The hallway felt better. Less fogged with guilt. “‘So far’?”

“Sure. Flavor isn’t a matter for naive impressions. It’s about robustness. Have you read those Coca-Cola studies?”

“What’s Coca-Cola?”

“Eh, ancient fetish object, you probably won’t have heard of it.”

“I just said I hadn’t, didn’t I?”

“See?”

Echo kneaded their forehead. “Can you not touch me in front of Ballad?”

“Oh. Oh, shit, of course. I’m sorry.” To his credit, Grand did look a little panicked, which was as close to ‘contrite’ as he’d ever gotten where Echo could see. That wasn’t fair either. Sometimes he’d been very panicked. “I wasn’t thinking. No one wants to see that with their little sibling.”

“Wh---that’s not it.” Echo’s grip slid back into their hair, and tightened. “Is it? Maybe that’s it. He was never good with PDA. No, goddamnit, that can’t be it. He thinks you’re an agent for the Qui Err.”

“Ah,” said Grand, and licked foam off his mustache. Then he rubbed his lip. He hadn’t done a bad job of peeling off the tar, once it cooled, but his hair still hadn’t dried from the shower, and his skin was pink in weird patches---probably not from the shower. Maybe. Echo didn’t know anything anymore. “I could be? Should I talk to your---is Iota Pretense your boss, maybe? Or your colleague? Every member of the Advent Group is considered eligible for leadership positions, which, let me tell you, is a pain. What is the Coalition’s command structure?”

“You know, sometimes...” The funny part was, Echo could feel their hands relaxing. It was a problem. Everything they’d ever trusted, they still trusted; even to the sound of Grand’s interminable voice. All that talk about confidence, but their body had never lost faith.

Which was how they ended up pinning their brother to the safehouse wall like a specimen. Because they had trusted him, too: to be better.

Grand wasn’t talking. He was listening, it seemed like, but not in the way that Ballad listened, as if by waiting imperiously enough he could summon the answer he needed. He seemed more afraid than expectant, but still the whole weight of his attention was there, strangely, as though Echo were the most important thing he could be thinking or learning about. It wasn’t comfortable. It made Echo feel overfull, as though they might at any point spill out and ruin more. Grand on Quire had spent his time learning from nightmares. So far as they knew, that was still true.

“I don’t hate you. I take it back, we can hold hands in front of him, I don’t care if he freaks. I like the back rubs. But it’s hard---you make it hard. Why didn’t you call it off? At the safehouse. You could have told him to go.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” said Grand. “One, I forgot to set up the intercom system, and by the time the Rapid Evening descended it would have taken too long to instill loyalty. Alexa is very flaky. Two, I... I’m not spying for you, that I know of, but I am spying on Advent. At least, I might be? I have some information. To be honest, what I had in mind was a little more hands-on, but I’m happy to help... however I can. Does that make sense?”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t want your brother to know that I didn’t want him to rescue me, because then he would have known I didn’t want Advent to rescue me. Which, in fact, I didn’t. That is, I did! I wanted to be rescued. I would have been fine letting Advent do it, given a sufficiently brisk turnaround. But then you came.”

“He wouldn’t have gone anyway,” Echo admitted. “I think he thought he needed you. To keep his job.”

“That sounds about right,” said Grand, tentative. “He wasn’t very popular with the higher-ups.”

Echo shuddered. “Why not tell me? ‘Echo, go home. I love working with bird fascists, and, and collectors, because this is a place where I can really cultivate my art---’”

Finally, a hint of frustration crept into Grand’s face. To a stranger he might still have looked like an innocent confounded; he bit his lip, smiled, and the smile hung there even as his expression darkened. “I didn’t,” he began, and then went on, gently: “I thought that might blow my cover too. If I said, ‘Hey, Echo, I’m okay. I’m doing what I love, melting legos and shredding duvets, and since I know you care more about my enrichment than winning this war---’”

“I didn’t go there because it was my job to!” Echo forced themselves to speak softly. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”

“Sure,” agreed Grand, “which is why that might have worked. If the intercom had been on. But also, it also would make you sound like the spy.”

“Whatever.” Echo was thinking about the journey back. Even then, Grand hadn’t been subtle. In the safehouse his fussing could probably have passed for urgency, but once aboard Echo’s ship he had become a meek, attentive shadow, going where Echo pointed him, doing what Echo wanted---laughing at Echo’s teary jokes as if helpless to disagree. “You could have let him in before me. You didn’t even disable any of the traps until he was on the ground.”

Grand was silent now. “I guess I thought it was time I showed you my hand,” he said at last, mildly. “It’s a crap hand. I’ll admit that. I’ve witnessed some poker, and I’m fluent in ‘cards.’ But you deserved to know. And once you arrived, I don’t think a---a lighted exit sign could have pulled Ballad away. You were really convincing! For a while there I was sure you had it.” He had been leaning against the railing, and sank further with an enunciated groan. “You have a point, though,” he said. “I got distracted watching you fight. I forgot that there was something I could do. And, you know, I don’t want to do that anymore, I don’t want to forget---there’s no scenario where there’s nothing I can do.”

That sent a chill down Echo’s back. Maybe because he said it to himself, as an afterthought, despite his captive audience. He was as vain as ever, but had discovered how to aim his arrogance; he brought it out the way you would a gun, to polish and maintain when not in use. And the mustache really was not flattering. Echo plucked away the cup Grand had been nursing. “I’ll drink to that,” they said vaguely, already forgetting the words, and trying to lick egg-flavor out of their mouth as soon as it appeared. Grand replaced the first cup with a second, which turned out to be pomegranate. “---How is pomegranate a breakfast food?”

“It’s an homage,” said Grand, absently, and absently brought their hand to his mouth and kissed the back. Gross.

“Hey, Grandmag.”

“Yeah?”

“Will it blow your cover if you shave?”

“Definitely.”

“What if I shaved you? To humiliate you, while you were held prisoner here?”

“Is this still a hypothetical?”

There had to be something they could do other than kiss him. Or pick him up. There was the temptation to pick him up, but Echo didn’t want to walk anywhere, in case Ballad woke up again. Eventually, they settled for wrapping him in a hug. If his third shirt of the day got all fucked up from them crying on it, that was the least Echo could do.

*

“I’m not 'going to freak,’” said Ballad, the next day. Echo had actually slept a little, which had made them tireder. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“That’s the freaking.”

“It’s not. I don’t care if you’re---getting laid. Look, now who’s embarrassed?” Still you, Echo wanted to protest, but the temptation to hide behind a hank of hair was stronger. “I care about you putting your trust in Grand Magnificent. What's there to trust?”

“You trusted him, didn’t you?”

“I trusted him to protect himself. My mistake was to think that meant protecting Advent. I trust water to find its level, I don’t trust it to take off and fly.”

“We’re in space, though.”

“You know, I used to see him at the Catapult---we were rivals. I led an entire faction, and he was one engineer. But I could feel him... sizing me up, and the way he did it, soon everyone did it. Like: ‘That one. That one isn’t secure.’ Once someone like Grand Magnificent sees the world in a certain way, it’s impossible for others not to join him. It’s an infection.”

“So?” said Echo. “That’s art, I guess. Or it’s being a rich asshole in a crowd of rich assholes. Annoying, I know.” 

Ballad looked at them. Echo started to worry. They’d been too harsh, they'd been fervent and then flippant, and Ballad lay there with a hole in his gut shaped like the sword he’d helped them choose.

But he said, “You do it too.”

“I do what?”

“Art, I guess. Unless you’ve come into some money I don’t know about. You show other people what you’ve seen until they can’t see anything else. You did it to him---that’s the first time I’ve seen that. Grand Magnificent catch someone else’s idea? It’s like watching a rat get the plague.”

“Huh.”

“In a nice way. Well, nicer. Creepy, but that’s his fault, not yours. Where does he get off, echoing my little sib?”

“Fuck off. It won’t last,” said Echo, realizing as they said it that they no longer believed it. They thought, against all reason, that Grand would probably stay. “He’s just impressionable. He has these phases, then he goes and finds a new muse.”

“And you?”

“He’s not my muse.”

“Yeah. But is this a phase? Or do you think you’re about settled?”

There was no replying to that. There was no calm, no hope it didn’t sicken them to feel. Here, in the middle of getting all they’d wanted, the truth was still too awful to admit. Ballad would recover. But the war dragged on.

Ballad pinched their arm.

“You’re the worst patient,” Echo complained. “You’ve got the bedside manner of a---of a crab.”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to have bedside manner.”

“I’m not! I’m the one who stabbed you!”

It was hard to know how to stop feigning indignation with someone you couldn’t punch in the arm. Or anywhere else. Echo did their best, though, covering their head and laugh-sighing; and when they checked from under their fingers, Ballad was smiling too. He looked thoughtful. Their brother was such a planner, although he wasn’t very good at it.

“If he wants to go back,” he said, “he can use my disappearance. He should say it proves what he was always saying, that I was hotheaded, I didn’t have my priorities right. Ask him what he thinks about that.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe he can volunteer to take over the Volunteers. That should bring more people over, anyone who might be tempted to go with Kitcha Kana’s crew at first.”

“Um...”

“It should work. Every member of the Advent Group is considered eligible for leadership positions.”

“Ugh, god, don’t say that. Did you have to go to orientation?”

“Don’t be such a baby. You might be planning orientations yourself, someday soon.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

The smile spread to a grin. “I’m through with Advent. But I wouldn’t trust me with my kids,” said Ballad, coldly. “Legato is due for her rebellious stage in T minus no years. Who do you think is going to be running the school?”

[staliasjeronica]

Unspoken Truths - Jeronica AU Chapter Two

Title: Unspoken Truths

Ship: Jeronica

Warnings: none?

Chapter Two

"Oh, Miss Lodge, it's so wonderful to see you!" Smithers greeted as soon as the three walked into the Pembrooke— he had the biggest grin on his face as he brought Veronica into a huge hug. "Do you want me to fetch your parents for you?"

"No, thank you," Veronica refused, shaking her head. "I actually came to gather my things, since you have to know that I was kicked out by my father. I would like to talk to my mother, though. I need to see if..."

"If she would choose her daughter over her husband?" Smithers finished lowly, a tender smile making its way onto his lips as he noted Veronica's sorrow-filled expression. "Forgive me if I step over my boundaries, Miss Lodge, but I do believe your mother would choose a life with her daughter over her husband."

"Awe, thank you, Smithers," Veronica mirrored him, sucking in her lips as she looked back at the two Serpents behind her. They glanced around the large room, taking in the intricate details that screamed 'the people who live here are rich and classy' which really made Veronica think about how they didn't have much. A trailer for a home, being judged for every little thing they did, scrounging by to live, all while she used to live in lavish, not having to even think about when she was going to eat next, or if she was going to continue having a roof over her head. After thinking about the differences between their lives and how she lived before, all she knew was that she was never going to take her life for granted.

Actually, weirdly enough, she preferred her life now to what it was. The only thing she would change was her father, obviously, and she really wished that Archie wasn't on trial for a murder he didn't commit. He didn't deserve it, and she missed being able to confide in him about her thoughts. He was the only one she trusted enough to see her break down. Without him, who else could she break down in front of without being ridiculed or made fun of? "Well, we should be going now. It was great to see you again, Smithers."

Smithers turned around as Veronica and the boys walked past him; he looked down at the floor, picking at his fingers indecisively before speaking up. "I shouldn't be telling you this... your mother has been very distant ever since you left the Pembrooke. She misses you a lot more than she'll let on."

"Us Lodge women do know how to hide how we truly feel," Veronica joked lightly. "Thank you, Smithers. I'll keep that in mind when I visit her after we get my things."

"Mrs. Lodge is here at the Pembrooke," Smithers informed her. "She leaves for the Mayor's office in an hour, so you best hurry, Miss Lodge."

"I'll make sure to visit her before she leaves, then. Thank you again, Smithers."

Veronica finally made it past the second round of doors, parading through the maze of rooms that she knew by heart, eventually landing by the door of her previous apartment. She sucked in a deep breath, hiding the fact that she was afraid of how her parents would react to seeing her again after all that she had done to sabotage their plans. But, like a true Lodge, she gulped it down and straightened her posture to show the opposite.

Fangs placed a hand on her shoulder, slightly turning her around to face him. "Are you sure you're even ready for this? From what you said about being able to hide your feelings... i'm kind of worried for you. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Fangs, but thank you for caring," Veronica smiled thoughtfully. "Just... don't tell Jughead I said that or I will kill Sweet Pea."

"Me?" Sweet Pea questioned, appalled. "Why me?"

"Because I was shot and hurting me would immediately end her alliance with us," Fangs shrugged unknowingly. "Either way, I am not going back to the hospital. I mean, have you tasted their food? It's so gross, man..."

"Okay, well, at least i'm buying you something that tastes much better than hospital food," Veronica reminded him. "Now, let's focus on the tasks at hand, shall we?"

With one last deep intake of breath, Veronica raised her fist to knock, only to blink rapidly in shock as her father opens the door before she could even tap a knuckle.

"Mija," Hiram forcefully smiled as he eyed the Serpents behind his laughter. "I see you've... acquainted yourself with lowlife Serpents."

"Lowlife? Please, father, no one is more lowly than you going after a group of people who already don't have much," Veronica rolled her eyes, butting through her father's large body and into the Pembrooke,  standing by the side to wait for Sweet Pea and Fangs to follow after her. She gave her father a look, knowing he didn't want Serpents in his house— she wanted to make sure that they were let in, that she had her backup with her. "I expect you to be nice, daddy. I may not live here anymore, but they're here to help me, nothing more. Lay so much as a wrong glance on them and I will reign down hell upon you, you hear me?"

"Oh, don't be like that, sweetheart," Hiram chuckled lightly. "I just wished I was informed about your visit from you, and not your mother. What makes you think that you couldn't consult me?"

"Well, father, you have kicked me out of the Pembrooke, framed Archie for a murder you had orchestrated, and you are putting your unwanted plans for Riverdale in front of your family. I think I have many good reasons to go through mother over you," Veronica replied bitterly. "If you'll excuse us, we'll be in my room packing up my stuff."

"You don't... have to go, mija," Hiram suggested, clasping his hands behind his back. Veronica knew he had a secret agenda, and having his precious daughter back with him would ease his conscious while he went through with his plans. She was persistent that he didn't get anything he wanted. "You could move back into the Pembrooke."

"And support everything you've done, everything you're going to do? I'd rather have no home, no friends, and no money to survive than join you in your quest to hurt the people I care about," Veronica grit her teeth, making her way towards her old room with a temper it was best not to counter. "And yes, that includes these two boys. The Serpents, Jughead, Archie, everyone in this town who has been hurt because of your actions, daddy, and I will never join you because you've hurt everyone so much that I feel ashamed to be associated to the Lodge name."

"All I wanted for this family to make sure that we are remembered—"

"Remembered for ruining a whole town?" Veronica shook her head, exasperated at his excuse— it didn't make sense at all. "Being remembered for doing good is much more rewarding and promising than doing bad. I'm done with this conversation, daddy. I'm leaving and there is nothing you can do to stop me."

"You'll come to regret this decision, Veronica," Hiram cleared his throat, trying to keep his demeanor level-headed and threatening. "I love you, mija, but associating yourself with those lowly gang members is a bad decision."

"Associating yourself with your kind of criminals is much, much worse, daddy," Veronica mumbled under her breath, growing more irritated and angry as she thought about her father and all that he was doing. She closed her door and locked it, just in case, before glancing at the two boys who stood in her room, unsure of what to do. "Let's just hurry up and get this done so that I can speak to my mother. I don't know how much time my father and I wasted, but I assure you, she is much more important than my belongings."

[frickyouralmonds]

Moving Along

Summary: Angst; 

Luke misses Calum, so of course he finds a way to bring his Maori boy back

// Been thinking about you lots, lately 

Have you been eating breakfast alone like me? //

Luke finds himself wandering down towards the hotel breakfast downstairs. He grabs his food hastily, not ready to face the day at all. He sets his stuff down on the table, wondering if he really needs to put on a brave face today and continue on with the day. He would much rather just walk back upstairs and crawl back into his cozy bed. 

He realizes that the rest of the boys would be let down if he didn’t pull through. Even though the Maori boy causes pain, he realizes he must do what is best for both of them. Luke is pulled away from his thoughts when he notices all the couples around him at breakfast. He hadn’t eaten breakfast alone in what seemed like years. It was a foreign feeling, sitting in silence while the world just passes you by. He hadn’t expected it to feel like this. He thought he was doing just fine on his own but apparently the world had other ideas. 

Luke stands up, collecting his trash and throwing it in the bin. He’s seen enough of these couples for today. It makes him physically sick to see other people happy like that when he can’t have the only person he has ever wanted. He used to feel like that when he was with his boy. He misses that. He hates eating breakfast alone. 

He decides against his better judgement and makes his way back to his room, accepting that a nap is what he needs right now. 

//Been thinking about you lots, lately

Have you been feeling empty beds just like me? //

Luke wakes up, reaching to his right for the warm body that used to reside there. Luke feels sweaty and gross, like most would after an awful dream. He needed his boy to calm him down and make him feel better. The sadness that follows this realization is like no other.

He can’t help but wonder if Calum feels the same. They haven’t spoken in a week or so, ever since their small break began. That’s the night that Luke made the worst mistake of his life. He had no one to blame but himself for the empty bed beside him. He misses him with every fiber of his being.

He can’t handle it anymore, he has to do something about it.

// Is it wrong if I ask you to come over?

Is it wrong if I tell ya that I love ya?

Even though I'd never do it when I'm sober

Is it wrong? So wrong //

Luke grabs his phone, nearly dialing that so familiar number. He realizes that he needs some liquid courage before he can do this. He reaches into the mini fridge, finding a few mini bottles of liquor. Even if it couldn’t fix anything in their relationship, at least he could feel good about his fucked up decisions for a while. Luke drank 2 of the 5 bottle he found, hoping it was enough to give him what he needed. 

Luke reached for his phone again, mentally preparing himself to dial the number. He dials, putting the phone up to his ear. It rings a few times before the beautiful voice on the other end of the line can be heard. 

“What do you need?”, Calum asked confusedly. 

“Can you come over to my room?, Luke asks anxiously. The liquor was nice but it wasn’t quite enough to do the trick. 

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a few”, Calum mumbles. The line goes dead. 

Luke knows he’s gonna need more alcohol if he’s gonna handle being in the same room as the Maori boy. He reaches back into the mini fridge, downing anther 2 small bottles. He feels a lot better after the last bottle. He knows he can face Calum. 

Calum finds himself wandering down the hall to Luke’s room. He can’t believe he actually said yes. He knocks lightly on Luke’s door. Luke swings it open, pulling Calum in by his hips. 

“I know you’re made at me but I’m sad and I need a friend.”, Luke grins into Calum’s neck. 

Calum can smell it on him, he’s too far gone to even be able to understand what he’s doing. He honestly pities Luke, He can feel Luke gripping tighter onto his smaller frame. He faintly hears Luke mumble something into his shoulder but he can’t tell what he said. Calum pulls Luke’s head back by his hair, something he knows turns Luke on. This is when Calum is shocked by the words that fall from Luke’s lips. 

“I love you”, is all he says, sheepishly shoving his head back into Calum’s neck. Calum can feel his deep breathing against his throat followed by a mumbled, “Cuddle?”

Even though he should be angry, Calum can’t help but want the physical contact he hasn’t gotten in the last week. He wraps his arms tightly around Luke’s middle. He pulls Luke back towards the bed, allowing him to be the big spoon. Calum just lets it happen, not having the strength to stop it from happening. 

 // I know I’m the stupid one who ended it And now I'm the stupid one regretting it It took me a couple drinks to admit it I know I’m the stupid one //

“I know it’s my fault that you hate me now. That wasn’t my intention, I just wanted everyone to be happy. I regret that night, I want nothing more than to hold you in my arms again” Luke slurs, the alcohol definitely doing its job now. Calum can’t help but feel a tug in his heart by those words, 

Although he would never admit it, Calum misses Luke. Luke had been his best friend and boyfriend for the past 3 years. How was he supposed to move on so fast? He knows Luke would never feel this way sober. But Calum still holds onto this hope that maybe Luke means what he says while wasted. Luke had been his first for everything, he was too attached to just let this chance go. Calum runs his hands through Luke’s hair, pulling him in closer.

“I know baby, I know. Just go to sleep, we’ll talk about this in the morning.” Calum whispered. 

Next morning ______________________________________________________________________

Luke wakes up the feeling of a warm body next to him. He had missed Calum’s presence. Nothing had been the same since that day, up until now. He couldn’t quite recall what he said last night but whatever it was, got his boy back. He would have to thank whatever saint put alcohol in the hotels mini fridge.

Luke reaches over, brushing his fingers through Calum’s unruly curls. He can feel Calum move closer, probably for the presence of another being. 

“Cali, I wanna talk about us.” Luke frowned, looking down at the boy who was clearly fake sleeping. 

Calum was enjoying this time too much to let Luke run this. It was the only contact he had in the last week. “Can’t we just talk later? I don’t wanna leave yet.”, Calum frowned. 

“Why would I make you leave?”, Luke questioned. 

Calum frowned, “Last night you told me you loved me. You apologized to me. You and I both know you weren’t sober. We both also know that sober Luke and drunk Luke are two very different people.” 

Luke pouted, “I meant what I said, I just couldn’t say it without a little help>”

“So you really want this? You need to know this is what you want cause if it’s not, I’m gone.” 

Luke knew this is what he wanted. He had spent his week in hell wishing that he could have his boy back, there is no way he’s gonna let him go now. 

“I do love you. I do want you. I was stupid for what I did. You deserve someone so much better than me.” Luke pulled Calum into his chest, smelling the vanilla scented shampoo in Calum’s hair. 

Luke may have made a major mistake, but he was happy to have a boy that would never give up on him. 

[negativefate]

rambling stream of consciousness essay i wrote to myself dec 29, 2014

listening to harsh noise music while driving down the highway i had just taken off at 630 from my house and before that woken up at 5 to get ready and finish cleaning the last set of things and before that leaving a party at kevins house and not telling anyone that i wasn't going to be there for new years and causing disappointment and before that seeing a show at dead leaf with a great 8bit band at the end and before that walking back and forth to the liquor store to get some beer and before that awkwardly getting dinner after my cousin came to visit when we probably should have gotten dinner with them and then before that i am cleaning up the basement again, organizing stupid cables, making a couple old devices work which is fun, but is it worth the time spent even? if not, then is my time on this planet even fucking worth it or am i just making trash like i believe these actual physical well designed objects that come to my home are so jump to me landing in kansas city and here i put on a tape just to get in the mood again i get there only an hour after landing i clumsily look up directions to get to jacks house on my phone i find there’s a bus that gets me there for fuckin a dollar fifty and i give them 2 and they give me a ticket for 50 cents back i ride the bus and i'm pretty tired for lack of sleep, and we drive through some weird semi industrial areas that are sparsely developed yet there are people getting on and off the bus fairly consistently i almost don't even notice who is getting on and off and at one point i look back to the back of the bus and see that i don't remember hardly any of the people getting on one person is looking back at me with a mousey face i typify some of these midwest people's looks certain women especially have a certain look that just reminds me of various nondescript porn actresses or something i start reading a economics book and it talks about oil prices and how scarcity reflects prices and is a major signal to the economy it is an interesting point of view but i look for holes in the logic because it seems obviously presenting a plain vewpoint it is clear that the US for example doesn't give a fuck about scarcity or perhaps the signalling system is so degraded that there is a runaway development the roads are overbuilt the cars are overrunning the roads if i take the face value economic view that this is a supply and demand problem i see it as a very perverse value system that rewards wasting they clearly even mention that soviet economies have gross inefficiencies and if we reflect on our own inefficiency it's clear to see that we are not perfect i feel that the author should have made this more clear i notice that i passed a street that i saw on my map (wyanadote) and while i didn't think it was "already" time to get off, several people are standing for several city blocks instead of sitting waiting to get off therefore I realize perhaps we're at a central location and certainly we are I stumble a couple blocks from the "main transit center" to another crossing on wyanodote, and i pass several office buildings with retail space that is broken down on the first floors first an eye doctor shop, filled with eye product ads but being torn to pieces otherwise then a sandwich shop, with dark cloudy windows and closed signs and a vibe of a previous generations comfort food when i reach the bustop at the streets that i had spotted on my map i was pleased and the troost bus came almost instantly i didn't understand how to scan my transfer so the lady did it for me, and i was acting bashful she was wondering if i knew it was the troost bus and i said yes i was wondering if that question was loaded i rode the bus in the front and looked at all the people that got on and off as we went towards jacks house we passed a row of two story townhouses that were red and white and repetitive that just looked like a dead end life situation for successful people i remembered my talk with my dad about retirement plans and investing money and about how i was literally thinking of blowing my brains out rather than do that and how i was yet again thinking about suicide in the bus i didn't even take it seriously but the vividness of me blowing my fucking head off was really awful i finally started recognizing some troost landmarks and scrambled off the bus i gave my ticket to a guy that wanted a transfer and he lamented being late for the bus that i just got off i don't know how to respond to this very well but wished him luck i walked up to jacks house and there are birds and squirrels and life just running wild there it is bright and sunny though a bit chilly (maybe 40 deg) and all these animals just were simply flourishing i walk inside through a couple closed doors and find my keys in the decorative chicken ornament i was surprised to also find several condoms inside the chicken, which was really amusing (e.g. the rooster...cock...haha) then i sat for a minute and petted the cat i wondered why the cat wasn't outside killing all the abundant wildlife whatever i was wearing three jackets because i was convinced that frontier would charge me for stuffing my jacket in my backpack and making it oversized in reality they didn't appear to care but they charge 50 dollars for a goddamn carry on that wasn't declared so i didn't risk it so i take off several layers and start my car i find where i left several of the christmas presents that I had meant to bring back home in the trunk and sort of kick myself for it i consider taking my car to a dealership to get it fixed up but have no idea where i also consider getting some food somewhere but decide to just hit the road i'm fairly tired still so i decide the stop off at fast food a couple miles out of town during the ride i am listening to some shitty talk radio about some guys that are talking about their "online trading academy" for stock trading i pull over and get some mountain dew, burrito and gasoline. slurping reality blub sucker is all i am at that moment. i do a couple stretches but it doesn't really feel very good. i am still listening to the radio in the parking lot and i notice that they replay recorded segments of themselves suggesting it is not at all a live show. at that point i decide it's time to blast the "white eye of winter" cassette and just start driving. i decide intentionally to start making stream of consciousness analogies to the noises instead of just letting it wash over me in some nonverbal stupidity i realize music journalists are probably better than me at this but i take some interest in just naming the feelings that i get so I'll repeat that hear a full spectrum white wash starts and then quickly gets crushed into a rumbling full force debase attack that's totally intentional about getting a skull crushing sound "large numbers of priests that were administrating the gulags were arrested and presumed killed" "others were sent to the labor camps...and suffered more slowly...assumed to be part of stalins fringe" a demented drum sound with a short delay time and extremely high feedback pounds and is absorbed by a sea-worthy hiss that fuzzes out and pounds once again to a deep drum a wind swept saturation takes hold and kills everything around it dead leaves litter the ground like there was never life anyways a thin veneer on the surface of our planet oscillations that never even really meant anything the dark fades away...like a comet that is completely grey....without color next a dirty fucking liquid sounds like it's being squeezed through a rubber feeding tube and a vaguely operatic chorus sings in the background, lulliby for a screaming nightmare some full bodied drone hovers over the chorus and takes the 17th century in it's arms and lays it gently to rest, taking each of the sharp moments, the sick deaths, the negative atrocity culture, and bringing it up onto a safer place, one where the only thing that matters is th industrialization of our times the industrialization has replaced any notion that feelings matter, any notion that a fair working environment is something that people deserve we could give retards something to do but it's already done and if you go up the ladder you see more and more things have been automated away you don't think about the roads being built do you? you don't think about the farms that cover 80+ percent of arable land do you? even when you're flying from new york to LA you don't hardly notice that humans have claimed this land for themselves scintillation frequency evokes this convulsive thought control that rises into a nasty chemical haze that demands more resources it's silenced into yet another flailing drippy sound fade out

a electric whip takes the stand fucking whining about the deprivation of resources and stuggles to make some connection fiercely spitting out brief moments of feedback between any number of frequencies that it can communicate on with an aether with non-existant endpoint it takes on more and more endpoint arcing back on itself and driving the frequencies into logical conundrums that antirepel itself and howl into additional painful derivative maneuvers it makes no difference to the machine what the effects of it's energy is being expended on, but only that some noise is being made taken astray leading reclamation of a formerly _done wrong_ system that is now instantaneously trashed and thrown under to make way for something more unplanned more unrelenting in it's consumption of power and antisocial connectivity whining and crying you see tear droplets form in the wave spectrogram taking a full 90 seconds to develop from a mixture of waveforms into a coherent pattern at your notification level notification level that is aloof from what you are supposed to be paying attention to but is instead wired into the inverse avoidance pattern the end the beginning once more gain blasting the appearance of nothing into a oscillation that has wavelengths spanning over years in time \ the bright lightning shatters a dark blank sentimental moment between us vaccum heavy rain sucks the white light from the heavens turning your back onto the keloid frostbite fallow bulbous pulsing face  trancerotten yellow drainage trapnell decade trip fucker stumble block meaningless powernazi storm chaser populace chain reveals a mathematical rule. a pseudoconsistent logic to resolve fndamental curry's paradox from thin air what you thought was a clumsy blind behemoth is now an industrialized system that seemingly stands on it's own regardless of what yo even thought your very presence is nothing more than that like a dinosaur a placement that just gives you a central prominence as i start the other side the lull the powerful lull of harmonics drilled deep into the subcortex drilled deep into the somnambulist deity that rocks the beddy-bye to sleep that keeps the sharp reality away for at least some time for that reality of simple nature, the spikes of inedible plant matter, the vast nothingness that humans have somehow decided is rightfully theirs. homesteaded one small plot at a time until the federal government stepped in and purchased the large swaths of land a musical pattern that resembles a shaman opening and closing it's arms above it's head and taken drumming starts thathits something that's the vbrational equivalent of a untuned drum mode across an entire flood basin drumming starts that calls into question or owner ship of that land and the melodic butterfly that was once a welcome sight is now almost  gone a tick tock dog growl gargling on some infected bacteria sinus cavity occupies the entire space you can hardly remember what things that you thought reckless distasteful nonsense squanders what was left of your vague fact driven storyline a sigh of relief ahlzagailzeguh stomps something fierce onto the mixing floor and drives metallic shards of broken dreams into the woodwork you don't think about who built your house did you/ why do you think you are worth anything to the other people around you when i say you am i actually referring to myself? i'm just desperately trying to offload my stupidity onto someone else? what is vulnerable to critique? i sit almost braindead when i face some of the most important situations yet when something is inconsequential i can leap into action and hurl retarded insults atpeople who don't deserve it like this girl that played prince at a party for like 4 hours i walked up to her and nearly choked her lights out and when she closed the computer i said no! play something else! i proceed to chose a random song that i thought was good off of youtube and then i proceed to just stand there and drunkenly creep on some peoples conversation wishing i could have just chosen a song that was better it's not my fault right? no, it is... there's a huge societal expectation that can't handle you being this way there's a roaring electric god that isn't going to cradle you in your arms while your social environment sees you as if you were a crying baby on an airplane take just a couple things at a time put them "in their right place" maybe then you won't have a crushing retardation lingering over everything you touch repeat this ad nauseum don't think for a minute that you can "escape" this reality you're "personal experiences" (your vacation, your hanging out with friends) is so far deviated from your systematically disassociated life happenstance that your better off to just give the middle finger to everyone and everything until it's over until it's over and you drop a sharp process into the ground and levitate transgressional power you can physically and mentally fail during this tremble weirdly under the occipital signal tension  drab naked torbid flippant crater wield two basic components and when suddenly connected create a huge imbalance that sends flux reeling superintensely into the weak painless skinless meat proper happenstance flayed skinless animal carcass rotting spongiform encephalitis eschera coli sacchromyces schizophrenia pombe river blindness parasite trapped nderneat the helencaste psycholayer obligate individual disease question i never know what to say

[artificialqueens]

Courtney’s Infinite Search for Love Ch. 11 (Witney) - Grinder

A.N: I hope you guys enjoy this update! Don’t forget to leave a like, reblog or comment. It does go a long way. Enjoy!

I went home and cried in the dark living room for what seemed like hours, taking intervals to listen to sad music and cuddle the puppy. And I don’t mean pretty crying. I was full on sobbing, making gross choking sounds as loud as I could. I had hoped that Alaska would’ve heard me and came running to my side, providing me comfort in my time of guilt-riddled misery. But I guess she was out as she hadn’t come to me at all. This only made me feel even worse realising how alone I was.

The puppy seemed awkward around me. Usually in movies when the titular character is crying, their dog comes running to their side trying to cheer their loving owner up. But in my movie ‘Courtney’s Infinite Search for Love’ (or ��Courtney’s bad life choices’ or 'The Selfish Act of Courtney’), it doesn’t include the scene in which the dog helps. I suppose it’s because he doesn’t know me. Or maybe he felt Alyssa’s pain.

I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling with blurred vision, whimpering and holding the poor puppy tightly to my form. My head is pounding and my eyes sting in their now red form. I rub at them wearily, feeling more drained than I have ever been. I know I said that before. But this is rock bottom. I’ve fucked up. I’ve messed with an innocent persons head. Someone who deserves far better.

A vibrating in my pocket grabs my attention. I loosen my hold on the puppy and pull my phone from my pocket. It’s Adore.

'Hey, man! How did it go with Alyssa? x’

As I read the last word of the text I let another gross sob sound arise from my throat and out through my mouth. It’s so loud it startles the poor dog. I briefly pet him to let him calm before clicking on Adore’s number and holding the phone to my ear. After a brief set of dial up tones, I hear rustling followed by her voice.

“Howdy. I guess you saw the text!” Adore exclaims cheerfully, too cheerful.

“Ummm…Adore. I really want you to come over.” I whimper.

“Holy shit. You sound like shit. What happened? What’s wrong?” Adore questions in a concerned manner.

“I just…I just…don’t want to be alone right now.” I sob.

“'Kay. I’ll come as fast as I can.” Adore states. “I’m leaving now. While you wait, get yourself some chocolate or something to cuddle or listen to sad music. I’ll be there soon.”

-_-_-_-

As soon as Adore had walked in I flung my arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder. As if everything’s already been said. I try to speak, but can’t find words. She rubs up and down my back, speaking to me softly.

“Hey, it’s OK, girl. You’re OK.” She soothes pulling away and holding my hands. She guides me to my sofa, gently pushing on my shoulders to sit. She quickly gives the puppy a weird look before picking him up and placing him on my lap. “Gimme a second and I’ll be back.”

Adore makes her way to the kitchen area leaving me oblivious to what she is doing with my back to her. I hear the tap going. Then silence. Then the kettle flicking on. Something tearing (maybe a tissue). And she’s back in front of me.

“Here.” She kneels in front of me, dabbing at my face with what was indeed a tissue.

“Thank you, Adore.” I say with a cracked throat.

She gives me a smile as she sits next to me on the sofa now.

“So, I’m assuming it didn’t turn out how you expected?” Adore asks, petting the puppy.

“No. It didn’t. She seems really torn up.” I reply, trying my hardest not to sob again. “Hearing her cry was awful. I just feel awful. I made someone cry today. I’ve never made someone cry.”

“Actually, remember that time we were drunk and you told me how I was your best friend and I got all emotional?” Adore smiled slightly. “Sorry. Time and place. But yeah, I understand. Making someone cry always feels like shit.”

“I just…feel like my whole life I’ve been wasting time, trying to find true love. And it’s made me into this awful person. I should just…give up…and just go back to hooking with people I meet at bars.” I say, sighing heavily.

“OK, that won’t help anything.” Adore said shaking her head.

“Oh, what’s the point? Everything was fine before Willam and I started our thing. I had no worries, no guilts and no troubles.”

“Girl, listen to me. Life isn’t easy. Do you think if it were it would be as fun? Life is like that one question you get in a test that you can’t figure out. You just feel like you can’t solve it. But you don’t leave it blank. You think about it. You think about what you can do in order to get the answer. You try and figure out different ways to solve it in order to achieve a better outcome. What I’m basically saying is life is all about solving problems. You can’t just leave them and give up. Courtney, do you remember what I told you months ago?” Adore gently takes my hand in hers.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “What did you tell me?”

“There are plenty of fish in sea. As cheesy and cliché as that sounds it’s true. Not everyone is a heartbreaker like Willam. There are good people out there who want to feel love as much as you do. You just gotta go find them. Or let them find you.”

I nod taking in her words. “I know. But I hate waiting for it to happen.”

“Well tough luck, girl.” Adore shrugs her shoulders. “It could take a day – a week – month – year – decade- -”

“That sounds promising.” I reply sarcastically.

“I know, right?” Adore drawls, her eyes widening as she stresses how irritating her last statement was. “But when it does happen, trust me. It’ll feel so good and you’ll regret ever planning to give up on love. And you’ll forget about what happened with Willam and Alyssa.”

“Really?” I say hopefully.

“Yeah. And I know you, Courtney. You’re not a quitter, never have been a quitter and never will be a quitter.” She says, stroking her thumb over my hand.

“Thanks.” I lean into her embrace as she opens her arms, gesturing for a hug.Her fingers trail up and down my arm in a comforting manner allowing me to relax.

“So, I hate to change the subject but I never knew you had a dog.” Adore states.

I pull away, wiping at my eyes once more. “Believe it or not, Alyssa gave him to me. Right before I told her the truth.”

“Oh…well. That’s kinda awkward.” She replies, one corner of her mouth drawing to the side. “What did you call him?”

“I haven’t. All I’ve done since leaving Alyssa’s place is cry and feel sorry for myself.” I reply, shaking my head.

“Not even a cute little baby like him could cheer you up?” Adore smiled down to the puppy, talking as if she was a child. “Actually that makes me feel 10 times better about myself.”

“To be honest I don’t think he likes me. He just keeps getting awkward when I hug him and sometimes he wriggles like he wants to escape.” I shrug.

“Maybe 'cause you’re crying all over him and it’s gross.” Adore smirks.

I stifle a laugh, drying my eyes with my sleeve. “Well, do you want him?”

“I wish I could, but I can’t. The place I’m living at doesn’t allow pets. It kinda sucks. I always wanted either a dog or a cat.”

“Well…I guess I’m going to have to deal with a dog that thinks I’m weird.” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

“He’ll come around. Don’t forget, this is a new experience for him. He’s obviously gonne be sad and afraid of the new situation. But he’ll learn to adapt to all of this. And he’ll be happier in the end.” Adore says, looking away from the puppy to give me a meaningful smile.

“Is that a metaphor for my current situation?”

“It wasn’t intended to be but I guess it is now. Wow, I should do poetry or some shit.” Adore laughs.

Upon learning Alaska wasn’t coming home, Adore agreed to stay over. The rest of our night was spent drinking tea, thinking of a name for the dog (to which we agreed on Bailey) and watching guilty pleasure reality shows. As entertaining as the night was, I thought about what Adore had told me. Not to give up. But not to actively seek a love life; because it will be worth it.

-_-_-_-

The next morning, I had awoken on the sofa, guessing we had fallen asleep during one of the TV shows. Adore was already awake and had made breakfast. She even had the time to briefly run out to get food for Bailey. It’s not even her dog and she’s got her shit more together than I do.

While she waited for me to wake up, she played with the puppy who seemed more open and excited.

After eating, we went shopping for more dog food and supplies before paying a brief visit to the bar Adore performs in for a meeting. After he had called her, Adore insisted Dick wouldn’t mind me being there.

“6.00 every week is kind of a no-no for me, man. I got my shift at the station.” Adore replies, playing with her nails while I just listen.

“Well, it’s either 5 evenings, everyday next week at 6PM, for two hour gigs each or a 3 hour gig on the Friday night.” Dick wagers while petting Bailey who pants as he sits in his lap. God, this dogs charm is infectious.

“Eww, no! From what I’ve seen only teenagers go out on Friday nights. Well the ones who look old enough to go places. And drunk teenagers are messy.” Adore groans, leaning back in her chair and playing with her long black hair. “They throw up everywhere and get into fights. I’ve even watched teenage boys try and climb up on stage with singers, man. It’s too whack for me.”

“I know but…I don’t know how much you know about Indie week but no one comes here. They go down town to Filthies instead 'cause that’s where the talents at. If I have entertainment this year then more people will come. I already have 2 other guys, but not as good as you. You are one of the best performers I’ve met. You’re the perfect match, Adore.” Dick pleads.

“But the teenagers…” Adore groans.

“Please, Adore. It’ll make my life a bit easier. It’s not just entertainment I gotta get. I need to find other staff too. And that’s hard! Wade quit a few days ago to go to college.” Dick says defensively, pointing to the door as if to make a point.

“No way! Wade the bouncer?? He was my homey!” Adore says jabbing a finger into the table. “The betrayal!”

Dick’s eyebrows knit together. “No that’s Jerry. Wade’s the bartender.”

Adore’s mouths an 'oh’ while sighing with relief.

“Well you’d be surprised by how many people who have experience with bartending, Mr. Dick.” I add, stifling a laugh at his name. God, am I 12? “Sorry.”

“It’s OK. Also, it’s just Dick.” He also laughs. “Well, know anyone who’d be interested?”

“Maybe you should join us, Court’.” Adore suggests leaning an elbow on the wooden table and looking directly at me. “You bartended briefly in college, right?”

I don’t even have a chance to answer before Dick’s hand falls on mine. “Yes. I need staff. Please.”

“I don’t know if I can. I also work at the station.” I reply with an apologetic smile.

“Yeah, but you only work there for like 10 minutes a day or something like that.” Adore smirks.

“Courtney, please. You’ll be paid well. And it’s only for a week.” Dick asks again.

“Yeah, Court’.” Adore agrees, her hand falling on my free one. My eyes bolt to her now as she looks at me with puppy dog eyes. “We’ll get to spend more time together and who doesn’t want that?”

I sigh out, thinking of my decision, while Adore just strokes her thumb over the back of my hand.

Maybe I should. It would definitely keep me busier than I usually am at the station considering I only work there for up to 2 hours a day. I wouldn’t have to sit around thinking about Alyssa or Willam. No room for feeling sorry for myself when I have to focus. And besides, it was only for a week. And I would be doing it with a close friend.

“OK, I’ll do it.” I say beaming a smile to Adore and then to Dick.

“Fuck yes!” Adore exclaims, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close to her. “We are gonna have the best week, bitch.”

Dick just laughs as I look to him for help while Adore smothers me. But hey, who knew being squeezed to death could feel so nice.

Holy shit, that didn’t sound right.

[punkscowardschampions]

Ali & Carly

Ali: Ich glaub ich spinne Carly: wtf Carly: do you want a drink babe? Ali: ze german, baby Ali: i'll say no but get why you're saying yes so early Carly: k more for me Carly: nobodys in a sharing mood today Ali: yeah? Carly: yea Carly: no fun Ali: Leben ist kein Ponyhof Carly: give drew a slap for me k Ali: it would be my pleasure Ali: can i ask how he's pissed on your parade from over here tho Carly: the boy played me Carly: he wanted me to beg for what id just given him the prick Carly: shouldnt have drunk this much this soon my bad Ali: he's a fuckboy Ali: you knew that Ali: my sister on the other hand remains frustratingly oblivious Carly: dont be mad at me Carly: ive been trying to get him to dump her this whole coach ride Ali: I'm not mad at you, babe Ali: no room with how much ugh I have for him Ali: well, hopefully she will him Carly: he thinks shes gonna fuck him in berlin Ali: prick Ali: won't when she finds out Carly: you cant say anything cuz i wasnt meant to Ali: Let himself fuck it up then Ali: he's not being subtle Carly: he cant do subtle Carly: me and him have that in common like Ali: Carly Ali: do you like him? Carly: why Ali: because I think you do Carly: it doesn't matter what you think Carly: he thinks she's girlfriend material & im a slag Carly: hes not wrong either Ali: If you like him, then you should say Ali: regardless, shouldn't let him be a cunt to you, and Ro in the process Ali: who the fuck is he Carly: ha Carly: i dont like anyone baby Carly: I'm just bored Carly: berlins a whole new party Ali: well, good Ali: one less worry Ali: I wish you the perfect holiday fling Carly: aw Carly: youre still the sweetest Carly: sure you dont want a drink while theres some left? Ali: need it now so fuck it Ali: chuck it over Carly: come over Carly: you kno youre the sporty one Carly: i cant be throwing things round the coach Ali: alright, you calling baby spice, I assume? Carly: or scary Carly: depends whos asking Carly: cant be posh tho Ali: yeah you can Ali: she weren't even and you can rock that pout just as well Carly: aw Carly: you should be baby tho youre the cutest Ali: little school all over again, we can't all be baby, lads! 😂 Ali: i'll be ginger, if you wore that iconic dress on your site, you'd get lynched Carly: yea Carly: & if anyone would cause drama by going solo its you Carly: Marlene been knew Ali: Ouch 💔 Ali: but fair Ali: Already thinking about her due to namesake birthplace but you really went there Ali: please tell me I haven't tanked as hard, not got Drew's fragile ego like but 😥 Carly: you kno im just mad youre not thinking about me Carly: dont listen to a word i say Carly: goldies got a fragile heart now too, so sad you broke up w me & stole his bf on top Carly: someone think of the golden god Ali: baby Ali: yeah, that's TOTALLY what the weird vibe is all about Ali: moody twat, soz a threesome is outta the question now Carly: he likes you too Carly: thats a thing Carly: playing like im the one hung up but he is Ali: Nah Ali: that boy don't know what he wants Ali: not down for him using my bestie and sister to find out though, fuck off and soul search like the rest Carly: he wants you Carly: but you got your boy & he shouldnt be trying to mess w Carly: meant to be his boy too Ali: so he reckons but give him 5 minutes before he weren't arsed Ali: don't trust him as far as I can throw him so ain't taking his word on that either like Ali: exactly Ali: 🐍 Carly: id leave him alone if he was happy being w her but i kno he isnt Carly: not letting him lie to me Ali: it doesn't have to be your problem Ali: or your job to make him happy Ali: knew it though Carly: ha Carly: it isn't my problem Carly: & i cant keep a job you kno Carly: couldnt do that one if i was paid like Ali: no one can babe Ali: not to be that hippie cliche about it Ali: but forreal, gotta do that shit himself Carly: its Carly: how he makes me feel sometimes Carly: not happy im not living that lie but Carly: its not nothing & sometimes its good you kno Ali: yeah Ali: i know Ali: but you can have more, if you want Ali: that is possible Ali: you don't have to settle for sometimes good Carly: youre sweet but youre a dreamer babe Carly: ive got nothing going on not in my head & not around me Carly: theres no more than settling down on the site or settling for being off whenever i can Ali: s'not true Carly: yea it is Carly: you dont want it to be but that dont mean its not Carly: me and that boy have more in common than not being subtle like Ali: it ain't Ali: doesn't have to be Ali: nothing is set in stone unless you pour the fucking cement yourself, like Carly: it doesnt have to be doing it but it can still get poured Carly: forget it tho Carly: im drinking on empty & feeling sorry for myself Carly: no fun in that Ali: ain't that fast drying Ali: dust yourself off and run Carly: where to babe Carly: nowhere to go but the coach bathroom Carly: been there done that Ali: well hang on a bit and we'll be in a whole new country, babe Ali: promise is a promise and we can start in Berlin Carly: but 3s a crowd when its not a party Carly: im not trying to mess you & your boy up Carly: cant tell drew off if i do Ali: nah Ali: it ain't like that Ali: not got the blinkers on and knowing each other's passwords and schedules Ali: got trust Carly: yea? Carly: got food too or Carly: cuz im gonna vom if you say no Ali: Yes Ali: Lemme food parcel Carly: if you havent lost the knack Carly: been awhile Ali: 😔 Ali: i'm soz Carly: dont be Carly: you kno i love you Carly: no drama Ali: i love you too Ali: and you would tell me if you needed something wouldn't you Ali: 'cos that ain't changed, i'm still here Ali: unlucky bitch Carly: unlucky for you Carly: shouldnt be on site unless theres something in it for you babe Carly: all i need is to remember breakfast before i get on a sess Carly: & to dilute my spirits sometimes too Ali: there is, you nutter Ali: there you go, who said school trips weren't educational? only on the bus and you're whacking out the wisdom already Carly: not as thick as i look Carly: ms woodfield was thinking it too i reckon Carly: she might kno but im still gonna blame the shit driver if i vom Carly: try and stop me bitch Ali: you look nothing but amazing hush Ali: she's down with the kids, she'll hold your hair back Carly: you hush Carly: trying to make me emotional in front of the front of the coach Ali: it's alright, join Millie Rooney and say you're homesick 😉 Carly: idk whats sadder everyone thinking im crying over an empty caravan or that prick thinking its about him Ali: 😬 i know what i reckon Ali: better dry those tears, babygirl Carly: get his phone for me tho yea Carly: i am mad he gets me & i get nothing back Carly: use the magic Ali: use my mad hacking skillz gotcha Ali: but should I use them for good and accidentally forward some incriminating shit to Ro? 🤔 Ali: this is why we're not meant to play God Carly: do what you must Carly: i trust you Ali: don't worry, sure you're not the only girl he's been chatting too Ali: no offense meant obvs but you know Ali: don't have to drop you in it, as if its your fault but idk, Ro isn't always willing to be entirely rational when it comes to him Carly: idc she never liked me much anyways Carly: better that than dropping some naive random in it Carly: everyones seen me naked if it blows up Carly: old news Carly: & the vid was good too i look hot Ali: hmm, good point on the random Ali: and I don't doubt that you did Ali: I'll have to think on this a bit harder Carly: k Carly: if everyone gets in my inbox ill kno Ali: god Ali: people are gross Carly: can be fun sometimes Carly: cant all be angels like you babe Ali: 🖕 Ali: you know i ain't Carly: i kno you are Carly: too sweet Ali: pot kettle baby Ali: but your secret's safe with me 😘 Carly: ha Carly: its no secret im only sweet to you so youre the only one who needs to kno Ali: 'cos people suck Ali: that's no secret Ali: not gonna waste your time, are you, like Carly: not as good at picking out the deserving ones as you Carly: no secret i fuck up more than i dont Carly: how many bad decisions can i make before berlin tho Ali: nah, you're just too nice for your own good Ali: you know he don't deserve it but people have made the same (wrong) judgment on you so you can't do it back Ali: to anyone Ali: even genuinely shitty people, or people who'd be better off for the nudge of nah Carly: now whos dropping the wisdom Carly: ill just screenshot those few sentences for my ma when she's on at me Carly: im a nice person bitch Ali: 💅☕ though Ali: i'll translate it into spanish for her if she's not getting the memo in plain english Carly: ha Carly: she got well excited cuz she thought berlin had a red light district Carly: thought she was gonna get in my bags Carly: one way to stop me fucking drew in the front row but Ali: pretending i didn't hear that last bit ew Ali: moving on Ali: she wanna get in the windows or like? Carly: she did get the sack so probs Carly: or she thinks itll be like magic mike the german dub idk Ali: oh honey Ali: every nights a hen night Ali: 🙄 Carly: imagine if theyd let mas and das on this trip Carly: i couldnt have come Ali: me either Ali: no one needs that Carly: your ma is so scary Carly: but shed put goldie in his place Carly: probs shouldve brought her Carly: keep me behaving Ali: she literally wants to murder him Ali: need a restraining order and more than mr murray and mr latimer to keep her back Carly: ha Carly: love it Carly: cant she break up the happy couple Carly: my da did me & this beautiful traveller lad that took my v Ali: 💔 Ali: is he married now Ali: if we're doing matchmaking Ali: but in answer, she learnt that forbidding something makes it 1000x more likely to happen and in more secretive, intense ways so Ali: I'm soz Ro, really fucked you over on that one Carly: idk my da literally moved them on Carly: threat of getting the law Carly: k but he still wouldnt be into it Carly: i feel bad for her Ali: ugh Ali: so romeo and juliet, baby you must've been so about it 'til he fucked it up that hard Ali: yeah, i know Ali: i'll figure out something Carly: i was only 12 so i did have the mindset Carly: worth it tho Carly: prettiest boy ive ever seen Ali: swizzle on that, goldilocks Carly: everyone wanted to fuck him Carly: the whole site was feeling the love Carly: fun times Ali: like a beatle was living in your back garden Ali: love that Carly: i peaked Carly: all there is now is a golden god who behaves like a idiot boy Ali: i mean, won't take offense 😒 sat right here and all but no 😉 Ali: there's a whole world of dick out there i promise you Ali: some attached to boys who don't behave like one Carly: ha Carly: you know you're my fave Carly: but youre sat next to him so I cant tell it Ali: 💚 Ali: won't even tell you who i lost my v to Ali: too shaming Carly: now you have to Ali: 😬😫 Ali: okay but then i'm going for a piss so i don't have to feel the pity Carly: baby id never feel sorry for you Carly: w my life come on Ali: you might sympathize though 'cos it was ronan Ali: why he got all weird, probs Ali: eurgh repressed memories flooding back in with the shame 😂 Carly: shit Carly: i told drew all first times are bad but wouldnt wish him on you like that Carly: oh ronan Carly: he better not have treated you like he did me Carly: ill fucking kill him like Ali: aw babe Ali: my hero 💪 Ali: you know what he's like but that shit is long in the past with us so meh Carly: im gonna cry Carly: babe thats sad Carly: & now ms woodfield is staring at me k Ali: don't cry silly Ali: is what it is Carly: im crying and planning murder Ali: you went there too, and other various dickheads, so where's my invite to this party? Carly: but youre perfect Carly: and it was your first time Carly: actual tears in the front row Ali: oh babe Ali: i'm coming over Ali: bog roll in hand Carly: youre too good Carly: im so sad Ali: 😇 that's you Carly: all you tho Ali: nu-uh Ali: you you you Carly: i cant argue cuz im blinded by my tears Ali: not the greatest victory I've ever then Ali: but I'll take it if you smile again Carly: waiting for ms woodfield to tell me i need jesus Carly: ill laugh then Ali: okay, i'll try and lead the convo and her like Ali: we got this, woody Carly: nah if you try and lead her anywhere itll only go one way Carly: teachers pet Ali: 😂 Ali: do you reckon she loves that everyone lowkey drools over her 'cos she's the right side of 40 Ali: or is she desperately job hunting like these fucking kids Carly: i can see in her eyes she loves it Carly: she hates me cuz i dont Carly: facts Ali: not 'cos you never do your work, nah 😏 Carly: & im drunk as fuck rn on her watch Ali: i mean Ali: if YOU were doing your job properly darling Ali: mad you beat her to it, they always get plastered on trips Carly: yea Carly: bet shed take nudes in the bathroom if she had someone to send them to Ali: ooh what teacher could she homewreck Ali: school trip always a perfect place to start an affair Carly: Mr O'Brien could get it if you were old Ali: good shout Ali: getting out my bow as we speak Carly: Mr Cork is alright too but he looks like he'd shower after holding hands Carly: weird Ali: I mean Ali: cleanliness is next to godliness Ali: dirty hoe Carly: ha Carly: you kno it Ali: might be a serial killer Ali: but you wouldn't catch nowt off him Carly: dont have to go home if he murders me Carly: scatter me in berlin lad Ali: 😨😭 noooooo Ali: even if i could go neeson and avenge you Carly: dont go neeson off set tho Carly: your boy wouldnt love the racism Ali: don't wanna be that bitch Ali: problematique Carly: enough bitches on this coach Carly: for once not looking at you ms woodfield Carly: we ever getting there? i thought getting wasted would make me less bored not more Ali: and lowkey racists Ali: all comes out the woodworks when you outed, that gay bashing all afresh like Ali: seriously, why couldn't we go on a plane Carly: & overt racists Carly: that cash tho Carly: how would the teachers afford to get wrecked if they blew the budget Carly: gotta blow each other first Ali: ☕ Ali: dickheads Carly: when goldilocks isnt the biggest twat on the coach tho Carly: idk what to do w that Carly: universe trying to make me like him Ali: give him time Ali: sure he'll reclaim his title 💪 Carly: he'd love a crown Carly: or a medal Carly: get crafting Ali: only if I can get biblical Ali: crown of thorns, you mean barbed wire, okay Carly: ha Carly: im tired come & nap w me Ali: okay boo Ali: as far as pillows go 😏 Carly: serious Carly: i dont wanna sleep on my own Carly: hate it Ali: i remember Ali: coming Ali: promise

[shooklynn-blog]

One Last Perfect Day

okay so this is basically the exact opposite of my other fanfic lol it’s super sad and i may have cried like 4 times whilst writing it. seriously, don’t read it if you don’t want to be a little bit sad. i decided to post this because my other fanfic had some positive comments on it so uh thanks?? really made my day!! this fanfic is honestly a mess of feelings and yeah.

summary: Dan can’t help but reminisce about the past that he’d spent with Phil. He struggles to cope with the recent death of his friend. 

disclaimer: the way that dan blames himself in part for phil’s death isn’t healthy or right. if you’re particularly sensitive to the subject of drunk driving, PLEASE DON’T READ THIS FIC or just read the fluffy part until the end. I have a pic called cereal box that is much cuter and is literally just some adorable fluff. i'm not claiming that dan and phil are dating. i am DEFINITELY not claiming that either of them are dead (thank god). also this might make you sad and I may have mistakes because my tears make it hard to read what i'm writing :)

warnings: in case you didn’t read the summary, major character death (it isn’t suicide, just a heads up!), a little bit of gay, a lot of angst, idk what it’s called but when you feel guilty over somebody else’s death even though it was totally out of your control, lots of pheels

genre: fluff (italicized) and angst (normal text)

word count: 2,079

how to read the fanfic: okay so the part that’s italicized is a memory of the past, and refers to phil in second tense (though i may have messed up on that because it’s hard to see what you write when you’re actually crying) and the normal text is the present and mostly refers to phil in the third tense (except in a few parts but you get what i mean). the italicized part is happy and fluffy until the last one, so if you don’t want the angst, read the italicized parts!! the fluff isn’t that good, but it’s kinda cute so i guess if you only like the fluff just read those parts:) i included both so that you could see the parallels between dan’s life with and without phil.

~

I woke up and you were next to me. You were next to me in my bed and next to me in my life. You said that you didn’t want to waste the day away. While I would have normally objected to going outside, you just looked so excited and I had no idea how I could say no to that face. I groaned, tired, but agreed to go. I got up and got dressed, grabbing little but my phone and slipping out the door, you dragging me along because it seemed you were excited to show me something, but I had no clue what.

I woke up to nothing but cold. I’d kicked the duvet off during the night. I probably had another nightmare, I’d had a lot of those lately.

I had no idea exactly where we were going, but it didn’t matter, because I trusted you with my life. You were so much more than a best friend to me. I knew that wherever we were headed would be fun and exciting, so I didn’t even need to ask. We got on the tube, and I hoped you knew where you were going because I certainly didn’t and you were pretty bad at using maps. We got off a few stops later.

I knew that there was no way that I could fall back asleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw you, and it hurt. I got up and made eggs for two even though I knew that I’d only end up throwing half of them out. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew that I had to eat if I wanted to stay alive, which wasn’t such an appealing option at the moment.

I asked what we were doing at a fancy restaurant, and you giggled and did that thing where you stuck your tongue out a little. You told me that we’d gotten off at the wrong stop and, panicking, you’d yelped the closest restaurant. I told you that you didn’t need to take me anywhere fancy, that I loved food so much that I wouldn’t have cared if you’d brought me to a McDonalds. You laughed again, that laugh that was like music to my ears. You said that you wanted to treat me, that you wanted to show how much you appreciated me. I blushed, you were just too sweet.

As soon as I took a bite out of the eggs, I wretched in my throat. I couldn’t tell if they were actually awful or if I just couldn’t stomach anything. I really was a horrible cook. Before, I’d never realized just how bad.

I tweeted a selfie from the mirror on the restaurant ceiling. I wanted to entertain our fans without giving away too much about our location. They got a little crazy sometimes. Of course, I loved them for it and always smiled at what they tweeted me. I tried to reply to them as much as possible.

I checked my phone out of habit. I knew I should have uninstalled twitter. Not only were my fans tweeting me, asking if I was okay, but also my friends. They were worried about me, I guess. I don’t know if I believed it. Maybe they were just feigning care to look good in front of their followers. If they really cared about me, they would have stopped by or checked on me, but, so far, nobody had. Maybe they didn’t know yet. The news had reached few people. Maybe they just thought I was taking a short break from the internet. I realized that I could let them continue to believe that, but I just didn’t see the point. Before I deleted the app, I tweeted, “I’m fine. It’s just a lot. I don’t know how much more I can take. You can stop pretending to care.” It was vague and concerning, but I didn’t care. I wanted people to know that I was suffering.

That could have been the most expensive meal I’d ever eaten. It was absolutely delicious, and you payed the whole bill. I offered to split it, but you wouldn’t let me. You said that it wouldn’t be right if I paid for my own appreciation meal. You were too kind, it really was expensive.

I sorted through the mail that I’d let pile up. I couldn’t believe that the world was going on without me. I was here, numb and hurt beyond belief, and the landlord was still demanding bills be paid. The world was just speeding by, and I hadn’t left the flat in who-knows-how-long. I didn’t want to see the sunshine after I’d lost my true light. It just wasn't right.

We looked at the shops along the street. It wasn’t very busy. I picked out a nice coat and bought it for you. I lied about the price, it was double what you thought it was, but you deserved it. you were a good person.

A ping went off on my phone. I’d almost forgotten what day it was. Maybe I’d remembered, but I’d repressed it because I wish that it was any day other than today. I probably wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t set the notification. If I went, it would be real, and I wasn’t sure that I was ready for that. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready.

We stayed out till dark, wandering the streets and joking about the sky matching my soul. It gets colder, and your coat really wasn’t big enough for two, but we huddled up inside of it anyways. After a while, it became a tad too warm for my liking, but I didn’t really mind it all that much. At the end of the night, you leaned down and gently pressed your lips against mine. Your kiss wasn’t hungry or sloppy or gross like most kisses were. Your kiss was gentle and light and pure, just like him. You weren’t demanding, your kiss filled less with need and more with pure, unadulterated love and care. It was perfect and sweet and not overwhelming.

I went into my closet and picked out my suit. Black, like my soul. Ha ha. The joke left a bitter taste in my mouth, as it really wasn’t all that funny. A joke I’d used a million times before was now a little too accurate, because I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest, filled only with a black void that had previously been illuminated by a ray of sunlight. All that was left of me was a numb mess of the old Dan held together delicately with masking tape. It was only a certain amount of time until I fully broke down and exploded, but I didn’t really care. I hadn’t done much caring lately, as maybe this whole thing would have been easier if I hadn’t cared so much.

We traveled back to the flat. I could barely keep my eyes open. I rested my head on your shoulders and sighed because everything was good. For a moment, all my worries didn’t matter because I had Phil Lester and you took it all away. I knew that, with you by my side, it would all be okay. Everything would be just fine.

The room was filled with people. I recognized some, and some I’d never met before. It made me angry to see people chatting, making small talk like it were just some meeting at a school club. They didn’t care about Phil. If they really cared about him, they’d be crying right now, not laughing at some joke. They’d be unable to stomach food and they’d forget how it felt to smile. They’d want to throw up every time they heard the word “ace” and they certainly wouldn’t be here, talking like it was any other day.

You knew that I was tired, but you still insisted on rewatching some Buffy. I didn’t want to disappoint you, so I tried my best to stay awake. We curled up on the couch, under my furry dog-like blanket, and watched in silence. You ran your fingers through my curly hair and I rested my head on your shoulder. Everything was peaceful and, without words, we were having the time of our lives. While you watched the show, I stared at you. God, you were so beautiful.

Everyone took a seat, and I could already feel tears start to brew behind my eyes. I wouldn’t let myself cry. I had to prove that I was as strong as everybody else seemed to be. If Phil were here, I’d squeeze his hand and he’d tell me that it was going to be alright. Now, I wasn’t so sure it was.

I dozed off gradually. I woke up to you nudging me lightly. I grinned like a goofball, even though I hated waking up. I had no idea what time it was. You told me that I looked adorable when I was sleeping, and that I should probably change out of my skinny jeans and brush my teeth. I didn’t want to leave, but the jeans weren’t very good for sleeping in.

The pastor asked if anybody wanted to talk about Phil. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but I stepped up anyways. I couldn’t keep it all in. I had to say something to him before he was underground. I sighed.

I returned to the couch where you waited, Buffy turned off, just sitting patiently for me. I climbed back under the blanket and you pulled my close. It was peaceful and warm and I was so happy. It had truly been a perfect day. Everything, in that moment, was just as it should have been.

“Phil changed my life. If I’d never met him, I might be still be lost in my own insecurities. When I talked with him, he made me feel like more than a worthless college dropout. In my eyes, I was a failure, but he never saw me that way. He reminded me of the good in the world, he was a light to the darkness I felt inside. He saved me in a time when I needed it most. I just wish I’d been there to save him,” tears were already rolling down my face, and I was desperately trying to choke back a sob. I looked into Phil’s open casket at his pale, peaceful face. It should have been me. I should have gone with him. I should have been there.

I woke up the next morning to see you up, eating my cereal. I groaned, you did this all the time. You told me that you’d eaten the last of it. I told you that, since you’d finished it off, it was your duty to go and get a new box from tescos, a short walk from our flat. You begged me to go with you, but the couch was so warm. Before you left, you kissed my forehead and told me that you loved me. I called you a spoon.

My words were interrupted with sobs as I prayed that you would open your striking blue eyes one last time, so that my last words to you didn’t have to be, “You too, you spoon.” There was no way that anybody else could have understood what I said, but I continued on through my sobs, “You were my best friend in the whole world. You were the most important person in the universe to me. You knew me better than I did, and everything was just so right when I was next to you. God, Phil, I miss you so much. I wish you were here, I wish that you could hold me one last time, tell me it’s going to be okay, that I can go on without you. This has been the most fun I’ve ever had.”

You hadn’t been back in a while, but I was sure you were just caught up looking at something. After quite a while longer, I started to worry. Than, I got the call. All I could think was, “Who drives drunk at 9AM?” I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to breathe. I didn’t want to exist. I was sure that life had just stopped or that the universe was pulling a cruel joke after that one perfect day. I was sure I’d never be okay again.

It’s been five years since Phil died. Some days are still hard, waking up without him next to me. I still cook double the eggs sometimes. I still leave my cereal on the counter because I forget that he isn’t here to forget to put it back in the cupboard after he steals it. I don’t know if I could honestly say that I accepted that he was gone. I don’t know if I could claim to have forgiven the man who took my best friend away. I don’t know if I could say that I still don’t have nightmares and break down crying whenever somebody says “ace” and rewatch his old videos until I can’t cry anymore. I can’t say that I’m okay, and I can’t say that I forgive myself for not going with him to Tescos. What I can say is that I’m recovering. It still hurts like he died yesterday, but I’m trying to learn that it isn’t my fault. I’m trying to be okay, and I’m glad that I got one last perfect day him. I wasn’t really alone, no matter how it felt. Phil, wherever you are, I hope you know that I’m proud of you. You really did save me, and I’m forever grateful for that. This was the most fun I’ve ever had.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

maple, cider, maize, falling leaves

thank you my ally

is there a hobby / skill that you’ve always wanted to try but never did?

one time i was like omg i should like, learn to surf. but i’ve never actually done so or you’d know about it. one time i took a bit of horseback lessons at my school for like, a two month-ish course. it was fun but i hardly came away an expert and haven’t used but like 5% of the knowledge since

a food that you disliked as a child but now enjoy?

salad

share the weirdest encounter you’ve had with a stranger on the street.

oh my god this dragged up a few weird-but-let’s-not-recount-them memories.....i guess one that was “weird” but more positive was there was this one lady abt my age clearly just having a godawful time in life who i had like, a couple lengthy conversations with when i’d run into her outside around where i worked (or like, once in the parking lot where i worked cuz she’d come in there sometimes, i also met her inside a time or two) and it’s was mainly her Venting b/c things were terrible for her, and that was fine by me b/c like, i was like ah #same on many counts, and like, clearly she had absolutely Nobody to talk to about all the things which were awful. guess it’s Unusual to hear so much abt a relative stranger’s life but like, it wasn’t Bad weird. the things that made it bad was like, when i sat down with her when she happened to be Inside the place i worked, b/c she was going tf through it, and i chose to prioritize letting her receive some sympathy from someone in the world over “tending to restocking sugar packets for the next 10 min” and naturally our by-the-book manager lectured me for it. i did Not quit that job as rudely as i deserved to. oh but the good news is that last i heard from this person she like, had good news for once re: events in her life (relatively speaking, b/c it had been pretty much All Bad for like, months)

you’re stranded on a desert island and here’s the twist; what three things do you NOT bring with you?

sdkfj i’m trying to think of a difference between like, “thing i dislike” and “thing i wouldn’t want while stranded on an island”......okay, for starters, i don’t bring a baby. like, i Would want that even less when stranded. i Don’t bring a sunsetter retractable awning. i would want that awning extended all the time. no need to retract it. and i would Not bring cherry juice. i’d feel obligated to drink it so that it doesn’t go to waste, and i’d hate the experience b/c like, i think it’s gross and really really have to power through it and am half the time like stifling my gag reflex by the end. almost any other juice would be Superior

[bronzeflower]

Who The Fuck Writes A Ten-Page Rant?????

Chapter 20: Mango Sorbet

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

You were currently in a very specific predicament.

You were in a bed. That, in of itself, was pretty normal. Nothing wrong with being in a nice, comfortable bed with a bunch of blankets on you and a bunch of pillows surrounding you. Exactly the way a bed should be. It’s comfortable and cozy and soft and nice and whatever other synonyms there are for the word comfortable. The point was, you were in a bed, and that particular part was not the problem you were having.

What the main issue was that it wasn’t your bed. It was someone else’s. Usually, you wouldn’t mind that a whole bunch. There have been more than a couple times where you went to someone’s house, and they offered their guest bedroom for you to use or something similar. So, no, that wasn’t the issue either.

The issue was whose bed it was. Because that made all the difference.

Here you were, in Karkat and Kanaya’s house after Kanaya’s birthday party in a bed. Specifically, you were in Karkat’s bed while he snuggled up against you like being an octopus was his goddamn job. You were almost surprised that he hadn’t died yet due to living outside the water because you were pretty fucking certain that Karkat was literally an octopus with how he was cuddling up against you.

The previous night, you and Karkat watched movies on Karkat’s laptop until you fell asleep. You were pretty sure that you were the first to fall asleep, otherwise, you would have figured out something to avoid sleeping in Karkat’s bed.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. There was a part of you that was absolutely ecstatic about sharing a bed with Karkat. That part of you was mostly your heart deciding to go absolutely wild once you realized what was happening.

However, you usually would have asked for a different solution out of politeness and common etiquette, like a blow-up mattress or sleeping on the couch or in the guest bedroom or something like that. You know. Just as a courtesy, and you certainly also don’t really want to make Karkat uncomfortable at all. Although, he seemed to be pretty comfortable right now doing his duty as a literal octopus.

Karkat squeezed tighter around you, clearly having absolutely no awareness of the situation at hand. Not that you could blame him at all really. That was a pretty tiring party, and the two of you did stay up fairly late.

But Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. What should you do? What should you be doing? What could you even do in this sort of situation? Was Karkat okay with this at all? If he went to sleep after you and had enough thought process to put his laptop away, he must be at least a little bit okay with this. Maybe. Hopefully.

Honestly, you didn’t know the protocol for this or anything. Your crush on Karkat just made this entire situation at least one hundred times worse. Or better-it was kind of difficult to know which.

Not to mention that being this close to Karkat kind of made your brain stop working. You were pretty sure if someone asked you what two plus two was, you would say twelve because you clearly are unable to do basic arithmetic. But you were also apparently lucid enough to think the word ‘arithmetic,’ so you suppose some part of your brain is still actually working. Supposedly.

You were actually extremely thankful that Karkat was asleep and therefore unable to see how much of a mess you were.

You then noticed that you didn’t have your sunglasses on. You looked over to the side and saw them sitting on the side desk thing of the bed. That must have meant that Karkat took off your sunglasses for you because you certainly don’t remember taking off your sunglasses yourself last night.

Thinking about it made you a little dizzy, so you stopped thinking about that and started to wonder how the hell you could possibly escape from Karkat’s clutches.

“Yo, Karkat. Hey, hey Karkat. Karkat. Karkat,” You repeated. Even with your vague attempt to wake Karkat up, you didn’t actually try to actually wiggle out of his grip.

Karkat barely moved a muscle, so you decided to try again.

“Karkat. Yo, Karkat. Hey. Karkat. I gotta piss. You gotta let me up, Karkat. Karkat, are you alive. I need to know if you’re alive. Am I going to have to bury you? I’m not really fond of the idea of putting you into the ground. Maybe a cremation? Actually, I don’t know what you want for your body when you die. Hey, hey, Karkat. Do you have a will? You should have a will. You never know when your gonna die, so you should always be prepared. I’d say that I learned that the hard way and be all dramatic and stuff, but that would imply that I died, wouldn’t it? God, dying is fucked up. Like, we have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going to happen after death, and we have no way of knowing without dying ourselves.”

Karkat responded to the amount of noise you were making by making a grunt sound and shoving one of his hands in your face in an attempt to shut you up. You responded like any sane person would-by licking Karkat’s hand.

That woke Karkat up real quick.

“Ew! Ugh! Gross! Why?” Karkat exclaimed and then proceeded to wipe your spit on your sleeve. “There. Take your goddamn spit back, you heathen.”

“Aw, no fun insults for me?”

“No. You don’t deserve them. I don’t have to spend time and energy figuring out insults to call you because that would be a waste of my talents.”

“Yeah, maybe instead you should become a food or movie critic and truly offer businesses only the most deserved pile of insults. The ones who are actually horrible for one reason or another will receive your most hurtful and festering insults, while the ones who are good will receive your infinite praise.”

“Don’t kid yourself-I’m practically a movie critic already. You’ve already received one of my best works, you ungrateful piece of shit.”

You gasped.

“I’m not ungrateful! I cherish that rant with every fiber of my being! I even had it printed out on fancy paper and framed each and every page of it.”

“Yeah, all ten pages of it. That’s excessive and wasteful. How expensive was it to frame each page?”

“I spared no expense!” You swiped your hand in the air in the same dramatic fashion that people in movies do when they’re excited about the possibilities they’ll find in a new town. “I used only the finest of gold frames, ones meant to truly highlight the beauty of your writings. Of course, I did only what your writings deserved, which included nothing but the best materials.”

Karkat laughed, and your heart soared.

“You’re a dumbass,” Karkat said, still smiling brightly.

It was then when he realized the position he was in, and he hurriedly detached himself from you.

“Shit! Sorry about that. I probably should have warned you that I tend to grab onto anything close to me when I’m sleeping.”

“Nah, man, it’s chill. If I cared, I would have told you.”

“Still. There are a bunch of folks who definitely do care about that sort of thing, and, trust me, I’ve been in loads of situations with people who got mad at me for that because their masculinity was more fragile than glass,” Karkat explained, and you frowned.

“...I was like that at one point, if you can believe it,” You responded.

“Mr. Pink-pants? Mr. Nail-Polish-And-Makeup-Video? Mr. I-Put-On-A-Skirt-Because-They-Shouldn’t-Be-Just-For-Girls-And-Also-They’re-Pretty? On level with the guys who couldn’t even wear a dog tag necklace without thinking it was gay? Really?”

“No! Really!” You insisted. “It… actually took a while to unlearn that kind of toxic masculinity, and I’m still struggling with it to this day. It’s not really something that goes away immediately, even if you’ve been out for a few years. And sometimes I feel like being trans kind of made it more difficult, you know? Especially with the idea that following this kind of toxic masculinity was the only way I could be considered a ‘real man.’”

Karkat said nothing for a while, letting the silent tension build and build until it was practically unbearable.

“I’m…” Karkat finally broke the silence. “I’m glad you’re working to unlearn that kind of thing.”

That told you everything you needed to know. You popped on your sunglasses and grinned.

“Alright! We should get started on that mango sorbet, shouldn’t we?” You got out of the bed probably more energetically than you had in a while.

“Hold up, we have to eat breakfast first, you dumbass!” Karkat interrupted, stopping you in your tracks to glory and ice cream.

With that, you were forced to do all the typical morning stuff, like using the bathroom and eating breakfast instead of eating mango sorbet, which was obviously the breakfast of champions. Now you were forced to eat the lunch of champions instead, which was a phrase that wasn’t nearly as fun to say as the breakfast of champions.

You also had to go back to your own house to get the mangos before bringing them back to Karkat and Kanaya’s house. Yeah, that was also a thing necessary to do in order to accomplish the goal of actually making the mango sorbet. After all, you can’t exactly make anything if you don’t have the ingredients to do so.

Well, you supposed that you could always use substitutes in recipes, but if you use too many, you’re basically creating a different thing, which was something that still required certain ingredients in order to reach the exact product. Not to mention that the point of making mango sorbet was to use the mangos that were going to go bad soon if you didn’t use them almost immediately.

Never mind all that though. It was time to get started on the mango sorbet.

“Wow, these mangos really are ripe,” Karkat commented. “Do you know how to cut a mango, Dave?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” You responded. “Honestly, when I tried one, I kind of just chopped it up in a way that would give me access to the meat part of the fruit.”

“Oh thank god you didn’t try to eat the skin,” Karkat held a hand over his heart. “I’m not sure if I could be friends with a dumbass like that.”

“I’m almost certain that you’re friends with a dumbass like that.”

“Yeah,” Karkat sighed. “I have multiple dumbass friends who did that, including Terezi.”

“Honestly though, I feel like she should get some sort of a pass on that. She tries to eat everything, even when it’s in no way edible. And also she’s blind. Who’s tried to eat the mango skin who isn’t Terezi?”

“Well, all the friends that I’ve seen try to eat a mango and try to eat the skin include Sollux, Terezi, Vriska, Eridan, and John.”

“Isn’t that, like, half your friend group?” You asked. Karkat responded with a facepalm.

“It’s a good bit of my friend group. Haven’t seen Vriska in literal years though. I think she’s in jail or something. But, nevermind all that. I’m gonna teach you how the hell to cut a mango because that’s an invaluable skill for every single person in this world to learn.”

“Alright, here’s how you go about it,” Karkat placed one of the mangos on a cutting board with the fruit being placed vertically in reference to Karkat. “You’ve kind of got to cut around the pit because that thing is extremely hard and basically impossible to cut through, so it’s honestly better to just avoid it completely. So you’ve got to cut to the side of the pit like this.”

Karkat made a clean cut on one side of the mango, chopping off about a third of the mango.

“Then you do the same to the other side,” Karkat turned the mango around and cut another third off the mango.” Next, you lay the mango on one of the sides you just cut and slice off the excess. You got that?”

Karkat glanced towards you, ultimately making the exact same face that every single hot character in an anime does multiple times towards their love interest, and it was a stupid fucking look, and yet it made practically all the blood run to your face and made you almost completely lose your ability to form complete sentences.

“Ye-yeah. Yeah, I got that.” Yes. You definitely knew how to make sentences. It was very simple. It was just a noun and a verb. That was all that was necessary to form a full sentence. Like, I run. He runs. She runs. You run. I ran. They ran. You ran away from this train of thought and went back to trying your best to focusing on whatever Karkat was actually saying.

“Next, since we’re going to be turning this into a puree, we’re going to cut up the mango into cubes. Just slice the flesh into squares while it’s in the skin and then you can kind of pull the skin off,” Karkat did so and put some of the cubes of mango into a blender. “Or you can squeeze them off if taking the skin off becomes too time-consuming.”

Karkat cut the rest of the mango into squares and put them into the blender.

“Do you want to try cutting one of the mangos?” Karkat asked, and you pretty much immediately agreed, even though that was probably an awful idea because you didn’t really know exactly what you were doing. Oh well. Practice makes perfect, right? Or something like that.

You placed one of the mangos vertically towards you and did your best to ignore Karkat looking over towards you to make sure you were doing everything correctly because Karkat was a very distracting person.

You looked at the mango and tried to guess where the pit was. You honestly couldn’t tell at all where it was, but you could certainly guess.

You started to cut through the soft flesh of the mango before you were stopped by something rock hard, and, no matter how hard you pressed, your knife refused to slice through that part of the mango.

“Hey, hey! You’re going to hurt yourself if you try to cut through the pit!”

As if on cue, you accidentally cut yourself. It wasn’t a large cut-you’ve certainly had much, much worse, but seeing the blood, regardless of how small of an amount it was, still made you feel kind of dizzy.

You barely noticed as Karkat guided you to the sink and turned on the facet to clean the wound. He got something out of one of the cabinets in the kitchen.

Karkat rummaged around in a box and pulled out some things.

“Dave,” Karkat’s voice was still loud, but it was soft and reassuring. “**** ** ***** ** hurt *** * ******. *** disinfectant. Is that okay?”

Karkat’s voice was a little fuzzy, but you nodded, and Karkat took a cotton swab and lightly swiped it over your finger. It stung, but no more than the initial slice did.

Karkat then put a bandaid on your finger and then kissed where your wound was.

That broke you out of our stupor. Your heart started racing at 100mph, and your mind filled up with…certain thoughts that were almost certainly not appropriate at all, and you could feel all the blood rushing towards your face as if your blood cells were race cars and the finishing line was your brain.

“Dave! Are you okay?” Karkat worried, putting a hand to your forehead. “Are you getting sick?”

“Ah, n-no,” You managed to stutter out. “I’m just a little bit, uh, you know…”

Karkat’s eyes widened as he seemed to realize what he had just done.

“Sorry, I kind of got carried away.” It was Karkat’s turn to blush. “Kanaya and I do that for each other sometimes, so I guess instinct kind of took over. Are… are you okay?”

“Yeah,” You choked out. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m cool as a cucumber, cold as ice. I am zero degrees Kelvin.”

“If you were zero degrees Kelvin, you would be dead.”

“I’d be more than dead. All the molecules in my body wouldn't even be moving. Actually, do you think that’s why they call it freezing time? Because all the molecules aren’t moving and are therefore frozen? How would it be for the person who freezes time? Is that why freezing time is considered impossible? Because reaching zero degrees Kelvin is impossible?”

“You could probably make the time go really, really slowly.”

“Just freeze everything to one degree Kelvin. People would probably die if you do it for too long though.”

“Ah, the dangers of time travel. You gotta be super careful with that kind of thing.”

“You’ve also got to be super careful with knives.”

You laughed.

“Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Gotta be hella careful.”

“You wanna try again with cutting the mango?” Karkat asked.

“You’re trusting me to try again? Not worried about me cutting myself again?”

“Everyone makes mistakes. It makes no sense to forbid you from cutting a mango simply because you fucked up the first time you did it. And I guess I am still kind of worried, but it’s not like you’re going to cut your hand off or anything.”

“Yeah, I’ll try again.” You went to stand in front of the cutting board and picked up the knife. “You might want to guide me though. You know, just as a precaution against an accident happening.”

You were honestly joking. You really had no expectations for Karkat to take you up on your request, but Karkat walked over and lightly placed one hand over yours and put his other hand on the mango. He placed his head on your shoulder in order to see the cutting board.

First a kiss and now this? You were going to die. You were in heaven, on cloud nine, and you were also so, so dead.

“So you need to cut around the pit,” Karkat said, his voice awkwardly close to your ear. Was it just how close he is, or does his voice sound deeper? Karkat guided your hand to finish cutting the initial slice you did off of the pit. He then turned the mango around and cut off the other side.

“Put it on its side…” Karkat muttered, clearly more talking to himself, but it still sent a shiver down your spine. Karkat laid the mango on its side and had you cut off the flesh on the top and bottom of the pit.

Karkat then realized exactly how close he was to you and quickly removed himself, leaving you feeling a little chilly without his body pressed against yours.

“S-sorry,” Karkat apologized, keeping a good distance away from you.

“It’s-It’s fine.” You placed down the knife. “How about you handle the mango cutting?”

“You can put the stuff in the blender,” Karkat suggested, likely as a way not to leave you out of the cooking process.

“Sounds good.”

You were both clearly very embarrassed if the awkward silence that followed was any indication.

Karkat cut up a mango and handed you the parts that you were supposed to take the skin off of, so you put the edible parts of the mango into the blender while Karkat continued to cut the other mangos.

It took about three mangos before the silence was completely unbearable.

“So what’s going in this other than mangos?” You asked because, obviously, you were going to ignore everything that made the situation awkward, no matter how much those situations made your heart flutter.

“The other ingredients are honey and lime juice,” Karkat responded. “Although adding a bit of salt might also be good.”

“Yeah, get that salty ice cream.”

“What do you think salted caramel ice cream is there for?”

“That's completely fair,” You said. “God, now I want caramel.”

“We have caramel, but I can’t guarantee that it would taste good on mango sorbet.”

“You never know if something is going to taste good unless you try it.”

Karkat stuck out his tongue in disgust.

“Feel free to do that to your taste buds, but I, for one, am not going to tarnish my delicate palette by doing that.”

“I’ll tarnish my palette for you,” You responded.

“That’s not necessary, thank you very much.”

“I’ll tarnish my palette for myself.”

“I have no qualms about allowing you to do that, but if you end up sick, it’s not my fault.”

“That’s completely fair. Now, how much honey and lime are we going to put in here?” You questioned.

“Hold up. We gotta finish cutting these mangos first so that we can see how much mango puree we have, and we can figure out how much stuff we’re going to add.”

“Alright. I’ll be patient. I’ll wait before adding a bunch of random stuff to our lovely sorbet that we’ve put so much blood, sweat, and tears into. It’s an old, secret recipe that we would die to protect because allowing it to fall into the wrong hands would be dangerous to the world.”

“I’m going to throw a mango at you if you keep being so goddamn dramatic.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” You challenged, honestly fully expecting Karkat to just straight up lob a mango at you.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. That would be wasteful,” Karkat said.

“It wouldn’t be that wasteful,” You argued. “Afterall, the mango would still have the skin on it, and we could just wash it if it fell on the floor. We could definitely still use the mango.”

“Are you trying to get me to throw a mango at you?”

“I won’t stop you if you did throw a mango at me,” You really didn’t know why you said that. You don’t actually want Karkat to throw a mango at you, but also you kind of wanted Karkat to throw a mango at you.

“I’m not going to throw a fucking mango at you.” Karkat handed you a cut mango for you to throw in the blender. “I will only hand them to you gently and carefully like a newborn baby.”

“I’ve never been all that good with babies.” You put the flesh of the mango into the blender.

“I’ve never even touched a baby. I just know that they tend to be more fragile than troll grubs.”

“I don’t know enough about grubs to dispute that, and I’m also not sure if you’ve ever actually touched a troll grub anymore than you’ve touched a human baby.”

“That sounded weird,” Karkat mentioned. You shrugged. “Besides, I have actually worked with troll grubs before. Sometimes I help out Kanaya in her jadeblood duties.”

“I thought the system made it so that anyone who wanted to could work with the grubs and so jadebloods weren’t required to do grubsit anymore.”

“They did do that, but the name ‘jadeblood duties’ kind of stuck around because of how it was required in the past.”

“Huh.”

“Would you ever consider volunteering for something like that?” Karkat asked.

“Ah, no. No, not really,” You answered. “I don’t really trust myself around kids, you know?”

Too worried that you’d be a bad father. Too worried that you might fuck them up completely. Too worried that you’ll be apart of a circle of repeating events.

“I get that,” Karkat said, asking for no explanation whatsoever, and you felt a little more relaxed.

“Is that the last mango?” You asked as Karkat handed you yet another mango. “Are we ready to fire this blender up?”

“Go ahead.”

You pressed a button on the blender and realized it was unplugged. After plugging in the blender to the nearest outlet, you turned on the blender and watched it turn the mangoes into mush.

You varied up the speeds to make certain that the mango mush was perfectly smooth. Once you were absolutely sure that it was smooth, you poured the puree into a large measuring cup.

“Looks like we’ve got about threeish cups of this. How much other stuff should we add to it?” You asked.

“An amount.”

“That’s specific.”

“Yes.”

From there, Karkat took over all the measuring and putting stuff into a bowl.

“Grab the bowl thing from the freezer,” Karkat ordered.

You went to the freezer and found the bowl thing.

Karkat took it, put it on a platform thing that it is attached to and poured the contents of the mixing bowl into it.

Karkat put other attachments onto it and pushed a button. The bowl started spinning.

“Alright. Now we just wait for twenty minutes.”

“God, Karkat, I’m not sure if I can wait that long. I’ll die of starvation in that time period.”

“Well then, I guess you’re just going to have to die.”

You placed yourself on the floor and pretended to be dead.

“Come on. Get up,” Karkat lightly nudged your corpse with his foot. “We’ve got to pick our a movie or show to watch, and, if you don’t get up, I’m eating all the sorbet myself.”

“Well, would you look at that-I’m alive! It’s a miracle.” You stood up and wiped yourself off.

Karkat rolled his eyes, and the then the two of you decided to watch Queer Eye and then proceeded to eat way too much mango sorbet.

All you had to do was remind yourself that this wasn’t a date at all because, otherwise, you were pretty sure you would have died.

[ragingtony]

Wow it has been a MINUTE but hi I needed a place to express my emotions and feel like they were being shared, but sadly most of my friends aren’t capable of emotionally supporting me right now and I blame them and I also don’t because the pain I’ve felt these past few months have required a typhoon of attention and care that I thought they would be able to give me, but sadly haven’t. Leaving me to feel vacant inside and like I have infected wounds left to fester which is!!! Dramatic but honestly true?? I have a lot of physical pain in my body and I’ve been having LITERAL heart palpitations this week and it’s a chronic experience that I thought would have improved by now, you know? I thought I’d still be sad but I’d have some hope, but mmmm no I’m a black hole of a mess. All the love in my life seems to have teeth. None of it is giving me back what I need, and it isn’t their fault really. I haven’t been around, they haven’t been around. But something seems less helpful and cathartic about your friends helping and listening to you only AFTER you told them to. That doesn’t feel like real loving friendship at all!

And I love them? Right? But the last thing I want to do is watch my two friends, who are dating, be in love and gross in front of me, in my house while I literally feel abandon by everyone including them. Plus I don’t wanna be a bummer for them, but I feel like I’m a place holder for my one friend. Just to be there to make it more fun for her, so she can see me while she also has her boyfriend and I, again, am left to my own festering mind.

I’ve lost so much this year and today I lost two more friends and god, it just hurts. I’ve never been so sensitive in my life, I feel like drying concrete people keep painting in. My two friends said something nice about me the other day and I didn’t realize until then how low and awful I felt about myself. I forgot I was anything at all, and again going back to before, I’m so desperate for attention. A hand, a friend, a place. But I’m a consistent basis while I’m healing. And everyone is too busy and too distracted and I see their selfishness and am only reminded of my own in the first place. I haven’t had the chance to talk to anybody about how I’m feeling, and I’ve told lots of my friends directly I needed someone right now and they’ve consistently faded in and out. And I guess empathy and compassion are more complex and difficult than you’d think. It seems an obvious and easy emotion to tap into when you’re exposed, but when life is going well for you nothing is more contenting then turning away I feel.

And I’ve been criticized by my friends lately when I asked them for compassion that I don’t show my pain enough so they don’t think I need checking in on? And I get that, but they’re aware I’m in pain? And one was in my immediate space for a month and never asked me how I was or if I needed to talk. I’m again, unsure if she’s selfish or if I’m asking too much of her. And it’s probably both. But I can’t stand not being communicated with, especially now when I have so much I want to say and share all the time but no one wants to hear and receive it. I’m not sure what to do when I see her next, today she hit me deep again and made me want to scream all over again. She reminds me of a man, the way she gives so little of her emotions. How little she thinks of how her actions will affect others. She reminds me of me hoenstly and it’s probably why it’s so sickening.

And I feel like I just keep getting met with unkindness in my most tender moments and i become an ugly mess to the world and then people think I’m nothing when really I just need a fricken hug and a pep talk, but like twice a day

My two closest friends are in relationships that hurt me to see and I hate being that friend. But I don’t really believe in either of their relationships and especially think one of them is wasting her time with a guy she doesn’t make sense with. And she’s said out loud she knows it doesn’t make sense, but like me, she’sld rather stay in a relationship that satisfies the senses rather than go through pain of letting go and finding a better one. But god she hurt me in choosing him all the time and not even wondering how I might feel. We’re new friends as well, but I’m aware of her, is it wrong to expect her to be as aware of me? When living in the same house?

Like I’m not talking about just crying and feeling bad. I mean I’ve dropped to the ground sobbing on a public bathroom floor holding my chest so tightly because I felt so much. I’ve sobbed on trains and sidewalks and parks. Homeless people have come up to me and asked what’s wrong, my parents are like afraid of me because they think I’m a depression volcano. I write and think and write and think and it’s not helping. It’s an exhaustion I can’t sleep off, I can’t run from it, it’s like a fucking phantom. And the lonliness feels like a shadow that creeps up behind me and taps me on the shoulder when I walk home from the movies alone and go back to an empty apartment, or when I have food left on my plate and no one to share it with or when i want a second opinion or a new idea and WOW I get why people are driven to hurting themselves. The pain is so deep and so chronic and no one am reach you and no one tries and they mistake you’re sadness as being tired and it’s just a well of cold nothing forever and ever.

I think my last love ruined my life, in its current state anyways. The sadness I feel has infected every part of my life and made me someone no one wants to be around, because again, I’m dying for attention. I’m even writing thsi for attention! This is literally last resort material guys, tumblr. Like is it 2013? Come on. But I’m 100% in love with last boi, and he hasn’t spoken to me in months. I reached out to him last with a really vulnerable letter and he never responded. And he’s not a garbage boi ok, he’s wonderful and gentle and kind and forgiving and so fucking smart and a wonderful feminist and was so loving and um! I literally have never met anyone worth so much. Yesterday at Christmas my uncles who met him asked where he was and then said how impressed they were with him and I was like ! I know! He put the fucking sun in the sky! And he literally just called me one day and was like hey I don’t wanna days anymore bye. And I don’t think he was sad at all, not like I was. I take everyone in my life so SERIOUSLY like I’m so fucking intense all the time and it’s killing me now. Like he probably cried once and then went and played guitar and never thought of me again except to be like “lol hope she’s good tho”

And I know you’re thinking “um he doesn’t sound like he put the sun in the sky” but no no, he did. His only fault is that he doesn’t know how to communicate.

It’s crazy how you’re subconscious knows a relationship is failing before you know. I used to cry all the time and feel so lonely because I know he didn’t love me as much anymore. I felt him pull away and get bored of me and I got bored of me too and I got so stuck. I get it, I try to make one person my whole world and happiness and that’s toxic and I gotta work on that. I knowwww what went wrong and Part of me has days where i wannnnt him to be happy but! He LITERALLY hasn’t responded to me? After a whole year of being in love? And it wasn’t like oh we dated cool, nono, we were each other’s everything. Like we couldn’t get enough and he was the absolute best boyfriend ever and did everything he could for me and we were best friends and had so much fun. And we TRIED to be friends after this but I felt like he had no idea how much this destroyed me? So I tried to tell him and he said nothing. What do I do with that? He was the essence of light and life and now all I have is people around me who can’t be bothered.

When people go through a huge break up they deserve to lay on their friends bed and tell them about it and cry and feel comforted. And have their friends just be there, but! I feel like I’ve spent two months in a freezer.

I also lost my best friend of 4 year this year, and my boyfriend abandoned me like a week after and I’ve lost my two most intimate relationships at once and thought I had good friends to back me up?? So I’ve literally spoke to no one the amount I’ve needed and had them give me perspective and love and so YEAH I feel 1000 abandon and YES if you were WONDERING I already had abandonment issues form my parents so this is a cute common familiar thing that I feel like will take 16 years of therapy to get out of but it’s fine bc I’ll never find love like I had before again ok so I guess 2017 was the Golden year I have to go die now

Also astrology ruined my life? I think confirmation bias is so real and I looked for all the flaws in people and had them validated instead of seeing them as whole people and i made them people they weren’t. I also boxed myself in and limited my own abilities to forgive and grown bc the FUCKING INTERNET SAID Taurus’s weren’t like that, and honestly in the two weeks I’ve tried to break that mentality and have told myself I CAN be energetic and forgiving in my own way has made me feel 1000 times better because before I just accepted that it wasn’t possible. And I made my last love believe we couldn’t be compatible and I just kept everything about astrology in the back of my head and let it be true instead of actually LISTENING to people, like??? I met ppl while traveling and got anxious bc I was like omg what if they’re a sag and then I’m like, I’m enjoying them right now why does it matter? It’s ruinnnned me.

Anyways everything just keep going wrong. Don’t even get me started on my job situation, I haven’t even thought about it. I have no idea what to do. I don’t want to do anything. I’m cold and hate winter and darkness and god my roommate can be so abrasive and cold and it makes it all feel lonely and impossible. I haven’t believed a good thing about myself in so long I feel like the ugliest person literally ever? And I TELL my friends I’m sad and they don’t even acknowledge my words? And obviously they don’t see the gravity bc they aren’t with me but AH I NEED ATTENTION TO FEEL VALIDATED right now, like people deserve those things right? And YES I do have a therepist if you’re wondering but she got married and the thanksgiving and then I traveled Europe forever and now it’s Christmas and ????

Im also sitting in an airport writing all this and I sobbed in the bathroom for a hot sec and my brother made fun of me and I’ve put a lot of energy into my friends ok? I got one a REALLY nice Christmas gift and i took another one to Iceland and I don’t hold those against them they don’t owe me in that sense. But I thought of them so much and all I want is for them to be aware of me and help me ???? Like idk, FRIENDS DO. And

Don’t think I can just get new friends. Like no way. Impossible. Adults can’t just MAKE FRIENDS

I also don’t wanna get married and have kids I think and idk if I mean that but wow I just want to sit down with my last love and scream cry until we feel better aka until he loves me again. Like I loooovvvvvve him, I’d never loved anyone I dated before. I was so proud of him and adored him and loved how he treated everyone he met and how interesting he is and how we could discuss anything and say anything and !!!!! I learned so much from him and uh hi I wasn’t DONE so if anyone knows him let him know I’m dying kk

Thanks 4 coming to my podcast!

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The absolute best and worst ice cream truck treats

The shrill screams of "IT'S HERE" every time the ice cream truck arrives is a staple of an American summer. Even now, as an adult, I still get that emotional rush when the truck pulls onto my block.

But as a kid, it was always the sheer number of choices that made me question my entire existence. God forbid made an awful selection, wasting A WHOLE $2.00 of my parents' cash. To avoid a crisis like this for yourself, here are the best and worst treats that your local ice cream truck has to offer.

SEE ALSO: Costco food court items, ranked

The following ranking is a matter not of opinion, but of fact.

The Best

1. The Choco Taco

A post shared by Benjamin Strong (@benjaminstrong) on Jul 3, 2018 at 2:59pm PDT

Whoever created this Klondike masterpiece deserves to retire in absolute peace and luxury. The waffle cone taco shell is so innovative, perfect for holding vanilla ice cream mixed with fudge swirls. Choco Taco brought new meaning to the word "crunch" and always makes for a satisfying ice cream snack. 

2. The Firecracker

A post shared by Popsicle (@popsicle) on Oct 11, 2017 at 2:39pm PDT

Such a summertime classic. Kids will often slurp this Popsicle product on the Fourth of July because, you know, 'Murica. The red, white, and blue ice pop features three flavors — cherry, white lemon, and blue raspberry — making it essentially a three-for-one deal. As a kid, these things felt HUGE to me.

3. The Push-Up Pop

A post shared by Toni (@love_tonic) on Oct 21, 2013 at 12:06pm PDT

Nestlé really tried here. I can see what they're going for: a mess-free ice cream pop that you can take your time eating. It never works out that way, but who cares? These things are so good, it doesn't matter if you need three paper towels after eating.

4. The Drumstick

A post shared by Jeremiah White (@jeremiah_irl) on Jun 29, 2018 at 12:45pm PDT

This Nestlé creation takes the the classic ice cream scoop on a cone and turns it into something incredible. A scoop of vanilla ice cream encased in a chocolate shell and topped with nuts is completely revolutionary. Your fave could never.

5. Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bar

A post shared by Leah (@whatleahloves) on Jul 4, 2018 at 12:44pm PDT

This bar by Good Humor is the pinnacle of ice cream-pop perfection. You get the sweet taste of strawberry ice cream with a crunchy exterior that makes it feel like you're eating an actual strawberry shortcake. 10/10.

6. The Ice Cream Sandwich 

A post shared by Hungry Muncher (@the_hungrymuncher) on Jun 27, 2018 at 6:24am PDT

Another classic that will always be a solid choice, this treat most definitely paved the way for other variations of smooshed ice cream. Having sticky, chocolate crumb-covered fingers is an under-appreciated highlight of enjoying this incredible treat.

7. The Powerpuff Girls pop

A post shared by Sunnyoboe (@sunnyoboe) on Jun 21, 2017 at 3:42pm PDT

There are a ton of different cartoon-inspired ice cream pops, from SpongeBob SquarePants to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Anyone who's had one these will tell you that the bubblegum eyes are the absolute best part of this tangy treat. 

Even Paris Hilton couldn't resist the appeal of what she once perfectly referred to as "these little blonde bitches" on an episode of The Simple Life.

"Can I have 5 more of these little blonde bitches?" By Paris Hilton is one of the most iconic quotes of all time https://t.co/YE0yNg6zdL

— Cody (@codyspearz) August 10, 2015

8. The Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich

A post shared by Good Humor (@goodhumor_icecream) on Aug 31, 2017 at 10:18am PDT

All frozen sandwich treats should strive to be this amazing. Made by Good Humor, this sandwich takes the traditional ice cream sandwich and turns it up to 1,000. Eating vanilla ice cream smothered in chocolate chips, smashed beautifully between two chocolate chip cookies is an experience like no other. If pure gold was edible, this would be it. 

The Worst

1. Snow Cone

A post shared by Popsicle (@popsicle) on Jun 12, 2018 at 8:00am PDT

It's been almost two decades since my childhood, and I'm still wondering why this is even still a thing. You can get a solid Snow Cone, or even an Italian Ice (which is honestly 1,000 percent better) from literally anywhere else and it would be better than having to eat out of those awful paper cones. Any time you order this item, you've pretty much resigned yourself to a race against a melting pile of blandly flavored ice. And if it's an especially hot day? Forget about it. Have fun with your soggy piece of paper, kiddo. 

2. The Fudgsicle

A post shared by Andrea Wilkovich (@awilkovich) on May 9, 2018 at 10:59am PDT

These are just so basic. Chocolate is supposed to have a rich and distinct flavor, and this thing is the equivalent of frozen cardboard. Not to mention, everyone looks ridiculous with melted chocolate popsicle smeared all over their hands and mouths.

3. The Orange Creamsicle 

A post shared by Melissa Librandi (@missmelissbakes) on Jul 1, 2018 at 6:54pm PDT

These aren't too popular with the kids. I know plenty of adults, including my parents, who LIVE for these orange-encased ice cream pops. But a kid? I don't think so. The child in me is still repulsed by these things and would much rather stick to chocolates and vanillas. It isn't exactly a HORRIBLE flavor, but it doesn't quite contend with the other amazing flavors hiding in your local ice cream truck's freezer.

4. Just...Ice Cream

A post shared by Creator : Marissa.G (@thelifestylenthusiast) on Jul 8, 2018 at 4:51pm PDT

With the creative popsicles and frozen sandwiches on the menu, why would you go for just plain ice cream? I guess the appeal of this treat is that, more often than not, it'll be soft-serve, which can be hard to track down elsewhere. But other than that, this classic tends to melt too quickly and is limited to the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry trifecta. Not very fun.

5. The Lemon Ice

A post shared by Karen (@kmspin) on May 26, 2014 at 5:37am PDT

Again, just another really basic thing to get at an ice cream truck. If you're looking for something citrusy and frozen-ish, then I guess this is for you? But why Lemon Ice? Just have some lemonade with a bunch of ice and you're good to go. 

6. The Malt Cup

A post shared by Toni Lannert (@todela76) on Aug 23, 2017 at 11:21am PDT

No one, and I mean no one from my childhood or adulthood, has ever ordered these. Even the name of this thing puts me off. It sounds like someone took a bunch of malt balls and blended them together to create this awful mess. Gross.

Now get out there and track down the nearest ice cream truck. You deserve it.

WATCH: Turn frozen fruit into delicious soft serve with this DIY dessert maker

[sierrabinondo]

summer tour day 9

i was going to make this entry the last few days of tour, but i typed too much for day 9 so now pittsburgh gets its own whole post HAHAHA. 

day 9 - pittsburgh, pa

photo credit: julie yi photography

p i t t s b u r g h. 

what a weird day. we had the least amount of time in the city but it was definitely not short of action and adventure.

on friday june 8th, day 9, we slowly woke up in Q’s basement one by one. actually it was more like, all of WSA woke up one by one, jaime waking up in a crevice between the wall and the furnace LMAO, and destination dimension already being packed up and up and at ‘em before we could even wake up shindle fully.  it was hard to get ready because we didn’t have a full bathroom in the basement, just a toilet. joe was bugging about not having showered. at this point i was personally going on day three or four without a shower because i was just using baby wipes and dry shampoo. i’m gross and i didn’t care whether or not i got a full shower in every single day. 

this was also the day anthony bourdain died so i was not in a super cheery mood. it didn’t affect me fully but enough to feel a sad pit in my stomach. coverage surrounding his death played on TVs hanging inside the bridge stone diner in reading, OH where the tour package ate breakfast together. i ordered an omelette and vegetable soup (yeah idk i could not explain to you my train of thought there), noooot jersey diner food but not awful. just a cheap breakfast before the next drive. 

i volunteered to drive us to pittsburgh since santino was feeling wiped and i felt pretty alert. we listened to the new dance gavin dance as we drove through northern ohio and then western virginia. we arrived to pittsburgh about an hour before load-in. i hadn’t done my makeup and reeeeally needed to get ready, and wasn’t done by the time the pittsburgh local bands showed up for load-in. makeup in the van took me FOREVER even though the mirror was RIGHT THERE in front of me in the driver’s seat because i kept getting eyeliner in my FRICKIN eye and had to wipe the entire eyeball ZONE and do it ALL OVER AGAIN. 

we played with two bands- haven state, and then we’re gonna call the other band, led zepplin. 

led zepplin was a band that we were in contact for weeks leading up to the show. they told destination dimension a long time ago they were welcome to use their gear because they understood the touring band struggle. but a week before the gig i have the drummer hitting me up to ask if they can borrow our band’s gear. weird, but i didn’t second guess because he had also offered weeks prior to put us up for the night. figured, he’s doing us a huge solid. why wouldn’t we loan our gear? it was super nice of him, and we were excited to meet him and the rest of his band. 

so we show up to load in and led zepplin is there early to help us load in all of our gear (awesome!) and introduce themselves. they were friendly and helpful. the other band haven state also shows up to load-in, and somehow they and led zepplin got into some confusion about the line-up order. led zepplin thought they were going first, but they were going last after destination dimension. originally led zepplin were borrowing our gear, but now they were going to ask destination dimension, and then use santino’s WHOLE rig. 

photo credit: julie yi photography

haven state were so wonderful. i forget how we found them but they were a band i was easily excited to see play on this tour. i was shy at first because of the confusion going down over the line-up and i wondered if it was my fault LMAO, but i later learned it was all led zepplin apparently.

haven state’s sound can be explained like this- think the contortionist or northlane, but with just a singer and no screams. josie had such beautiful tone and then the band was playing some really cool poly-rhythmic stuff. we all bonded with them very quickly. santino bought one of their shirts and instantly threw it on haha. they said they were happy to meet us because it was nice for them to play with a similar band - one that borrows inspiration from heavy bands but doesn’t succumb to the pressure of adding screams to fit in with a certain sound. 

our set went pretty well, and we sold merch! i was very happy, i felt pretty good. i didn’t feel like it was a perfect set- i actually killed it on “willow” but ate shit on “sooner or later” LMAO, but everyone in the room was really receptive to our performance which was great. 

i find it weird that led zepplin is still downstairs for haven state and then during our set. they brought a lot of people, but they nor anyone they brought came upstairs at any point until right before they had to go on. hmm. whatever. after we played i ran down quickly to order beer and food so that i didn’t miss too much of destination dimension. i asked the bartender (who was from jersey! small world) what beers she had on tap that might be from pittsburgh and all she had to offer was this pineapple beer. it was a little too sweet for me, but i paid for it so i drank it! it also wasn’t bad i just don’t like sugary drinks haha. 

some biker guy came over to hit on me and it SUCKED. i should have told him i shidded and farded my pants but as always i chickened out and just said “okay thank you” until he went away. he was like, “i just wanted to let you know that you are absolutely STUNNING,,, and i think,,,,, all beautiful girls deserve to be told they are beautiful,,,,” he continues, “well i am going to go hang out with my FRIENDS over THERE --------> ;) ;) ;) now ;) so have a GOOD night” and then it was over finally!

i also let the santana jukebox meme die in pittsburgh. all these venues use touch tunes which i have the app installed for, and every single time the app would prompt me to reload credits even though i already wasted like $10 doing so each fucking time, which i thought would be enough for plays ALL OF TOUR but i guess not. i refused to waste any more money i was done haha. 

smiling moose had some delicious food. i got pierogies that came with a beer cheese dip and a garden salad. later on i ended up also ordering another beer, a sole artisian terp lord double IPA with honey that was INCREDIBLE. sooo good. that one might be my favorite all of tour.

during destination dimension’s set, i notice led zepplin finally came upstairs during their last 2-3 songs. but their heads were down looking at their phones the whole time. apparently the second that DD was done, they approached them shaking their hands and saying “awesome set dude! can we use all of your gear?”

literally all of it. the drummer only brought STICKS.

they also asked for a guitar. tony grabbed his second guitar from the DD van and the guitarist tuned it down. the guitarist that used santino’s rig broke his noise reduction pedal. both nights after, santino had to just ditch that pedal because it started causing signal issues. 

not all of us watched them. we were pretty pissed off and lamenting the fact we had to stay with these clowns. we were getting pretty bad vibes from them.

well, there was somewhat good news lmao.

after led zepplin plays, the drummer who was putting us up for the night disappears. his friends are still kind of hanging around as we are packing our gear and merch up. we had until 10 to get out of there because the side of the street we were parked on was only for the public until then. the drummer messages me on facebook saying “hey i had to run because of an emergency, but message me when you’re leaving”. so we start to formulate a game plan for food before settling in for the night. it’s like, 9:20ish at this point. santino really wants food (it was probably milk and cookies i dont remember lmao), and so we figure we’ll stop somewhere along the way. i’m about to ask the drummer for his address when i see DD talking to one of the guys from led zepplin. 

they seem to be asking the guy for the drummer’s number or contact but i hear him say something about not being able to access the internet or his data? he then turns to me and was like “well, i can give you his number...” and gives me the drummer’s number.

i queue up a text to the phone number and say, “hey! we were just about to head over, wanted to get your address before we left so that we could figure out a place to stop for food on the way.”

a few minutes pass. we’re all shooting the shit outside the venue kinda talking about how weird the night was. i remember clearly anthony, jeremy and jaime were standing in front of me when i finally got a response back. my mouth was agape before i started laughing:

“HEY! Fuck, we kind of had an emergency at our house, my roommate got robbed at gunpoint deliving pizza and hes not doing so well. He kinda freaked out on me when I told him I was having you guys stay. Im so sorry, I forgot to check with my roommates, theyre not gonna be down with anyone crashing here tonight, Im so fucking sorry. I'm gonna ask around for you guys tho, I feel absolutely terrible”

i turn to josef and santino and say, “pull up hotwire.com right now.”

photo credit: julie yi photography

the whole lot of us erupt in raucous yelling and disbelief hahaha. after not watching any of the bands and borrowing all of our gear, this WHOLE time, the dude had NOT ASKED HIS ROOMMATES IF THE TOUR COULD CRASH EVEN THOUGH HE WAS THE ONE WHO OFFERED US A PLACE TO STAY AND HAD BEEN TALKING TO US WEEKS LEADING UP TO THE SHOW.

the bit about his roommate being robbed at gunpoint, in my opinion, could be true. and was grounds to maybe not have us stay over last minute. maybe we were fucked either way. but it was the fact that he never asked his roommates, and he admitted that. this was someone who was also in a pretty popular touring band. how could he not have asked ahead of time if it was cool? he could have even omitted that part completely, and the fact that he didn’t makes the ‘robbed at gunpoint’ alibi questionable. 

chris takes out his phone and makes a phone call. by some divine miracle his friend jorge was awake, answered, and was able to house all 10 of us last minute. the only catch was that we had to drive out three hours to state college, PA - now. 

we ran across the street just in time before the nearby coffee shop closed and we got coffee for the drive. bizzarely enough, i felt so amped up and kind of excited at the prospect of a last-minute three hour drive that i volunteered to drive. the barista was not excited that we were coming in 15 minutes before closing, but after some chatting and some apologizing on my behalf because i apologize for everything lmao, it turns out he’s a huge springsteen fan and goes out to LBI in jersey every year for summer vacation. in that moment i felt so dumb for not having my friend bobby mahoney’s band cards because this guy needed to hear them, so i prayed he would remember his band off the weight of our coincidental meeting alone. 

i wanted to make this drive fun, so i played the first 90′s playlist on spotify that i could and we had our most fun drive all of tour. we stopped at sheetz on the way to pick up some alcohol about an hour in (PA u lucky jerks y’all got convenience stores with liquor), and then we were back on the road. after the playlist played for a bit, we took turns playing requests. we played everything from TLC, to destiny’s child, to aaron carter, to the pokemon: the movie soundtrack. we reveled in nostalgia like a bunch of LOSERS but it was so much fun and as a result the drive flew by. 

we arrived to jorge’s house in state college around 1:30 am. though a little worn out we drank beers and hung out for a couple hours before going to sleep. instantly several people queued up to shower lmao. 

i took this pic at like 2:15 am and sent it to my mom bc she love shandy

i felt like this happened for a reason haha. and i think we were actually much happier with this outcome, which was why we were blissfully having conversation and enjoying each other’s company. this was probably our third tour package sleepover in a row and neither band was getting sick of the other. by this point i think we also had started up our tour group chat too, someone lumped us together so that we could more easily communicate but most importantly share memes haha. 

it’s happy mishaps like this, these spontaneous adventures, that make tour so fulfilling. on tour, i escape from the draining monotony of my life and am liberated by solely having the obligation to wake up and gig every day. it’s such a freeing feeling. which is why the last stretch and coming home were so, so difficult.

oh, and the drummer never followed up to check if we found a place to stay.