[IC] BHHS: Limitless

[LovelyComplex]

_{@smarty0114 & @LovelyComplex
TIMESTAMP: Between 7 AM & 7:25 AM
Homeroom begins at 7:30AM
Some students, like the Morning Show & Jamie/Trixie
have hall passes//clearance to come in late}

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Monday 10/14 ✓
The Breakfast Club: PJ Day - Pancake Eating Competition

Tuesday 10/15 ✓
Dodgeball: Sports Attire Day- Student VS. Staff Dodgeball Game

Wednesday 10/16 ✓
Wild Wild West: Cowboy/Cowgirls Day - Field Day Activities

Thursday 10/17 ✓
Austin Powers: Hippie Day - Yoga & DIY Craft

→ Friday 10/18 ←
^{*Start of RP*}
Bring it On: Red & Black Day - Pep Rally, Homecoming Game

☆ Saturday 10/19 ☆
^{*The Green twins: Risky Business Party*}
Homecoming Dance: Hollywood

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BEVERLY HILLS - The first chill of fall. The first touchdown of the season. Crowning the king and queen. This is what homecoming is all about. For current students, homecoming is a time of rest where teachers usually put on a movie rather than worry about a lesson plan. For graduates, they’re revisiting old memories and reconnecting with old friends. Take a breather and enjoy this freedom while it lasts.

We’ve seen students explore themes from the Breakfast Club to the Wild Wild West. We’ve seen trendsetters use this time to exhibit their latest fashions. We’ve seen teachers get hit in the face by a ball or dunked in a tank. Wouldn’t you say that’s a good week? Today is the day we watch our annual homecoming game, where we invite our alma maters to celebrate the bond we all have with our school and see the Pirates make the Musketeers walk the plank.

But first! We will end our school day, yes leaving class early, to attend an assembly, where we are led to the gym by the Marching Pirates. Look forward to a performance from our cheerleaders where they will give us nothing but booty. Coach McCain has a speech prepared that will either make you cry or laugh so hard you piss your pants. Volunteers from each class, with the dancers and theater kids, have prepared an epic spectacle! I hear they’re assembling a group of heroes. Most importantly though, we will get to see the line up for this year’s fall sports teams. Cheer them on loudly so they can have enough tenacity and courage to go beyond their limits and WIN this season.

As for tomorrow, be prepared to walk the red carpet because —

Beatrix Kingsley was in the studio room reading the school paper, where The Morning Show was preparing to go live, when a small, clumsy strawberry blonde freshman tripped, spilling black coffee on her red tank and jacket. Coldly, she looked at the now stained paper and her soaked chest and forced a smile at the girl, who was a deer in the headlights. “Are you…”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” The girl squealed, not providing solutions. Instead she ran off to hide in the side room.

“...kidding me.” Trixie exasperatedly breathed.

___________________________________________________________________


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Bringing her attention to her best friend, Trixie complained, “Jamie, I take one sick day and this piece of crap gets approved? Where they give us nothing but booty. Laugh so hard you piss your pants. We’re lucky the teachers don’t read our shit or we wouldn’t have met the deadline,” Trixie tossed the ruined newspaper into the garbage and reached for a couple of napkins off a side counter. “Earth to Jamie, you hearing me?” She dabbed her chest, trying to clean the coffee at least off her skin.

Jamie Callaghan was not hearing her, at least not actively. His eyes were squinting down at his phone, where a picture of his ex-boyfriend stared back at him. It took another shout, this time louder and harder to miss, before he shook his head and met Trixie’s gaze. His brain tripped over itself as he processed her words, before the look of shock on his face melted into easy amusement.

“Yeah, I might've let the underclassmen take that one, and I pretty much just skimmed it. I thought the ‘booty’ line was kind of funny though.” Jamie winced, certainly not proud of blowing off his responsibilities, but definitely not ashamed. He didn’t tell her what he’d been doing instead, and he really didn’t need to. It was clear it involved the boy he’d been cyber stalking. Jamie gestured after the fleeing freshman, and asked, “You sure this doesn’t have more to do with the coffee that Bambi just spilled all over you?”

“That certainly doesn’t help,” Trixie grimaced, tossing the napkins away and sighing at her ruined outfit. Oh well. She had a spare top in her locker, she’d change soon enough. “There’s some background noise going on at home, I guess. Marcos might’ve gotten a girl knocked up which won’t look good on the family, at all. And my brothers are just annoying. I need a break, like an actual break, away from my family.” When the voices turned into a hush and they tested the mics, Trix knew it was time to leave. She gestured for Jamie to follow her out the room, “How ‘bout you? Anything new going on? You’ve… not been yourself lately.” There was a hint of worry in Trixie’s tone though she tried to mask it so Jamie didn’t deflect.

Jamie chewed his bottom lip for a moment, smirking ever so slightly. He did love a good secret, even if it was his own. “So, I know I said AJ and I were done for good last time. And we very much were. Well, now we…very much aren’t.” Jamie smiled, the kind of awkward smile that you can only manage when you’ve really taken a ride in the clown car. “It’s fun right now, and when it stops being fun, I’ll stop.”

Trixie observed her friend as he talked. She couldn’t necessarily relate to him, seeing how she was selective with who she dated and never felt the same passion Jamie had for AJ. Still, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Last year he had told her he needed to focus on himself and find direction, without the disappointment of AJ falling short or the self doubt he carried in himself. Time and time again she found him opening his phone and staring at his ex. Was he really ready to let him go? Why did he keep going back?

“It’s fun until someone gets hurt,” Trixie corrected, crossing her arms as they walked further and further away from the school studio. “Be careful, Jay. I know you like the company, and the cuddles, but like… what was the point of breaking up with him if you don’t want to let go? I don’t know. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. You're... playing a dangerous game, babe.”

Jamie smiled and slung his arm around Trixie. She was probably right to worry about him. He and AJ had a tendency to take things to extremes when they were together, and the highest of highs were usually followed by the lowest of lows. Whether Jamie refused to see that, or just didn’t care, it didn’t really matter. When AJ Motherfucking Tyler got involved, Jamie wasn’t exactly reasonable. “It’s sweet that you care, Trix, but I am fine. Honestly, without all the pressure of the relationship, I don’t know, it’s just better this time around.” Jamie had grown very adept at lying to himself. “We can dissect my questionable choices literally any other time, what is the plan for homecoming? I will lay down on the 405 if I have to third wheel with Scott and Katie, I’m dead serious.”

Before Trixie could answer, Ethan Green, the leader of the Elite, was coming out of the bathroom with a brunette girl from the junior year, who was quick to rush away. She hid her face with her sweater as she did so. When the ‘king’ of the school noticed the dynamic newsie duo, he couldn’t help but grin. “Heyoooo Jamie, Trixie…” he greeted, as his gaze trailed down to her chest briefly, getting distracted.

“Hey. Eyes up here, asshole,” Trixie grumpily hissed.

“Yeah... my b. Did you know your nipples are showing?” Ethan chuckled, amused at how feisty Trixie was getting. Too bad she’d never give him the time of day. Trixie was extremely clear with her standards and expectations, similar to Naomi, the Queen Bee of the school. Some girls were more firm with what they wanted than others and Ethan was far too lazy to chase those kind of girls. Neither of them were interesting enough for him to play the chasing game anyways.

The editor-in-chief clicked her tongue in response, tightening her arms around her boobs. She glared and waited expectantly, obviously in quite a sour mood.

“Anyways, I’m throwing a party tomorrow, after the dance. It’s going to be lit. I’m thinking after they announce the king and queen, everyone head to the parking lot and we ride.”

“... where is this party going to be held exactly?” Trixie curtly inquired. Part of her was intrigued and the other part of her wanted this conversation to hurry up so she could change.

“My family’s vineyard, so like, plan an overnight bag! It’s going to be fun. Promise,” Ethan charmingly smiled and ran his hand through his hair, smooth and handsome. All things he knew he was. “And now that I’ve told you two. Please spread the word. Let our whole year know. You’re good at that.” Ethan clasped his hands together and sweetly pouted at his two peers. “Please,” he playfully begged. “It would be so awesome if you two did this for me and my bro."

“We are good at that, aren’t we?” Jamie smiled, and rolled his eyes at Ethan’s plea. He looked over at Trixie, and back at the jock, as if they needed to clear their schedules. “We can arrange that, as long as you get us our own room. We’re not bunking with the randos that find their way on the bus.” Jamie’s phone buzzed and his voice fell off as he slipped it from his pocket, a message from AJ front and center on his lock screen.

From: AJ Motherfucking Tyler
Here. I'll be at our usual spot... I got you breakfast.

Jamie smirked, and looked back at Ethan and Trixie. “I’m going to run, but I will tell my sources about your party, and I’ll see you,” Jamie pointed at Trixie, “at the rally, please, pleasepleaseplease save me a seat.” Jamie spun on his heel and made his way down the hall, practically skipping away. What was that thing they always said about the road to hell? Paved with good intentions, and all that jazz.

"Wait!" Ethan called out as Jamie sped walk down the hall like a bat out of hell. "The theme is: Risky Business!" Damn. He was gone. At least Trixie was here to make sure her partner-in-crime was on the same page as her. "Sheesh, where the hell is he running off to?"

"Disaster. Now! Risky Business, you say. Like the Tom Cruise movie?" Trixie asked, verifying her information so she wasn't spreading false information but also, that film was old and some of their peers may have never watched it. She didn't know if there were any other Risky Business items out there but she needed to make sure that her peers didn't make a fool of themselves unintentionally, especially not to the top dog of the school who was a film dweeb (even if he tried to play it cool).

"Exactly that," Ethan smirked as his gaze sparked with excitement. Truth be told, the theme for this week was entirely his doing. It was his last year so he wanted to make the last of everything count. Why not share his love for movies with his peers? "Since everyone is going to bring an overnight bag, they can change in the bathroom, on the bus... or at the vineyard, into one of the character's looks. It's gonna' be golden, baby."

Trixie glowered at the jock's words, "Don't call me baby but okay. Message heard. Send me the address just in case and we'll see what we can do."

"You got it, gurl. You two are literally the best. Life savers, honestly."

"Or you're just lazy and coming to us to alleviate stress," Trixie got to her locker and turned away from the Elite leader to focus on her combination.

"Alleviate stress you say..." Ethan impishly grinned, gently mocking Trixie a little, while he inched closer to see if the Gossip girl would bite.

"You can go now, Ethan Green. Don't you have a girlfriend to see?"

"Ah, yes. I guess boyfriend duties do call but I should probably check on my brother first," Ethan rolled his eyes in response to the wall Trixie put up and glanced at his phone to several texts. Some from his parents only causing him to give an exasperated sigh. No matter. He had to focus in on the day. Bringing his attention back to the beautiful girl, he added, "I'm surprised you're still, you know, available. Even with a wet top, you're—"

"Goodbye, Ethan."

He smiled at her response before dismissing himself, "See ya, Beatrix." He walked away and gave a one arm wave, heading to his next destination, "Thanks for helping a lazy boy out."

[Aces Away]

_{TIMESTAMP: Immediately following Risky Business
The Morning Show Studio, School Media Wing
Introducing ⅔ of the Hosts of the Morning Show
Sullivan “Sully” Harper and Gavriel “Rye” Shomer}

Standing at the refreshment table, stirring the disgusting amount of sugar Rye required into the boy’s coffee cup, Sully couldn’t help but wonder if he really was invisible sometimes or if Jamie and Trixie just thought they were exempt from being overheard by those around them. Even someone that simply floats through the day to day like himself knows that if you want to keep things a secret, don’t speak a word of it near the Media wing. He finished making Rye’s coffee and moved on to DJ’s, adding her one sugar and three cream- much more reasonable- wondering how long it would be before things got extremely tense in the Studio. Shaking his head, Sully pulled the bill of his hat down more and made his way to the side room with coffee for him and his fellow co-hosts balanced in his hands, a donut on top of the third cup for the poor Freshman that accidentally dumped the coffee all over Trixie.

When he entered the side room, Rye had the sobbing girl sitting in the desk chair and was cracking jokes at her in an attempt to calm her down, but the tears and whimpering continued. Despite his comforting hand on her shoulder and his lighthearted tone, the look in his eyes when he caught Sully’s screamed ’help me’, and all Sully could do was raise an eyebrow under his cap and stare back, the two only children stuck in a silent conversation. With a resigned sigh after a moment of intense quiet, the streamer set his cargo down on the table and walked over with the donut to crouch next to Rye’s position, in front of the crying Freshman. He pat her head lightly with one hand and when she looked up in confusion, he thrust the donut into her hands.

“I’m not a great comforter, here, it’s hard to cry when you’re eatin’ and these donuts are delicious,” He spoke up honestly, tousling her hair in approval when she hiccupped and took a small bite while Rye stared at him incredulously from where he was leaning against the side of the desk. How the boy crouched beside him was so socially detached while having enough people following him on the internet that the stream-team scooped him up as soon as he arrived, Rye will never know. He himself liked to switch up the way that he acted a bit depending on who he was around, but the stark difference in Sully minutes before the camera is on him versus the second that the on air sign lights up is still a bit mind-boggling even in their fourth year of work together.

The final warning was called through the door, meaning asses in seats in five minutes or you were benched and one of the other co-hosts had to adapt and take over your lines. The girl jumped at the assistant’s voice before looking at her two upperclassmen with teary eyes. Sully, who hadn’t taken his comforting hand off of the girl’s head yet, gave her a warm smile and a final assuring pat as he stood up from his crouch, his whole demeanor becoming warmer with the look. The girl blushed when Sully’s back was turned, the boy oblivious to it and now a bit tired by the interaction, searching for the coffee he’d set down earlier. He grabbed the cup and began chugging its contents as if he hadn’t abruptly exited the situation, and Rye once again found himself in charge of dealing with the girl who would surely be embarrassed if Sully turned around and saw her face now.

“Okay, hun, take a trip to the bathroom and splash some cold water on your face, it’s showtime in five and we need the skills of everyone in the crew,” he prompted with an enthusiastic clap and leading tilt of the head, giving her her opening to scurry out, which she took without hesitation. His attention turned back to Sully and he suppressed a sigh when he saw the other boy had finished chugging his cup of coffee and was staring forlornly at his empty cup. “If you drink mine or DJ’s you will face death.”

Sully pulled a face at Rye after glaring at the other two cups. “Nah, y’all take way too much shit in yours,” He countered, causing the curly haired boy to stutter his indignation. “Don’t argue, you’re lucky that I even make yours specifically with the heinous amounts of sugar you use.”

“Deej uses three creams how the hell is that too sweet.”

“And a sugar. All you need is a splash of cream.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I’m right.”

“Hey guys I’m not trying to be a dick here but-” The Sophomore assistant that had called out the final warning burst through the door, looking a bit frantic.

“Three minutes.” They answered in unison while turning to him with raised eyebrows, motions completely in sync after years of working and hanging out side by side.

“We’re comin’.” Sully assured, and the boy disappeared again, looking like the interaction took something precious from him. Rye made to follow the underclassman’s exit and in a split moment Sully acted on impulse, hand reaching out to grasp his wrist before he got any further. Rye turned to him in confusion.

“Sully, damn, buy me some dinner first,” He spoke up without hesitation, falling back to flirting to cover up his surprise at the initiated contact from the other boy. “At least some coffee and conversation-”

“This thing with AJ,” He cut the smaller boy off, letting his wrist drop and bringing his hands up to shift his hat around on his head and pick at the frayed brim. Rye’s mock flirtatious smile faltered and his eyes flashed to the door of the office, which had thankfully closed again behind the Sophomore. “You think it’s safe not to tell Jamie?”

“What? Why would we? None of us are dating,” Rye asked, looking at Sully like he’d grown a second head. “What the hell prompted this, dude?”

Sully found himself frowning in…frustration? Maybe disappointment, he was unsure. The feeling was already slipping away from him and they didn’t have any time for him to try and chase it, so he let it go with a deep breath and a short blink.

“It doesn’t matter, man, I just…like, none of you should be gettin’ hurt over somethin’ like that,” He struggled, unwilling to speak on anything he’d overheard and risk spreading gossip but also feeling a deep seated worry over the whole situation that he couldn’t quite explain. “Just be careful.”

“Hurt? Sulls, what the fuck?” Rye asked with a confused laugh, still worried his co-host was losing it but also starting to feel a bit of anxiety over the whole thing himself. Sully wasn’t the type to just bring shit up out of nowhere, especially about other people’s relationship dynamics. His fingers began to tap a rapid staccato against his thigh in a bid to rid himself of the sudden nervous energy. “No one is going to get hurt. We aren’t together, we’re just having a little fun, that’s not illegal. Why do I owe Jamie any sort of information about my sex life?”

Sully tilted his head, still frowning at the other boy, but before he could say anything else he saw Mr. Wells on the other side of the door, tapping his watch at them both.

“Shit. One minute, let’s go,” He said instead, already letting go of the conversation with no intention to ever return to it. He reached over to grab DJ’s coffee and hustled past a frozen and reeling Rye, out of the room and into his seat with forty five seconds to spare. He handed their co-host her coffee and watched as Rye slowly made his way into his seat with his own coffee cup partially crumpled in his grasp. They greeted DJ properly with ten seconds to spare and then they all settled with their sheets as the countdown began. There was no time for frowns or confusion now.

It was showtime.

[Fabricant451]

_{6:45 A.M.
Friday, October 8
Hand Covers Bruise}

After the man in the McDonald’s window handed her the familiar bag with the red and yellow logos, Danielle Jones sped away as quickly as a garish yellow Vespa Super Sport could allow. Inside the bag was life and life was getting too expensive for its own good. At this time of morning, when the sun had barely poked its radiant arms into the eyes of a population too bothered to lower the sun visor, everything was still. The roads were hardly ever empty but there were far fewer cars on the road at this time. The ones coming home from a late night shift, the ones heading to their morning shifts, united in spirit and wearing a wardrobe of baggy eyes and exaggerated yawns. Danielle Jones turned out of the McDonald’s and onto the open road, Italian-made engine sputtering along; In the oncoming lane, a bushy headed man of middle age does a double take as the Vespa breezes past. He rubs his eyes. The Vespa is in the rearview, its driver unconcerned.

The breeze whips a gentle lash on Dani’s face, a bagel sandwich with folded egg and sausage barely fit for a dog held between gritted teeth, careful not to take too hard a bite lest the sandwich meet the road. The open air and the lack of protection on the eyes or head give Dani the appearance of a child sticking their open mouth near a fan blowing on its highest setting. Her eyes drip water and her milk chocolate hair blows behind her like it's trying to escape. Dani’s mothers always told her and her sisters to wear protection- they had to clarify they didn’t mean a condom in this case when it came to Addie - but Dani never did. No one has ever looked good in a helmet as they zoomed down the road on a motorcar and Dani wasn’t about to try and go against centuries of documented evidence. The breeze died down as the light ahead drifted to red and for the first time since leaving the golden arches, Dani tasted life. Greasy, overcooked, delicious, beautiful life.

At the stop light, Dani looked around. No pedestrians walking the sidewalk. No other cars around the intersection, the first ray of dawn painting the street in warm tones and she’d never known such loneliness. It brought a smile to her lips. At home, she had a zoo to deal with. Her moms - that had been less difficult to get used to than she thought - had a tendency to buy affection and her sister JJ took advantage enough to have more rodents running around the house than a New York street. Her sister PJ wasn’t a fan and her sister Addie…well, the sounds of silence cut with the percussion of her Vespa engine was much better aurally than whatever salacious sound made up her alarm. Noise was all over her house and while she contributed her fair share - at least half of the PJ rodent screams were because Dani ‘accidentally’ left Big Cheese’s cage open and the mouse crawled into PJ’s bed overnight - she still enjoyed the silence. It hadn’t always been like that. Silence used to destroy her. When she first moved into her current household, after the funeral, she couldn’t sleep without crying and she only cried because being alone in her thoughts, in the quiet of a bedroom, would only make her remember her mother. Her sisters helped. More than they knew. More than she told.

The light turned green but Dani hadn’t even realized until it was turning yellow again and she was zooming on her way. Her breakfast sandwich was a pile of mush in her stomach that would churn into a pile of regret by lunch period. It wasn’t everyday that Dani was so early on the road, but it wasn’t every day that Dani got to be on camera.

Dani turned into the student parking lot as the clock struck close to seven. Her ankle boots stepped onto the asphalt as she shut the engine off and took her first breath of the day. In the corner of her ear she heard the unmistakable call of a raspy ‘Fuck’ and the sound of polyurethane rolling along the ground. For someone who seemed to hate going to school, Dani couldn’t help but to wonder why that girl was here so often. She didn’t acknowledge Everly with anything other than a brief glance in her direction, which was met with a tilt of the head and a kickflip, as if the skater was trying to say ‘look what I can do’ the way a child did when they learned something that was only impressive to an undeveloped mind. Dani didn’t dislike Everly, they’d even worked together and Dani filmed Everly doing tricks, but even Spike Jonze had to move on from shooting music videos and skateboard demos.

Her backpack, inside which was her Lumix camera, was hoisted out of the storage box under her Vespa seat. The long walk to the media wing and Morning Show studio was familiar at this point. After three, soon to be four, years of this place, everything had sort of become routine. Same hallways. Same people. Same sights. Same sounds. Same couples breaking up, fucking up, fucking, and getting back together only to repeat the process because in high school everyone thought with their bodies, not their minds. Dani was no different, other than not having a couple to do the cycle with. Maybe that’s why she turned her head away from the couple on the lawn holding hands before the bell rang. Or maybe she just didn’t want to see them try to eat each other’s faces and call it making out.

The routine was death. She’d read stories how adults with jobs sometimes still woke up in a cold sweat thinking they had homework they forgot to do or a test they didn’t study for and she could believe it. By sophomore year, high school stops feeling like anything other than a four year Stanford prison experiment. There was no greater psychological torture than having to endure math class and being told how important the pythagorean theorem was. A Squared plus B Squared equals Fuck Off. Maybe that's why she did what she did last year. Boredom. An attempt to make every day not feel the same. The Toad Sings prank raised her social stock in school, an unfortunate side effect as she had spent so much time being the silent hero of the Morning Show. The woman behind the camera who made others look good. Directors won awards, sure, but people remembered actors more. That was her place and she was good at it. But even the best directors liked to appear in their own works from time to time.

Her booted feet carried her up the stairs but it was her own tempered excitement that had her practically taking them two at a time. That excitement lasted until she arrived on the floor and saw Jamie - or rather the back of him - rush past and then, a bit further down the hall and engaged in conversation she didn’t want to overhear, were Trixie and Ethan. As Dani continued towards the studio, not giving either the time of day, she couldn’t help but to shake her head.


_{In Motion}

Ethan Green is a fuckboy. I don’t say, or think, that lightly, i think that because it’s true and no one wants to admit it. All the Greens or Greenlocks or whoever are different flavors of fuck from boy to head but anyone who rolls around in a group calling themselves The Elite is in dire need of a reality check.

In case you didn’t know who it is guys like Ethan Green represent, his aunt owns the Seattle Mariners. The baseball team. Because Hailey’s wife wanted season tickets. That’s what people like that do. They remind the world that they have enough money to spit on the little guy and throw him fifty bucks for dry cleaning and act like they’re doing the world a favor.

I mean sure, it’s only baseball and no one watches baseball anymore other than balding, fat dudes in their twenties by way of looking like they’re forty, but it’s the principle of the matter. Kids at this school have a family member who owns a baseball team. Before you start getting it twisted, I’m not jealous. I don’t exactly come from a poor family, but the difference is I carry twenty bucks on me at any given time and people like Ethan Green think a black card gives them the authority to walk around like they’re Zeus.

Well, I mean Ethan Green would probably fuck a swan so I guess there’s truth to that.

I’d sooner subject myself to listening to Himani Chakrabarti for five minutes than spend two in a bathroom with Ethan Green. At least Himani is humble.

Leaving the discussion between Ethan and Trixie in the rear, Dani entered the studio, said good morning to absolutely no one, and placed her bag on an empty seat at a table that had refreshments - stale danish and all - for the crew to enjoy before and after a show. Her co-hosts in crime, Rye and Sully, were having a conversation that seemed almost as heated as the one she passed by in the hall. By her watch, she had minutes to spare, more the fault hers for stopping by McDonald’s rather than eat a donut and run the risk of getting chocolate over her denim jacket.

Rye and Sully are fuckboys too but they’re different from Ethan. Sully doesn’t seem to know that most girls would find a guy like that to be as irresistible as a piece of decadent chocolate cake. A mama’s boy with a body and good with his hands? Powerful weapon in the right hands, we’re all just lucky he’d prefer those hands squeezing a joystick rather than a pair of tits. Rye is a fireman in training or something and everyone knows how people feel about firemen. Well, the ones without beer bellies or porn haircuts anyway. He probably gets around as much as Ethan but I’ve never asked and he’s had the good sense not to boast about it in the studio.

The difference between them and Ethan Green is Rye and Sully have personality beyond whatever it takes to put their dick in something. Maybe I’m biased because Sully brings me coffee sometimes, but Rye and Sully don’t make my skin crawl. Maybe in another life I’d have gotten to know them better than I have but until last year I don’t think anyone knew me as anything other than a camera girl so the road goes both ways.

I don’t want to impose on their conversation, but if I did, I’d probably say that I don’t care who’s having sex with who - other than me having sex with no one which sucks - but that if it ruins the chemistry at the Morning Show then I’ll personally collect their heads and make a necklace from them.

And I don’t mean the ones on their neck. Obviously. That’d be too big for a necklace.

The call for three minutes left came just as Dani closed her compact mirror. What counted as hair and makeup was essentially ‘on your own’ and Dani had to run her hand through her hair to make it less…frizzy from the drive in. Her mothers might have had a point about protection but that didn’t mean she had to follow it.

At the two minute mark, Dani made her way towards the desk and took her seat, immediately propping her feet up on the counter like she was at home. In a way, she was. Her eyes glanced over the copy handed to her and she parsed absolutely none of it. If they expected Dani Jones to go by the script, then they hadn’t known her at all. Half the fun of the Morning Show was trying to get the others to break.

“You know, three creams is a delicacy in some parts of the world.” Dani said to Sully as he handed her her cup of coffee. “Like in….Turkmenistan. You owe an apology to the Turkmen peoples, Sully. I’ll accept it on their behalf. They take credit, debit, or cash.”

The one minute warning had sounded thirty seconds ago and the sign to outsiders that they were going live was lit up. Quiet on the set, the whole spiel. Mr. Wells pointed to Dani. Dani waved back. Mr. Wells sighed. Dani waited until there were five seconds left and they were being counted in before she took her feet off the desk.

She was, after all, a professional.

[BrutalBx]

_{TIMESTAMP: Right after Risky Business
@BrutalBx & @LovelyComplex
TRIGGER WARNING -
Sexual harassment, Invasion of privacy}

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It had become a ritual;

To watch her.

Theo hadn’t realised it until recently but it was a ritual that he had been doing all his life. As far back as he could remember he would wake up in the morning for the rise of the sun, ready for the intense physical training with his father, legendary basketball player, “KVC” himself Kip Van Cise. He would wake up, go immediately for a run and then lift weights in the garage until it was time to get ready for school. Then, as he ascended the outside stairs that led to the upper floor, Theo would look to the raised window behind him and she would be there.

Trixie would be in that room, across the small patch of perfectly manicured emerald grass and the white picket fence that separated their homes and she would be there standing like a vision of the goddess. And he would watch. He would see her flick her hair back; choose her armour for the day's coming battle, apply her warpaint and get into the character of Trixie Kingsley. Bea, as he knew her.

It was a ritual.

The drive to Beverly Hills High in his classic 1969 Chevy Stingray felt longer than it normally did. Maybe it was the air of trepidation acting like a fog around him that Theo couldn’t cut through. His breakup pre-summer was big news, of course it was, he was the Franchise. Yet it didn’t feel like it was that. No, something else was weighing on his broad shoulders. It could’ve been that Bronwyn had gotten more annoying and was so excited for her junior year. Theo loved his little sister dearly but she just could not stop talking; that might be part of it. The reality was that he had deemed his senior year, his year. Theo was going to take what he wanted and give nothing back and there was something that he had had his eye on, something he had been wanting for a while and absolutely nothing was gonna stop him.

“Love you! Have a great day!”

Bronwyn was an angel on Earth, a pearly white smile and eyes like diamonds which she stole from their father the day she was born. Theo looked like his Mom. She was naive to the world in which they grew up, protected by a light that their mother shone onto her. He was not, he saw everything for what it was; an opportunity, an army of the damned souls who didn’t know that they were already dead.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Theo waved back with a smile for his sister before he climbed out of the driver's seat and locked up his vehicle. He had kept the same parking spot since he got his car. It was a prime location, perfect to people watch, to learn and soak in all the new information and gossip that he would no doubt use to continue his reign over the deluded Nepo babies that he was surrounded with. In the distance, he could see the unmistakable flaming red hair of his cousin Tallulah and her twin Alexandria; the Strattons. No doubt the two were up to some mischief. Unlike him, they wore what they did on their sleeves. One day it would bite them in their asses and as much as he enjoyed their company, he couldn’t wait to see it happen.

As he entered the school and walked the hallways of his empire, Theo’s dark eyes caught sight of Trixie rushing into a disabled bathroom with a drawstring bag that she had pulled from her nearby locker. Now that was interesting. She was moving very fast, in a rush into a room she had no business being in. What pray tell was she doing? Well now he had to know, time was there to be killed after all? Theo stepped through the crowd, shaking the hands and patting the shoulders of his adoring public until enough of their time was wasted on him and their focus redirected onto the next athlete or popular kid that followed behind. With their glares elsewhere, the redhead slipped down the side hall and followed Trixie into the bathroom.

He made a point of slamming the door behind him, a smirk curling across his round face as he locked eyes with a bare chested Trixie. “Well well, what do we have here? My Bea caught doing something she shouldn’t be?”

Involuntarily, goosebumps made their presence known on her skin. Trixie would curse under her breath for rushing to change and forgetting to lock the door but she was caught off guard. She didn’t even think she’d be here long since all she was going to do was put a black halter top on and a comfortable sweater. Instead she held her shirt close to her chest and turned to face away from her ex. The anxiety that was now residing in the pit of her stomach caused her heart to race. She couldn’t think straight but the last thing she should do was show a sign of weakness.

Woefully unprepared, Trixie tried to steady her breathing. They hadn’t been this close in years. The only time they were in close proximity was when they had to be because of class or walking past one another in the halls. She had no idea what motivated him to do this and quite frankly, she was not going to stand for it. This was not proper for a gentleman, a boy, or a person in general. Get it together, Trix. Don’t let him have the upperhand. Rushing to put her top on, she hissed, “What the fuck are you doing in here, Teddy?” Once her chest was covered she turned to face him, harshly. “Did your mom not teach you common sense?”

“We both know that neither of us are common.” Theo could see the residual bumps on her arms from when he entered. This was Beverly Hills, the cold didn’t exist here. Those goosebumps were for him, they always were. No matter what they would always be connected to one another, they had been all their lives. “We’re Elite. We’re superior stock.” His dark hazelnut eyes softly looked over her body, he couldn’t help but think of the image that she had just hidden from him. “We’re thoroughbreds.” Taking a step deeper into the room, Theo allowed his bag to fall to the floor before placing his hands into the front pockets of his dark jeans. “Which begs the question, why you, Trixie Kingsley, would allow for something like that to happen?” He pointed with his gaze to the dirty top she had dropped onto the floor. “How could you even let them get that close?”

Theo leaned back against the door, his broad muscular frame blocking it almost in its entirety. Some would consider him pound for pound the strong boy at BHHS, there was a reason TVC was the highest touted linebacker in the country. He was built like an army tank with a Ferrari engine. “I say this because I love you Bea but I think you might be losing your touch. They’re not scared of you anymore.”

Her lips pursed and her eyebrows furrowed the more he talked and invited himself in her space, like he was entitled to it. Standing her ground, not stepping back, even if she wanted to, Trixie coldly stared at her boy next door, getting increasingly angrier by the second. The more he talked, the more annoyed she got. Yet, behind that icy gaze, behind those beautiful, brown eyes of comforting childhood memories, there was hurt and fear of being vulnerable. There was confusion and bewilderment. There was love. Staying levelled, trying her best to not show her conflicted emotions, she admitted, “I don’t want them to be scared of me. That was never my intention, and you know that.”

Her mission was and always will be to continue her parents’ legacy and make sure Beverly Hills High had an environment that not only challenged herself and her peers but catered to everyone’s potential. She simply added her own twist to it. Be informed. Stay informed. Information was power. She wanted to be inspirational, not scary. Relatable, not out of touch. Resourceful, not vindictive. The only reason why she dived deep into journalism was because she liked knowing things, which avoided backdoor conversations, and she liked to keep her peers in the know so those like The Elite and the Hive Five couldn’t use information against them. Gossip and news go hand in hand. Today's gossip is tomorrow’s headline and she wanted to be the one with the story. Trixie swore to do her due diligence to not misinform her classmates and if she could, she’d be a shield, in her own way.

Jamie, however, was a bit more underhanded and perhaps she did let him get away with more than she probably should. The podcast didn’t help. It was their place to dive into their articles or share things they didn’t write about and she wasn’t going to lie… when she was with Jamie, she couldn’t help but be a little catty. That’s just how they’ve always been together but when she wrote, she came from a genuine and authentic place. She wasn’t here to ruin anyone. Her articles made her look good on paper and ultimately reached someone that would be grateful for the intel. Gossip was a tool to distract people from themselves, nothing more nothing less, and she wanted to be the one in the driving seat, steering that asset in the right direction.

Truth be told, Trixie didn’t know why she was even entertaining a conversation with her ex in the handicap bathroom but he cornered her like a predator corners his prey. The only way out was forward and right now he was barricading the door with his muscular physique. “Is this all you wanted? To tease me and say I’ve lost my touch?” She began to worry. Not because of the close proximity she was with Teddy but because of the rumours that could spiral if they were caught exiting the bathroom together. She thought she made herself clear. They both were not right for each other and they were kids when they decided to date. They should focus on themselves, getting themselves right and leaving any feelings they had for one another in the past. They had their careers to worry about. Not each other. As she hugged herself, she tightened her hold. She wanted to ask him: what do you want? But instead, she mumbled under her breath, “I love you too, Teddy…” Breaking eye contact with Theo, she waited for all this to be over so she could get to homeroom and forget how awful her morning was and continues to be.

“Come now, Bea…” Theo took another step into the room, his hands leaving his pockets as he did and placing them firmly onto Trixie’s shuddering arms. “You’re not scared of me, are you?” He asked rhetorically, knowing full well the answer. Everyone was scared of him, as they had every right to be. We’re told as children that monsters don’t exist and that much is true but what we’re not told is that people can be far worse than the things that go bump in the night. “You know teasing is my love language.” His fingers danced tenderly over the skin, feeling her warmth enter through their tips and directly into his body like a concentrated hit of a strong narcotic immediately into his bloodstream.

Their love, if you could even call it that, was barely a flash in the pan. Nine months of what Theo considered bliss. Then again he didn’t have much to compare it to at the time. All he had ever truly known was pressure, so much pressure. Trixie was meant to be the escape from that, she was supposed to be his emergency exit from the hell from which he was birthed and lived in every day. He remembered when his mother would smile and giggle when she would watch the two of them play house as children. The expectation that they would be together was not lost on him but that didn’t bother Theo too much because as far as he was concerned his feelings for Bea were real. At least until she tore out his heart and shredded it with her heel.

He smiled softly, sweetly even. Theo Van Cise’s blood ran colder than the snows of an Alaskan tundra but his face disarmed all that bore witness to him. He was pretty, round cheeked and did not possess a harsh face that would reflect the beast that had grown inside the pit of his stomach. “I just wanted to tell you that you looked beautiful today.” He took a piece of her dark hair between his fingertips and held it aloft between their faces. “I mean you always do, you know that, I don’t have to tell you.”

A gesture like this used to cloud her senses and make her melt. A gesture like this, and his gentle, musky scent, used to bring her to attention. A gesture like this used to get her to giggle in embarrassment and turn into a blushing bride. Things were different now and the somersaults happening inside of her was not because of innocent butterflies but out of anxiety and concern. Her dad taught her about the 333, to pull her out of this state. She was a lover, yes, but she was also a fighter. The 333. Name three things you see, three things you hear, and three parts of your body.

What did she see?

Theodore’s eyes. His hand that played with her hair. His smirk. That malicious smirk that pretended to be soft and kind. Theodore was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

What did she hear?

His breathing. Her breathing. The muttered noises outside the bathroom of their peers rushing to homeroom. She wasn’t alone with him, not really. Just out that door, there were people and if she wanted to, she could scream. She could make her location known. She could get away.

And three parts of her body?

Her hands.

Beatrix found herself letting go, no longer crossing her arms, and gently grabbing his hand, placing it on her cheek. She looked at him with empathy and regret. She still cared about him. That would never change.

Her chest.

Flirtatiously, she fluttered her eyelashes and made prolonged eye contact. Inching closer, Trixie gave him a nice view of her petite form. A body he used to embrace often. A body he wished he tasted. A body that wasn’t his. He had an even better view of her cleavage. She wanted him to. With her new top, there was plenty for him to see. With her face inches away from his, he could see her lips. Those lips he used to kiss.

“I like when you tell me things like that,” she whispered, using her femininity to her advantage. She might be a good girl but if she really wanted to, she could be bad… She was Beatrix Kingsley. She knew her worth.

Her knee.

In quick fashion, Trixie forcibly brought her knee to his groin, making sure she aimed right for the balls. With the fight response activated, she shoved her ex out of the way and decided her backpack and her dirty clothes were not as important as her safety. Operating under the impression that if she allowed their time together to last any longer, he would hurt her, she cursed, “Next time you do this shit, I’m getting a restraining order, asshole!” And she left the bathroom, leaving Theo to think about his actions. She didn’t stop until she found herself under the stairs by the back entrance, a place where kids smoked. When she noticed no one there, she dropped to the floor and observed her shaking hands. She wanted to cry. What the fuck is wrong with him? The Theo she knew would never do something like that, but that was the thing, wasn’t it?

He wasn’t the Theo she knew.

Teddy was dead. He was the Franchise. And that was entirely her fault.

“Fuck me…” she muttered, finding stability against the wall. She hugged her knees and buried her face, letting the fear pass her by. She needed to get her shit together. The last thing she wanted was someone to spread fake news or worse, tell people she was weak. Trixie wasn’t weak. She was a bad bitch and she was going to keep it that way. But first, she needed to compose herself so she can smile and act like what just happened, didn’t. Everything was going to be okay. She was okay.

She was okay.

Theo knelt on the floor in agony but he was smiling, by God he was smiling. This was her chance, he wanted to give it to her out of the goodness of his heart. She could’ve saved it all if she had just let herself feel what she wanted to feel but typical Bea, stubborn to the last. Now everything was going to burn and it was all her fault. Pulling himself back up to his feet using the nearby sink, Theo’s eyes shifted to the pile of clothes and the bag she had left behind. They were the perfect representation of what had occurred to his Bea. She had shed her skin and transformed, though through her chrysalis she had not become a butterfly. No, she had become something else entirely.

She was one of them.

As his grip on the sink tightened, Theo could feel it begin to peel away from the wall. If he wanted to he could rip it straight out and throw it around as if it was nothing, it was within his power to do so. Yet he chose not to. Appearances, as they say, were everything and he was the Franchise. It was time to put his game face on. Gathering himself with a deep breath, Theo picked up his own bag and slung it back over his shoulder before grabbing Trixie’s things and bundling them up together. He exited the bathroom and grabbed a freshman by the shoulder. “Hey, get these cleaned up and make sure they get to Trixie Kingsley, ok?” He pushed the items into the pizza faced lads hand and pulled him an inch closer. “If you don’t, I’m gonna break your jaw. Run along, get out of here. Shooo.”

Pushing the child away, Theo surveyed the chaos around him. He gave her a chance; now someone else would have to deal with it, with him. And he had the perfect person in mind.

He couldn’t wait for Homeroom.

[smarty0114]

_{@smarty0114 & @Hey Im Jordan
TIMESTAMP: Between 7 AM & 7:30 AM
The local Quick Quack -> BHHS Parking Lot}

---

---

It was a Friday. Everyone knew what that meant. It was the day! The day was today, and today was the day. A day of a time honored tradition, spanning back to the very Friday Nicky Snyder had decided to anoint Dylan Hearst his one and only passenger princess. There was something special about their bond - they weren’t quite dating, but their bromance certainly transcended the regular friendships their peers had. For their whole lives, they had been homies, besties bound by the eternal flame of the never ending grind to ascend the ladder.

It sounded dramatic, but it was how Nicky would have said it if anyone ever asked him, not that they ever did. Nicky and Dylan may have been lightyears apart in skill, but that didn’t change the fact they were two peas in a pod. The most dynamic duo in the history of dynamic duos - it was a common joke in their own friend group that everyone needed a girl who looked at them like Dylan looked at Nicky.

They were best friends! That was why Nicky didn’t care that Dylan didn’t drive. It wasn’t that big of a deal to be someone’s personal Uber driver when they had basically dedicated their life to being your personal hype man. For the rest of their lives, probably, Nicholas Snyder would be dutifully transporting Dylan from place to place, and he was completely and honestly okay with that.

The car rolled to a stop as he pulled into the carwash, he put the car in neutral and killed the engine. Nicky disengaged his seatbelt and twisted his body in his chair as he spoke. “Time to play one of my - sorry, our favorite games. That’s right!” He sat back up, holding his treasured position. The one and only ceramic bong they were fortunate to have. With a bowl already packed, it was somewhat questionable where he’d been storing it, but it wasn’t like Dylan was about to ask. “Are you ready for the real Friday night lights? Testify, my brother, because it is time to play: Let’s See How High We Get From Hotboxing the Car in the Car Wash.” A lengthy title, but it was still a working one.

As the sudsy water began to crash on the windshield
while they rolled through the car wash, Nicky held the bong out to Dylan. “You can take the first one! You got a lighter, right?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be me,” Dylan said, channeling all the ancient wisdom of the teenage stoners who had come before him. Sitting there, in black and red sunglasses that read “Seniors!” on either arm, and a wrinkled class shirt he’d almost certainly pulled out of his hamper, Dylan Hearst was the picture of chill. He didn’t think there’d ever been anyone more chill than him, except for maybe Nicky, and that was close. The chillness he exuded made it all the more startling when he bounced into action, fishing a lighter from his back pocket so fast, you’d have thought he lost his vape.

Two flicks and one drag later, and Dylan was blowing smoke up and smiling as it ricocheted off of the ceiling. He was a simple boy; all he really needed was this. He passed the bong and his lighter (wrapped with a picture of the happiest golden retriever to roam the earth) to Nicky, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Good stoners of the world, the soap is falling, the bowl is packed, and the absolutely stunning Dylan Hearst, has started us off with a perfect rip,” Dylan crowed, morphing his voice into his best imitation of an overzealous announcer. He’d never really picked up on the difference between an “indoor” and “outdoor” voice.

How many motherfuckers could say that the universe had given them their very own Samantha Irvin? Nicky Snyder never really realized how lucky he was, but he put a hand on Dylan’s shoulder and nodded enthusiastically, “bro. You should do voice overs for movie trailers. You know, like… In a world where high school never ends.” He said in a voice that he tried to sound like an old school movie trailer as he took the bong and lighter from Dylan. It was only a few seconds before a smoke cloud emanated from Nicky. In the midst of a coughing fit he did his best. “Naomi Davis and her galavanting band of sycophants do their very best to ruin our every living moment. Where OliCritz is too cool to ride to school with his buddies,” the last of the smoke left his mouth as he finished his hit.

“Dylan Hearst and Nicky Snyder continue their unending quest to find the Raphael and Donatello they’ve been searching for their whole lives.” He started to cough, hacking out his final words as he looked up at the ceiling. “Faze up.” As he spoke, he realized that he was getting baked.

“Damn. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a bad idea.” He mused, passing Scooby-Doobie back over to Dylan. It was too late to back down now!

“No such thing as a bad idea, just bad execution,” Dylan said. He took another hit, and passed it back as the plain, white bubbles gave way to technicolor foam. This was his favorite part. “Voice actor… you think you gotta go to school for that? Probably not if you’re really good at it. I don’t think Troy Baker went to school, and he’s in like, everything. I’m pretty good, I probably wouldn’t need the school,” Dylan said, with all the unearned confidence of a rich, white, teenager.

For better or worse, Dylan had mastered the beast that was ego a long time ago, mostly out of necessity. Nicky had been better than him at pretty much everything that anyone cared about for basically his entire life. He had better grades than him, better aim, he even walked before Dylan did. He learned pretty quickly that their continued friendship was probably proof enough that he was good at something, and he felt like that ‘something’ was keeping his boy at his best. It was Dylan’s philosophy that a hype man who didn’t believe in himself, couldn’t believe in anybody. So, for better or worse, he believed.

“Or, maybe, I’ll graffitti my way up the coast. That definitely doesn’t need school, and I could live in a cool van.”

As he listened, Nicky dumped the ash out of the bowl and carefully disposed of it on the floorboard of his car (he’d vacuum it later if he remembered). “Live in a van? That sounds kinda wild, duder. I don’t know if I could handle it. I’d be all cramped when I try to aim… Can you imagine playing Valorant in a van? I’d prolly have to like… play Fortnite on my Switch just to be comfortable. And bro, that’s like fuckin’ Dante’s 12th circle of hell.” Nicky, of course, knew perfectly well that there were only nine circles of hell in Inferno, but his reasoning was that playing Fortnite on a Nintendo Switch would suck so much sweaty swamp ass that it would skip the 10th and 11th circles to take him straight to the 12th circle of suckage. He couldn’t help himself, he physically shuddered at the thought.

It was late, but Nicky finally did respond to Dylan’s question about if schooling was needed for voice acting. “Nah, no way you need to go school to voice-act. You just gotta talk funny, and you’re hilarious bro.” Nicky fished around in the center console as the car approached the end of the line. He eventually produced what he was looking for: his grinder. He opened it up and dumped what was left of the deliciously purply purple Cali Kush into his palm, before packing it into the bowl of the bong. “Here, bro. For the funniest dude I’ve even and my most righteous and best friend: the final bowl of Lemon Cherry Gelato. Cowabunga, brother.”

Once again, he held the bong out to Dylan, as the carwash ended and he got ready to start the car back up.

“I am pretty funny, aren’t I?” Dylan snapped the bowl as the blow-dryers whirred to life, and watched a housewife shake her head in abject horror at their delinquency. He laughed. He did not want to acknowledge that these days would be behind him sooner rather than later, so he reveled in this hotbox and the 90210 socialite they’d just offended. “Cowabunga, my dude.”

---

After fifteen minutes and a lively discussion about the finer points of the Power Rangers, the dynamic duo pulled into Nicky’s freshly painted, senior parking spot, probably too high for school, but definitely too high to care. “Do I smell like weed? I don’t think I do.” Dylan shrugged, nonchalant. He did smell like weed, and anyone who hadn’t been sitting right next to him would’ve been able to tell him that. “Eh, who cares, Phoenix won’t do anything, he’s a big softie.” He smoothly stepped out of Nicky’s car, and shouted out to his fellow peers, “Attention, attention, you all can rest easy, the most important people in school have arrived, safe and sound. I know you guys were all really worried.” His trumpeting did not garner much attention from anyone other than a handful of underclassmen. Damn. He really needed to get his megaphone back from the principal’s office. People always cared more when you had a megaphone.

One day, Nicky hoped he’d get to hear Dylan herald his arrival in front of thousands of screaming fans who were ready to see him raise the trophy above his head for the first time… But that day sadly wasn’t today. Today, he was yelling into the aether at people who didn’t really care about either of them. Nicky jumped out of the car and looked over at Dylan. “Here, bro.” Nicky reached in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of eye drops, which he used in each eye before tossing it over to Dylan.

“We don’t wanna show up to class like that meme with Sonic where it’s like ‘do I look high?’ Because man, do we look high or what? Hold on, I’ll show you.” He pulled out his phone and tapped away for a few seconds before he shoved his phone in Dylan’s face. “Like this.”

Dylan popped his sunglasses up and looked at his own image staring back at him with two bloodshot eyes. He smiled and waved to the mini-Dylan, before rolling his head back and dropping a few saline drops into his eyes. He looked back down at Nicky’s phone, blinked a few times, and watched the redness begin to fade. “Dope.” He slung his arm around Nicky’s shoulder and began marching them towards their eight-hour sentence. “Tell me Nicholas, who do we know that could get in and out of a principal’s office unscathed?”

[Melissa]

_{TIMESTAMP: Between 7:00am and 7:20am
Stella Manning & Ramón Montoya
@Melissa & @Aces Away}

________________________________________________________________________________

Stella had spent this morning, like most mornings, in front of her mirror.

The blonde always took ample time to primp and preen before school to ensure she looked her best, and today was no exception. There was something about dressing to a theme that she loved, and as it was the last day of spirit week, she wanted to go out with a bang. Stella knew how to stand out from the crowd, that was for sure.

Her makeup was flawless as usual, and her hair was meticulously curled (and promptly brushed out) to create loose effortless waves that cascaded over her shoulders. The outfit was all Mo - a red checkered skirt with a red striped long sleeve shirt, black knee high boots, complete with a shiny black belt.

The only thing missing now? Caffeine.

Oh, and Ramón. Which is what led Stella to lay on her car horn outside of his house, hoping the boy would hurry the fuck up so they could make a coffee stop before school. One would think that because they lived only a few doors down, they chose to carpool for the environmental benefits. Those who thought that would be wrong - it was purely for gossip purposes.

The blonde honked again, this time earning some dirty looks from their less than friendly neighbors. Stella shot them daggers back, beginning to tap the wheel with her painted nails impatiently.

Ramón came strutting out of his front door less than ten seconds after she started her honking, dressed to the nines in deep red dress pants and matching suit jacket over a soft black and white floral sketched button up. Black dress socks peeked out from white shoes and he rounded the outfit out with dark tortoise shell framed sunglasses. He had his signature bitch face in place as he ducked down to the open window to stare at his childhood ride or die, dipping the sunglasses down on his face to expose his dark judgmental eyes accentuated by black winged eyeliner and shimmering red shadow.

“This is why Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson hate you,” He spoke plainly before opening the door and sliding in without another thought, putting his bookbag in her backseat but keeping his small clutch with his upkeep items next to him, turning fully in his seat to glare at her. “Where the fuck is your eyeshadow, bitch, do you want your face washed out against all the color around it? You can look your normal level of hot any other time but this is spirit week and I had rules,” He unzipped his clutch and pulled out his palette and brush as well as a tissue. He laid the tissue across his hand, ever mindful of the makeup that she did have on, and extended his covered thumb and forefinger towards her expectantly and waited for her to rest her face there. “Why do you hate me?”

Stella raised an eyebrow with a devilish glint in her eye, taking Ramón’s comment merely as a challenge. She promptly rolled down the rear two windows before cranking the volume of her music almost as loud as it could go, yes, and? blasting through the car’s speakers.

“Let them hate me then,” she smirked at her best friend, “and if they want to kill me, they can get in line. Katie Callaghan has been waiting too damn long to get rid of me herself for those geezers to get a free pass.”

She found herself shaking her head as Mo commented on her lack of eyeshadow. Always a perfectionist, always particular. But, she obliged and humored him, obediently moving her face to sit in his tissue covered grasp. “If you make me look like I have the flu or some other venereal disease with that red eyeshadow instead of the vixen that I am, you can get your perky ass out of this car and walk.”

“And have you look like a hooker walking next to me in the halls?” Mo looked offended that she would even suggest he would fail at his task. “Absolutely not.” The next couple minutes were spent getting her eyeshadow just right while his geriatric neighbors glared at them from their window. Just as he’d finished and settled into his seat to get his seatbelt on, his oldest sister Rosa came barrelling out the front door and towards the car, her hair a wild mess and a look of murder on her face.

“Shit, we woke her up. Go. Gogogo,” He stressed to Stella, only relaxing when they’d safely left his driveway with his sister flipping them off in the rearview. He leaned back and let out a little laugh with his sigh of relief. “She would have killed us.”

“Oh please, like I would have let that happen.” The blonde reassured, navigating her Audi down side streets until they hit the main road. She checked her reflection in the rearview as they approached a stoplight, satisfied with Ramón’s handiwork. He was always right, even though she hated admitting it, the red eyeshadow bringing a warmth and color to her face that her mixed print outfit had stolen prior. “What’s even up with her lately, she’s been so moody.” Stella commented, taking the opportunity to look her friend in the eye as she turned right.

“Fucking elections are next month and I'm pretty sure she hasn't slept in like a week, which mean no one has slept in like a week, it's killing my complexion,” he answered honestly, checking his black and red nail polish carelessly. “Papá isn't helping of course, too busy on the shaking hands and kissing babies route to really follow everything she wants him to do to ensure his spot, so it's crunch time for her,” he looked his friend dead in the eye before she had to put her attention back on the road and smirked. He may love and respect his family but he is still the youngest of four kids, and he takes his revenge from life with his siblings any moment he can get. “She had just fallen asleep an hour ago, I was supposed to wake her up fifteen minutes after the fact but she just looked so comfy with her face smushed into the couch cushion that I couldn't bear to wake her.”

Ramón wiped a fake tear from his eye before laughing and pulling out his phone and bringing up his images. The first picture was of his oldest sister doing her best unconscious impression of Anna from frozen, hair a mess despite the short time laying down, drool coming out of the corner of her mouth and one arm slung over her head while the other was crushed beneath her body. He waved the phone teasingly at his friend as she pulled into the drive thru.

“Want to see?”

“Someone really needs to get that girl a Xanax. I’d be happy to, you can tell her I said that.” Stella stated matter of factly, pressing firmly on the brake as they fell into the line of cars awaiting their caffeine fix. Growing up together meant that Ramón’s family had practically become an extension of her own. His parents were like a bonus set, and as for his siblings, well, she was just as judgemental and mean to them as if they were her own blood. It was the blonde’s own fucked up and unconventional way of showing affection. “Of course I want to see.”

She took Ramón’s phone from his hand, zooming in on the first photo and dissolving into a laugh. “You should have drawn something on her face with that bulletproof liquid liner you made me try once, why didn’t you?” She scrolled to the next one, which was almost funnier than the first. “God, she’s out cold.” Stella continued to peruse the images until a loud honking came from behind them, interrupting. She scoffed before whipping around to face the offender, a woman no more than 40 years old gesturing that the cars ahead of them had moved, implying they were holding up the line.

Stella flipped her off, absolutely unbothered, turning back around and stepping on the gas “Fucking Karen,” she spat, pulling up to the intercom. “Hi, yes, princess here will have a venti light iced almond milk Dirty Chai, blonde ristretto shots, 2 extra shots affogato, whipped cream with dolce powder on top.” She practically gagged as the words left her mouth, Ramón’s complicated order never ceasing to revolt her, “And I’ll have a nitro cold brew. Black.”

She paused, going back and forth in her mind on something. With a sigh, she spoke into the intercom once more. “And a chai latte, shot of espresso on the side.” Stella put the car back into drive and looped to the other side of the building where their drinks would be waiting.

Mo was now staring intently at the side of his friend’s face with a raised eyebrow, completely unbelieving that he had just heard her order a drink for someone not in the car and a bit annoyed that he knew who it was for. Putting that on the backburner until he could get her other comments out of the way, he addressed the first matter.

“Reina stole that eyeliner from me when she went off on her last tour and I haven’t seen it since. It’s fine, I stole her leather skirt while she was gone and she hasn’t noticed yet,” Ramón dismissed, returning his phone to his clutch and closing the bag. “Girl if you make that face while ordering my drink one more time I will hold you down by your hair and force it down your throat. Not everyone can handle things as bitter and dark as you are,” he slid the sunglasses down his nose to once again stare at her from over top the frames, eyebrow raised. “Although it looks like you’ll need the caffeine if you want to keep up your energy to run that race,” he hinted towards the third drink, which was not something he was kind enough to just ignore, especially when it was basically his fault she had the other person to buy the drink for in the first place.

Candy King faux pas for sure.

“Looking for a quickie before school or should I text Cael that you aren’t making it to homeroom?”

Stella was wholly unphased by Mo’s stare, rolling her eyes in response as they pulled up to the window. It was no secret that her friend had strong feelings about her relationship status, and she knew he was going to give her shit as soon as she decided to order an extra coffee, but the blonde didn’t bother entertaining the subject. The all too chipper employee handed her the four cups on a tray, which she promptly passed over to Ramón so that she could pay. Grabbing her purse, she opened her wallet and handed over her Platinum card. The childhood besties weren’t the type to split the bill and/or request funds from the other. They simply operated on an alternating basis, taking turns paying for coffee, lunch, and drinks, fully knowing that at some point they’d be even.

Slipping the metal card back into her wallet, Stella pulled out of the drive thru and back out onto the road. “Neither, I’m just setting myself up for success this weekend.” Of course, the blonde always had an agenda, most of it self-serving, but an agenda nonetheless. No acts of kindness were out of the goodness of her heart, and as it was her last homecoming weekend, it had to be perfect. Which meant she was hoping a certain someone would cooperate and be on his best behavior.

“Speaking of, I’m still coming over after school so we can make sure my dress doesn’t need any alterations, right? I want to see it already.”

“I supposed I've no one to blame but myself,” Ramón sighed dramatically before taking a long sip of his delicious beverage. It was his fault for setting the two up together so he really did have to suck it up, but he was still making his feelings known. When he set them up it had been under the impression from all parties that this would not last, And it seems Ramón is the only one that remembers that part of the memo. “Of course you are, you impatient brat,” he responded to her following question with a judgmental eye roll and a scoff. “Perfection leads up to the last minute, but both fortunately and un- for both of us- I know your body and measurements so well that I only need you for the final fitting. Keeps me from having you breath over my shoulder like a rabid dog while I'm trying to create my masterpieces.”

“I may be a brat but I am NOT impatient.” Stella countered, “I get that perfection can’t be rushed- look who you’re talking to- but you’re really down to the wire on this one even by my standards.” The blonde trusted her bestie when it came to all things fashion. She was his biggest supporter and was always left in awe by his creations. But that didn’t change the fact that he was taking his sweet ‘ol time with her homecoming dress.

Before they knew it, Stella was pulling her Audi into the parking lot of Beverly Hills High School, rolling up the windows and turning down the music. The blonde took one last look in her rearview mirror, tousling her hair and applying some lip gloss, before taking the coffee tray from Mo’s hands which held the 3 remaining cups. Stepping out of the car, she grabbed her backpack from the backseat and threw it over her shoulder, locking the door once Ramón had gathered his belongings. She gestured to her complete look before doing a small twirl. “Up to your standards, Edna?”

“Of course it is, darling,” Ramón replied in mock offense with his best Edna Mode impression, hand held up limply in front of his chest with his elbow resting on the arm around his midsection. “I put it together for you after all, and I'm a genius,” he held the condescending pose for another moment before the playful smirk broke through on his lips and he moved forward to link elbows with his bestie for the restie and they began to strut toward the school in unison. “Now, let's show these bitches how it's done.”

As they walked, Stella took stock of their surroundings, her black boots clicking satisfyingly along the pavement as she and Mo approached the double doors. A few football players stood there chatting, and as she passed, she could hear their conversation shift, now revolving around her presence. The blonde liked the attention, in fact, she thrived on it, so when one of the players (ever a gentleman) went so far as to open the door for her and Mo, she smirked, winking at him before entering the school. “Is it just me, or are this year’s sophomores built like seniors...” she whispered closely to Ramón’s ear.

“Maybe,” Ramón replied, equally as quiet. “But I prefer someone that actually had the experience to handle me, not just someone that looks like he could,” he tightened the connection of their arms as they continued on, not needing to slip past people as they stepped out of his and Stella's path. “What good is all that muscle if they don't know what they're doing with it? Besides, they're so immature. I just heard one giggle when he saw your tits bouncing on that last step.”

The blonde rolled her eyes, “I guess, but their brains are like putty at that age, you can mold them to be whatever you want,” Stella commented, “Hotness is bestowed, everything else can be taught.”

The two made their way through the building with relative ease, reaching the hallway where Stella’s home room was. Still a few minutes early, she removed her arm from Ramón’s and leaned against the set of lockers outside of the classroom. She held the coffee tray with one hand, and pulled out her phone with the other, shooting a quick text.

To: Hoe
Got you coffee… felt like being nice today. Shocking, I know.
Meet me before homeroom if you want it.

[smarty0114]

_{TIMESTAMP: 7-7:30 AM
Location: Aunt Gina’s Aviary → Ms. Belmonte’s Classroom
Starring: Benjamin “Benji” Mayhew
Special Guest: Aunt Gina}

---

---

Benji Mayhew had grown awfully fucking tired of birds. He hadn’t felt that strongly about them before this year, in fact, he might’ve even had a soft spot for them. That was before he and his mom moved into his Aunt Gina’s house, and his mornings were filled with the endless tweeting of her birds. Thirty parakeets, named for different musicians Aunt Gina claimed to know (in the “Biblical sense,” as she liked to say) back in the day. He could hear them in the kitchen, he could hear them in living room, but most importantly, he could hear them in his bedroom while he was trying to get some fucking sleep. Gina said she liked the way it made her feel like she was living outdoors, and she didn’t appreciate Benji pointing out that she lived in a very expensive home made of concrete, steel and glass. The only outdoorsy thing about it was the smell of bird shit.

As he lay in bed, staring at bare walls and a floor still covered in half-unpacked boxes, he wondered if he was destined to end up like Aunt Gina: living alone in a big, cold house with a menagerie of animals that would probably eat him when he died. At least Aunt Gina had money. He’d probably end up working at Sunshine Diner for the rest of his life, surviving on tips and an inevitable cigarette habit.

The thought process had become something of a reoccuring anxiety over the last few months, but it had grown more relentless as the homecoming game approached. With barely twelve hours until kickoff, he felt sick, unable to escape the idea that he was going to fuck it all up. The Benji of last year wouldn’t have thought twice about potential failure. Now, the vision of his classmates’ disappointed faces was consuming him.

You could pull a Mom and just hide in this stupid house until tomorrow. Tell everybody you’re sick. Or dying. Or in jail.

He snoozed his alarm three times before he finally got up, put on his jersey and a pair of wrinkled black pants, and trudged out into the hall. He ignored the low thrum coming from his mother’s room, the tell tale sign of another sound bath. They’d become part of her morning ritual, an attempt at wellness that only made him raise an eyebrow and scoff at the ridiculousness that had taken over his life. Liana Mayhew had always been out there, but recent events had truly sent her spinning.

In the kitchen, Aunt Gina was dancing between a frying pan and a cutting board, humming along to Bob Marley while she slipped pieces of fruit to a bird on her shoulder. The bird chirped as Benji approached, hunting for something he could eat on the drive.

“George Michael said ‘Namaste, Benjamin,’” Gina said, setting down a large knife and spinning around to face him. Regina Lowe was one of those women who always wore a smile, even during a tragedy. Benji had always found it unnerving, especially when she got upset. She had a nervous energy that came off of her in waves, while also espousing the many benefits of her New Age spiritual practices. Benji found it hard to take yoga tips from someone who popped Klonopin when she thought nobody was looking, but he did his best to humor her.

“Namaste, George Michael,” Benji said, his tone so dry that you could hear his eyes roll. He didn’t consider himself an expert on social issues, but he did think there was something weird about white people from the Hills saying ‘namaste.’ He opened the fridge and gave it a cursory glance, praying that something good had found its way in there since he’d checked it last night. Nothing had.

“Here take this,” Gina said, pushing a cup of some mysterious greenish-brown liquid into his hands. He looked down at it, suspicious. He didn’t trust much of anything she made anymore, not after she served half-cooked chicken a few weeks ago. “It’s kale, beet juice, some ginger, cayenne, and pineapple.” Benji glanced down at the smoothie one more time before taking a cautious sip. Surprisingly, not the worst thing he’d ever had. xx

“Not bad,” Benji said, as he popped a piece of whole wheat bread into the toaster and set it to char. He would’ve loved to sit there in an awkward silence, but Gina didn’t understand the benefit of silence.

“Big game today! I put a few crystals in your backpack for good luck. They got their moon bath, so you don’t have to worry about any bad energy,” Gina said, returning to her breakfast. “I thought me and the girls from yoga class might come out for it, and cheer you guys on.”

Benji pursed his lips in between sips of his smoothie. His mother, unmentioned, hung between them like a ghost. “Is she going to come?” Benji said, gesturing down the hallway.

Gina sighed. “Your mom is just taking everything really hard.” George Michael chirped in agreement. “I don’t know if that’ll be the best place for her. You know how the Hills can be, right? We just got the reporters to stop hounding the house, I don’t know if we should give them more reasons to.”

“Yeah, no, of course,” he said, cold and detached. Benji knew exactly how the Hills could be, it was why he wanted his mom to come. While she had been stowed away from the tabloids and the socialites, awash in good vibrations and manifestation rituals, Benji had been forced back to the feeding ground where all the Hills’ spawn grew fat on rumors and scandals. Naomi and the Hive had iced him out of the social scene, Jamie and Trixie had blasted his dad’s indictment all over their socials, and his only saving grace was Ethan Green and the Elite. He was being eaten alive out there, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d last. He was closer to college than elementary school, but his life was falling apart and he wanted his mom. “Guess the homecoming game isn’t the best spot for fucking meditation,” Benji huffed.

“Benji, I–” Gina’s consolation was interrupted by the toaster, and Benji took the opportunity to run. He chugged the rest of his smoothie, grabbed his toast and gave his aunt a quick side hug before making a beeline out of the kitchen.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, before rushing out the door and hopping into his car. He knew it was an impossibility, but as he pulled away from Aunt Gina’s home, he wished for things to go back to the way they were six months ago, when his most pressing issue was who he’d be taking to junior prom. He and his dad still had one thing in common, at least: the two of them were both paying for his crimes.

Twenty minutes later, Benji pulled into his parking spot with only minutes to spare. Ms. Honeycutt, the school’s underpaid and overworked resource officer, was waiting out front, shaking her head as though she might be able to shame Benji into punctuality. He ignored her, the same way he’d done every morning, and rushed towards Ms. Belmonte’s class, thankful that at least people still moved out of his way when he came down the hall.

He took a seat in the back, with a spot next to him for Mac, and tried very hard not to imagine all the ways he could fuck things up tonight. He would be fine. Everything would be fine. Probably.

[LovelyComplex]

_{Trigger Warning: Drug use, Sexual harassment/assault
@LovelyComplex & @smarty0114}

As Jamie strutted away from the media wing and towards what was becoming a regular morning rendezvous, he did his best to give off an air of importance and urgency. He was a co-editor on the school paper, the source of all things salacious and scandalizing, and he wanted people to think of him as such. He was secrets, he was shame, he’d do his best to bury your name; they might as well just call him Mr. Beverly Hills. He wanted anyone who tried to read his face to assume he was going through a very long, very important to-do list. In a sense, he was.

When he’d texted AJ a few weeks ago, after dumping him in exchange for a senior year full of solitude and sad movies, Katie had called him an idiot. “Why the fuck did you guys even break up if you were just gonna pull this shit?” were the exact words he remembered, actually. She wasn’t wrong. This was messy, whatever this was. At this point, the boy who was supposed to know everything, pretty much only knew two things to be true: dating AJ Tyler had made him feel like the most boring person on the face of the Earth, but fucking him had made him feel like the most exciting.

So yeah, he was playing a game that would probably get him and AJ hurt. Sue him. Everybody else in this school had a good time, he should know, he reported on it. Why couldn’t he?

The baseball shed (what Jamie had lovingly nicknamed, The Place Virginities Go to Die) was far enough away from the school and unused enough in the fall that they were rarely bothered. Jamie could see AJ as he approached, leaning against the wall with a Starbucks bag and the same devil-may-care smile that had been so intoxicating the first day they’d met. “You know me well, Tyler,” Jamie said, smiling as he sidled up to AJ and took the bag and a cup from his hand. “You get all the boys breakfast, or just the cute ones?” Jamie said, smirking as he unwrapped his breakfast sandwich.

“Neither. I get you breakfast because who else is going to know your order to the T, Trouble?” AJ coolly responded, lightly smoothing a piece of flyaway hair on Jamie’s head. As his ex schmoozed his way into his heart, like he always did, the taller boy of the two stared attentively. His charming eyes were dilated but hidden by his Ray Ban sunglasses. His gaze, if it could be seen behind the veil went from caramel to cocoa, from warm to eager, from sandwich to Jamie’s smirk. He smiled wildly, amused at how quick his former lover reported to him. It was almost as if they were dating. It was almost as if nothing changed between them. As if Jamie didn’t break him and now continues to string him along. It was almost as if Jamie cared. “One bacon gouda, heated for an extra twenty seconds, venti white mocha, and a birthday cake pop.”

AJ wasn’t blind. A fool, sure, for love. A hopeless romantic, yeah, because his parents were living the dream and he aspired to find someone to fit him like a missing puzzle piece, just like the love they shared. A dreamer, of course, because life was meant to make dreams a reality but blind? No. The rose colored glasses were off and he could see Jamie for what he was and it frustrated him to no end. It made him have a storm of emotions, from anger to sadness to even regret. If they never dated, AJ would not feel such low lows. If they never dated, AJ could be in ignorant bliss and not know what it feels to really, deeply love someone, to the point that you hand them a knife and expose your heart to getting stabbed, so many times. If they never dated, AJ would have room to think about anything else. But here he was, stuck in a repetitive, unhealthy cycle, in denial of their end, praying for a new beginning. Ideally, with Jamie at his side.

Truthfully, he hated what they became. He hated how he felt most days. He hated that he had to keep what they have a secret. He hated this. Especially recently when their affair escalated, both sexting at random times of the day and meeting up for quickies. Now, his nights were being impacted and he was unable to sleep. He was staying up all night thinking about their next meeting, like some sort of drug. It was intoxicating but not in a good way.

Jamie was given the world, which included AJ bringing him breakfast, and doing other boyfriend things. All he asked of him was to keep their situationship on the down low and to not put the pressure of a label on what they have. Not only does this allow Jamie to have other lovers in his life but it allows him to only gain and never lose. Feel no pain. At least not to the extent that AJ felt pain. He fucking hated this and needed to call quits. Not because he wanted to but because he had to. AJ knew he wasn’t doing okay and it was only a matter of time when his friends would intervene and stir more drama than needed.

It was all fun and games and part of AJ hoped there would be a chance they’d get back together but the moment Jamie said he didn’t want to define what they were, what they have, that’s when AJ began to fall down, down, down into his dark place. Nothing he could say or do would ever change Jamie’s mind. His first love made up his mind. Jamie didn’t love him. He loved how AJ made him feel. But AJ himself? Yeah right. Why would he love someone like him? Jamie had made it clear that they had nothing in common and perhaps Jamie was right. Jamie thought he knew best and AJ knew it was time to give him exactly what he wanted. The reality of them finally moving on. It was senior year and he wanted to make this a good year. For both of them.

With sleep deprivation as his drive, AJ made an executive decision that it was time to have a necessary meeting. Prior to coming here, to their ‘special’ place, the Gearhead gave himself a pick me up and was more ready now than ever. He was confident in his ability of setting things straight and making boundaries known. Most importantly though? He was locked the fuck in, with nothing but positivity and growth on his mind. Whatever came from this would be nothing but good for each person involved. It was the only way for either of them to be happy. Building distance between him and the gossip boy, AJ glanced at his watch, counting the seconds to when the first bell would go off, and leaned against the shed, relaxed and ardent, “So! How’s your morning been?!” He nearly shouted.

Jamie grinned and took a bite of his breakfast, eyes traveling up and down AJ’s form. There was something…off, about him, but he couldn’t quite place it. A nervous energy that he didn’t understand. For a moment, something tugged inside him, and he almost asked, and then he reminded himself what this was. What he had asked for it to be. “It’s been fine. Mom and Dad are still out of town. I finished that article I was telling you about, the one about funding disparities between arts and sports programs? No one will read it, but it’ll look good in the portfolio. Let’s see, one of the freshmen spilled her coffee on Trixie, and–OH! Ethan’s throwing a party tomorrow night, after the dance. Risky Business themed, whatever the fuck that means. I’m supposed to be spreading the word.”

He stepped forward, oblivious to the distance AJ had so purposefully put between them. He set his coffee on the ground and let a hand come up to play with AJ’s hair, doing his best impression of someone who was confident, cool, and did not overthink every single thing he did. “How was yours?”

When Jamie breached AJ’s space, the Gearhead thought to himself. One last kiss wouldn’t hurt. Instead of answering the question, he brought his hand to his lover’s chin and lifted it. Leaning in, his lips pressed roughly on Jamie’s. It was full of yearning, hunger and desire, like it always did, but there was something more to it. AJ’s freehand slid around Jamie’s waist and pulled him close, not caring that the sandwich could interfere with their intimate moment. He was desperate and it could all be felt in one single kiss. AJ knew, if he kept to his word, this could be their last. If he stood firm and didn’t give into this want, this feverish dream, he would be in control and what they have would be all in the past. What they have would be a wonderful memory and they’d stop doing things they’d regret. If he pulled back, maybe he could move on. Maybe he could get over Jamie Callaghan.

He breathed in Jamie’s scent, wishing he wasn’t taking the rational route but knowing sometimes the right things weren't the easiest things to do. He pulled away. A moment of silence passed between the two and uncomfortably, AJ gently pushed his ex a short distance further away, so he could think straight. Rather than acknowledge anything Jamie said about his article, about the coffee incident, and about the party, he revealed his true intentions for meeting at their spot, in the early morning, for breakfast, “This has to stop. Me and you? All of this, Jamie? Needs to stop.” This might be the hardest thing he’d ever have to do in his life but if there was one thing AJ didn’t want to do anymore it was worry his friends. His high would carry him through this and truth be told, he was thinking more clear than he ever would while sober.

Jamie blinked. The confidence he’d possessed only moments ago seemed to fade immediately, leaving his head spinning and his heart racing. “What the fuck?” He took another step back, knocking his coffee over as he did. This wasn’t happening. He had done so much work to keep this from happening. He had built walls, and drew boundaries, he had kept AJ at an arm's length so that it wouldn’t happen. He had dumped him first, for fuck’s sake.

Now he was right where he’d always feared he would end up, when Katie had introduced them last year. Getting left behind by AJ Motherfucking Tyler.

“That’s fucking…did you just bring me out here to wine and dine me before you…oh my God. Oh my God.” Jamie spun around, ran a hand through his hair, and took a breath while he processed this sudden blow. When he turned around, whatever rage had been spilling out from him was tamped down, present only in the deep blue eyes that had begun glaring at AJ. “Why? Where is this coming from? I thought…I thought this was good,” Jamie said, uncertainty creeping into his voice. He didn’t want to lose this, lose AJ. He had thought he could make it all work, that this way would be better for the both of them and…God, he had been an idiot.

His heart rate escalated. This was all so frustrating and if he didn’t make things clear now, Jamie would continue his own self destructive patterns and unfortunately the one that got burned was AJ. “Good for you. This has always been good for you,” AJ snapped, unable to keep it in anymore. He tried this casual on-and-off relationship and it just made him hate himself because he knew when he saw Jamie he didn’t want casual. He wanted commitment, love, and a future together. He wanted Jamie to be his. “I’ve played this game, Jamie, we’re doing this dance, but what the fuck are we?”

Clenching his fists, AJ, his eyes still hidden by sunglasses, stepped forward and watched the boy he loved break in an anxious panic. “I. Can’t. Do. This. Anymore. You’re the one that fucking broke up with me and then weeks later you call saying you miss me but yeah, fuck me right? I’m the one at fault? Honestly. We both could use an actual break and you need to figure out what you want because clearly it isn’t me, Jamie, and I’m sick and tired of you lying to my face like you give a damn.” That last part forced AJ to stop and breathe. His behavior was getting increasingly erratic. Awake and wired, not letting the sadness bring him down, he brushed away the disappointment in Jamie’s face and focused on himself. How could he have fallen so far?

Jamie pursed his lips. A laundry list of responses ran through his brain, but he settled for, “Fuck you.” He turned to leave, took five steps before he decided he had more to say, and spun around to look at AJ. “Pro tip, next time you dump your fuckbuddy, don’t make out with him right before you do it.” With an embarrassed huff, Jamie turned to leave for good, storming back towards the school. Coffee spilled, breakfast ruined.

“Like you are qualified to give advice on breakups,” AJ barked and when Jamie turned on his heel, walking away, he felt a sudden urge. Letting his impulse take over, he rushed to his ex, grabbed his shoulders and forcibly turned him back around, “Don’t give me that shit. If I didn’t care, you wouldn’t want to be fuck buddies. You want me? Fine.” With the high taking over, he tightened his grip. With ease, he twisted Jamie around him and shoved the boy against the shed wall. “This is what you want right?” He hissed. There was no love behind his tone, only frustration and spite. He nipped at Jamie’s neck, digging his teeth, and creating a hickey. Intentionally, he made it painful. He had to leave his mark. “Fine. I’ll fuck you.” He angrily growled.

“AJ, what the fuck,” Jamie shouted, shoving AJ back and ducking under his arm. He stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. He’d seen AJ angry plenty of times. They tended to have that effect on eachother. But nothing like that. That was new. His hand came up to rub at his neck while he shook his head, eyes trained on AJ. “Yeah, I’m the one who needs to figure my shit out?” he scoffed, and turned around again, doing his best to mask pain and uncertainty with a cold disdain. Doing his best to pretend like the boy he loved hadn’t just shattered his mental image of him in five seconds flat.

“For someone who is afraid of getting left behind you sure love running away!” AJ called out, hiding the shake behind his voice and the water in his eyes. This was for the best. He knew it and one day Jamie would thank him for this. Feeling his pocket, making sure he had his bag with him, AJ gave a sigh of relief. Not even watching Jamie leave, AJ turned the other way, heading the opposite direction, with one goal in mind. He needed another hit.

[Festive]

_{TIMESTAMP: 5:17 AM on October 18, 2024
LOCATION(s): Bower's home, Santa Monica →
Beverly Hills High School, Beverly Hills
TITLE: Carvan #1.0}

The Californian morning sun had yet to rise over the city of Santa Monica but Lucian Bowers was wide awake. The thunderous sound of the metal meeting wood was cut short by the thick layer of acoustic foam that lined the walls of his Uncle's shed. It was a music room, piles of vinyls sat neatly laid up against the record player stand Lucian had set up in the corner, and in the center, behind a semi-circle of drum parts, sat Lucian.

He was too in the moment

His hands almost moved fluidly as if there was a disconnect from his brain. In a flash, the splintering sticks moved from one part of the drum to the next. From the tom drum to the snare, from the snare to the cymbal. His pattern continued switching from one to another, incorporating bass as his foot laid down on the petal every so often. This was becoming a new part of Lucian's morning, the nightmares hit hard but the panic attacks hit harder. God, Lucian couldn't handle a lot of loud noises but there was something about the drums that calmed him from even the worst of attacks

Lucian had been at it for hours, only stopping to catch his breath. It was the sudden snap of Lucian's drumstick that had brought him back to the present. "Oh fuck!.. that's the third pair this week." Lucian sighed, the sticks were brand new. He had opened the pack 3 hours earlier and it already needed to be replaced. The rate at which he was going through packs wasn't exactly low either, maybe he would have to invest in a pair of metal ones...

Lucian pushed back from the drum set, dropping the remnants of the sticks on top of the other ones that lay in the trash. His hands shook as he fully opened them; why did he only start to feel the pain now? It was comparable to sticking your hand into an open flame, it burned; blisters now neighbored the calluses that adorned his rough hands. His grip was too tight, that's the problem. Most times he didn't even notice, when Lucian got into a rhythm his concentration was hard to break. Now standing, focus broken, the phone alarm blaring from atop the futon that lay opposed to him became apparent. The clock on his screen read [6:03 AM] as Lucian swiped the alarm away; scratch the three hours, he's been at it for four.

The first rays of sunlight began to peak their head above the horizon, Lucian wrapped his hands up with a yawn, soon swinging his bookbag around his shoulder, he had a bit of a trip in front of him. Bowers's home itself was certainly nothing flashy, his Uncle may have been wealthy but he didn't flaunt it as much as others. The yards, although, were the parts that truly shined.

It was a truly immaculate sight.

The path that lay in front of Lucian was paved with brick. Pansies, snapdragons, fuchsia, honeysuckle, hibiscus, and many more were planted all about the backyard, the place was an orderly explosion of colors; dutifully managed every morning by Uncle Jason. Speaking of Uncle Jason, Lucian wondered where he was. The man would usually be up and about, masochistically watering each flower arrangement with his 'trusty ol' watering can' as he called it. Lucian would have to see him when he got home, shutting the gate to the yard as he walked his way down to the metro station.

The LA metro system was a part of the city he had yet to master, it all still felt so new. Despite having lived in the city for about over a year now, Lucian never lost that feeling. He missed New York, the borough, his friends, his sister, and goddamn it, even the food, but never Harlem. The neighborhood stood to Lucian like a paradox, the place represented most of his life; the bad, the good, the worse, the great, it was a testament to what lived in his shadow. He missed the days of walking the streets with Rocky, laughter came from those two as if it were a comedy night at a big-name club. Lucian missed spending time with his sister, he was the one who practically raised the girl. The best of days were only a front for the worst of nights, although he had a house in Harlem he never had a home. The train rolled to a stop, and the window in front of Lucian peered into the all-too-familiar platform he got off of every day; it took him quite a bit to get used to this route.

"Why do I always do this to myself..." The cool early morning air moved around Lucian's body as he messaged the center of his palm. The bus stop he sat at allowed for a soft breeze to penetrate its walls, one thing Lucian picked up was that no matter how far into the year Los Angeles County never turned truly cold. That's one thing you could add to Lucian's list of things he didn't miss about New York; he hated the cold. Lucian had forgone his typical sweater for the day, sporting a red and black Harley-Davidson bomber; he was the antithesis of a gearhead, but hell did they have a good style.

Even a transfer student has to show school pride, right?

The 6:45 bus arrived just on time, but like always, it was empty. A barren wasteland with a population of two, rows upon rows of empty seats sat ripe for the taking. Not many people rode the buses that traveled in Beverly Hills, but that just meant a more silent ride for Lucian. It was the same driver every morning, a friendly face to see. Always with a smile, Lucian and he had grown accustomed to each other, but Lucian never learned his name. These two men both held a mutual respect for the tranquility of the morning silence.

With a nod to the driver and a swipe of his TAP card, Lucian took a seat at the front of the bus. Lucian laid his head against the same window he had the day prior, the vibrations from the bus were the only thing that kept his eyes open. Beverly Hill was a gorgeous city, definitely better than Santa Monica, and holding a candle to Manhattan itself, though Lucian would never admit that publicly. The sun was now much higher in the sky and the bus came to Lucian's final stop. He got out of his chair with a yawn, giving one last nod to the driver as he stepped onto the pavement; Lucian was right around the corner from the school. This path had become his new normal; train, bus, walk- how his mornings went.

Rounding the corner Lucian was met with the manicured exterior of Beverly Hills High School, a school of opulence, greed, and whatever else you could imagine. As he passed the student parking lot Lucian never saw the necessity of a car; he never had the option to have one until now in the first place. LA County had a perfect fine transportation system, he saw it as a waste to not use it. He watched as people lingered in the lot, passing by cars from brands he had never even heard of in his life. He had got used to it. The shining examples of wealth may have been a shock to him last year but now they were simply faces he saw in the halls. As they say: money doesn't make the man.

Stragglers traveled the halls like nomads, quietly shuffling themselves into their respective homerooms; Lucian was one of them. Room 210 was quite the room, to say the least. Out of the class of people, Lucian only knew two people personally; one of which was the teacher. The volume of the room was low, quiet chatter was spread across the moderately sized room. Desks sat empty and still awaiting their informal owners as the populace slowly filled in. Lucian passed by Mr. Phoenix as he took his seat at his usual desk, finally laying his head down on something. He could barely keep his eyes open, his jacket felt cool on his skin as his face lay on the leather. Maybe he should've tried to fall back asleep instead of playing the drums all morning.

God, he had a long day ahead of him.

[NeoAJ]

_{TIMESTAMP: Early Morning
Driving to school}

________________________________________________________________________________



________________________________________________________________________________

_{@NeoAJ @Fabricant451 @smarty0114 @Aewin @LovelyComplex}

Homecoming is a funny word to those who never lived long enough in a place to truly call somewhere home. There’s not a chance to build any meaningful connection to the location beforehand, so there’s not a tearful goodbye to all the memories that were made. They are just another blip in the winding road that continues to unfold before someone on the cusp of adulthood.

And yet here Indy Adams was, forgoing her usual preferred colors of blue, green, and white, and donning the red and black that was asked of all the BHHS students ahead of their homecoming game and dance.

Naomi Davis was insistent that Indy had to comply with the color scheme, even if her options were limited. The dyed blonde managed to find a couple of things that worked together. A red tank top and light black bomber jacket gave her both school spirit options on the top half of her body. However, they had to cover the blushes of the denim shorts below, her tanned legs sculpted by the last year of running on the beach, surfing the waves and jumping for spikes also showing a little bit of red on the exposed skin. Indy didn’t have any black pairs of shorts, something that certainly would draw another trip to the Mermaid’s Closet on the Queen's orders to rectify that fact. The black onyx necklace swayed slightly with the turns, breaking up the solid crimson on her torso. It wasn’t one of her best outfits, but it was good enough to get her into Naomi’s car that morning and make sure that she didn’t have to take an Uber to school.

Indy was behind the passenger seat, the front seat in the clique’s ride already occupied as it usually was by the Hive’s second-in-command Levi Green-Locke. Lottie Quinn was in the back with her, offering a potential buffer to the last member of the crew to be given a lift this morning. Indy was still a bit unfamiliar with some of the sights along the route taken to school. In the ten months since she arrived back in California from Australia, she had plenty of time to memorize the vegan donut shops and hypodermic spas along the way, and yet they kept changing names and types as fast as she could get them down in her head. Nothing was permanent here. Even the Hive, as ironclad as it seemed, had an expiration date. Somehow she was along for the ride, literally in this case, but she knew something was going to break it apart.

That was a thought for another day. Indy shook her head a little bit. Her grey eyes scanned around the neighborhood, trying not to focus on those terminal feelings. Clearly, she needed some more time on the beach than she had been getting.

“So, since this is my first actual homecoming event, what is it all about?” Indy asked, trying to get some clarity on what exactly her role was going to be. “Is it all just an excuse to get people riled up in the autumn? Or is there some sort of deeper significance that I’m not aware of yet?”

Levi turned to face Indy, smiling like he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. His outfit was on theme as well (duh du jour); dark red shirt, top two buttons undone, and black, tailored pants, cuffed at the ankle. “You’re cute. The deeper significance is remembering the Pirates who came before us. That, and getting everybody riled up in the middle of autumn.” He turned back to face the winding roads of Angel’s suburbs. “Everybody else gets to watch Naomi and I win homecoming court, and then we all get to watch the serfs get sloppy drunk. I wish I could take credit for it, honestly. Pure American genius, that one.”

Indy dropped a chuckle at Levi’s summation but there was a hint of nervousness behind it. Between Naomi’s desire for a spotless crew and the currently absent Angel’s pious nature, the alcohol culture she had embraced during her time Down Under had no chance to flourish on the Puritan American shores. It had been nine months since she had really cut loose and joined the masses in drunken reveling, but the pleasure of the punch had to be sacrificed to maintain her current position. This was the last chance for her to have anything resembling a high-school social life. Even if she was surprised Naomi had summoned her to be part of one of the most popular cliques in the school, she didn’t want to throw it away to be left hanging with the stoners and washouts in the parking lot. She nodded at Levi’s assessment. “Yup, that tracks with what I know.”

Lottie shifted in the backseat, smoothing down the red and black plaid skirt that she had chosen for the day. Despite Naomi's insistence on following the school colors, she had managed to bend the school rules ever so slightly by pairing the skirt with a tight, semi-sheer black turtleneck that clung to her figure. Over it was a cropped red blazer that narrowly avoided getting her dress-coded for said semi-sheer turtleneck. Her black knee-high boots with a stiletto heel completed the look, giving her a few extra inches of height.

Tossing her brown curls over one shoulder, she let out a soft giggle at Levi's response to Indy. "Hehe, he's not wrong! Homecoming is like, THE biggest event of the year at Beverly Hills High." Her grey-blue eyes sparkled with excitement and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "There's the big game of course, where we get to watch the boys kick some *serious* butt on the field."

She paused, pursing her glossy lips as she thought. "But the best part is definitely the dance afterwards. Everyone gets soo dressed up and we get to party all night long!" Lottie clasped her hands together, practically bouncing in her seat from the excitement of it all. It was likely thanks to the two caramel macchiatos she'd had since waking up. "Oh, and they always go all out decorating the gym too. Last year's theme was like, 'A Night in Paris' or something. They had this gorgeous Eiffel Tower set up and everything."

It wasn’t always the responsibility of Naomi Davis to drive herself and her most loyal subjects - dubbed the Hive Five, a name Naomi didn’t outright dislike but would be hard-pressed to say she loved - in fact, they often took turns so the ones with a car didn’t always have to act as chauffeur. Except, of course, when Lottie’s turn came up. Whenever Lottie was scheduled to be the driver, they always managed to convince her that, no, actually she didn’t have to be the one behind the wheel. A little white lie between friends never hurt when the alternative was having to endure a road trip where Lottie winds up on I-10 heading east and having to quickly turn back around before they wound up in Los Angeles for a day. The only constant with the carpool situation was that if Naomi wasn’t driving, then she was in the passenger seat. This was the rule, as consistent as gravity.

Even when Naomi wasn’t the one driving, she always had control of the music in the car and while she…entertained requests, it was never any surprise what was frequently playing from the speakers. Today was no different, though Naomi was kind enough to turn the current song to a reasonable volume so conversations could be heard, but from the way she was slowly grooving her head back, forth, side to side, it was clear that she was hardly interested in engaging in conversation while the song was playing.

Homecoming Week was vital for the Hive Five; it was important for Naomi that the five of them set a strong example when it came to school spirit for the week. That, of course, meant following the theme of each day to the letter. If that meant having to look like Annie fucking Oakley for a day, then that’s what they did. Yesterday had been Hippie Day and Naomi managed to make an outfit that looked as if Sharon Tate (or Margot Robbie’s take on her) had a fashion child with Foxxy Cleopatra, afro and all. Today was a bit more subdued in theme, school colors, and Naomi looked as if she was going to a Riot Grrl concert after school. Black leather jacket under which was a black halter neck crop top to offer the rubes just the barest hint of her navel, a plaid black and red miniskirt like she was a Catholic school girl gone bad, and sheer leggings because Naomi knew that her legs were money makers and deserved as much focus as possible. Her father had said the jacket made her look like, quote, “someone who listens to Melissa Etheridge” and when Naomi didn’t know who that was, the clarification was a four-letter word and Naomi got the message loud and clear.

She put it on when she got to the car, out of sight of her father.

The song came to an end as Naomi continued along the suburban route towards the fifth member of the Hive’s home. She checked the rearview mirror, ostensibly because it was safe driving to regularly check, but also to subtly click her mouth at Indy’s denim shorts. Sure, the upper half was fine and she didn’t forbid Indy from getting in the car, but such a faux pas during Homecoming Week was going to be remembered, by Naomi if no one else. "You’re probably wondering what makes Homecoming more important than prom.” Naomi, of course, had no way of knowing what Indy was thinking - probably something about kangaroos or koalas - but what mattered is she had asked a question and was getting a proper education on Beverly Hills High School. "Prom is a big event, sure, but it’s only for juniors, seniors, and the odd underclassmen the weird students invite. But Homecoming is for the entire school and even alumni. The football game, the dance, the afterparty, it’s all very…vital to the social heartbeat that is our school. If you don’t go to the Homecoming Dance, you’re nobody. Even if you show up dateless, show up.” That wasn’t a suggestion. Not that anyone in the Hive ever had problems getting dates. Getting them to last was another question entirely.

"Which reminds me, Indy,” Though Naomi was speaking directly to Indy, her eyes were on the road as she inched the car ever closer to its destination, "I hope you’ll show up to the dance with a little more…enthusiasm in your wardrobe. Mermaid’s Closet is having a Homecoming sale for a reason. Just in case you were unaware.” As the car rolled to a stop, so too did the next song on Naomi’s playlist start to play as they waited for Angel.

“Shit…” That was going to be a whole other trip and a whole other dent in the bank account. Indy was never going to join the ranks of the car-owning Hive members if she kept handing over all her cash to the Closet. There was no way she was going to be able to wear last year’s prom outfit. Naomi would spot it in a second. There would be time, she supposed, in between the final bell and the game. Even if she didn’t have to be at the game itself, wondering why they kept stopping play all the time. Aussie Rules Football just had so much more action than American football, and they were more supportive of the women’s leagues too. The athlete in her appreciated that. Still, what was she going to find that was on theme for the dance? Shauna knew what the theme was, she had to. She was an alumnus. She’d have something set aside. It was going to be a pain in the ass keeping everything in her locker though.

“Of course, Naomi! I’ll be stunning!” Indy lied. “I mean, it’s one of the biggest dances of the year, like you said. I won’t let the Hive down. I just wanted to keep my options open in case someone proved themselves worthy of being my date! But, no one has, so c’est la vie.”

Turning her attention back to Indy in the backseat, Lottie playfully nudged her friend's shoulder. "Psh, don't worry about finding a date, Inds!" she reassured with a dismissive wave of her perfectly manicured hand. Her nails were painted a deep crimson red to match the school colors. "It's like, way more fun to go stag anyway. Then you can flirt with all the cute guys without being tied down!"

With her words of wisdom imparted on the floundering Floridian (ha, get it?!), Lottie resumed trying to figure out what the hell she was listening to. It was some kind of... jazz? The guy was crooning too much. She didn't know. Just sounded not so vibey for her, Lottie’s choice of tracks being closer to 00’s pop, but she would rather talk to Mo dressed as a disaster than ever telling Naomi Davis that she did not like her music choices.

Meanwhile, in the suburban cookie-cutter house the sedan had parked in front of, finishing her oatmeal, Evangely Vázquez dully stared ahead at the shelf of assortment prayer candles. They say the light of a candle represents the Christ who is the Light of the World. Prayers were requests for help, guidance or peace from God. It gave those who had faith belief that someone was listening but really, more often than not, prayers were never answered. They were achieved by your own work and efforts, and the righteous gave credit to God, because it was all in His plan. They believed and so it must be true, that the job they got, that the house they bought, that the break up they healed from, was all because they surrendered to God. He told them because of Him, the right doors would open at the right time, at the right place, when they needed it the most. All in which was part of His divine plan.

Her mother would say it is a great tower of strength, and when we pray, we grasp a force that can move mountains and save souls. Her mother would pray to their heavenly Father for serenity so she can let go of the things she cannot change, and gain the courage, the conviction, and the constancy to change that which she could. Her mother would say her father, who should be filled with guilt and remorse for committing adultery and washing his sins away with a bottle of top-shelf scotch, has been spared from all of that. They have been spared from all that because they were chosen. They were saved. Hell on Earth is only part of the journey that leads to crucial moments that bring them closer to their Savior. To their Lord. To Jesus Christ. God the Almighty.

You know what Angel would say to all that? That this was all horseshit and that the bible was the biggest con-artist that ever existed. The Bible, and Catholicism in general, tries to guilt you over trivial things, like lying or having sex, and blames you for your failure and that without belief you’re a fool. Without a cloud of judgment, without the fear of her tyrannical mother and narcissistic father, without the fear of being looked at wrongly for disagreeing, it was painfully obvious to see how impressionable religion could be, convincing the masses that if they trusted the Lord they would overcome sin.

Sighing heavily to herself, Angel grabbed her bowl and went straight to wash it and put it up in the dish rack. It was then when she heard a familiar honk. Once she was done wiping her hands with a small towel, she grabbed her brown leather backpack, threw it over her shoulder and shuffled to the door. As she slipped on her black loafers, her mother, still in her bathrobe, came marching downstairs. She turned around knowing exactly what to expect.

Silently, her mother, Maritza, examined her child, crossing her arms and hovering over her. Angel was incredibly short to most people, including her mother, who loved to assert her authority. Stoutly, Mari inquired, “I don’t like those friends of yours… they either dress whorish or homeless but that’s neither here nor there. When will you go back to taking the bus?”

“Right now it’s quicker to get to school with them and you’ve met them all, they are good people,” Angel replied with a monotone cadence, adjusting her straps.

“They are fake people. My friends tell me they don’t go to church, which means they lie to my face,” Mari complained, gritting her teeth in annoyance. She wasn’t dumb and she could tell there was nothing pure about the group of teens waiting outside.

Angel didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t talk back and she didn’t correct. All she did was tell her mother a half-truth to ease her troubled soul. The Hive Five weren’t religious. In that aspect, her mother was right, but as far as her mother was concerned, Angel had spread her ministry and converted even the most sinful souls. That should be enough to shut her up, for now. “Whether that’s true or not, it’s my job to bring the Word to everyone right? I’m doing just that and like I said before, they’re good people and want to embrace… perfection.” She opened the door from behind and gave her mom a small smile, “Trust me, they’re worth saving. Now.” Angel stepped back onto the front porch. “It’s almost time for you to get ready for work, I’ll see you tonight.”

“Not too late. Come home straight after the game,” her mother commanded. In response, Angel nodded and turned away from the woman of the house. She took in the morning, leaving her problems behind, breathing in the breeze and soaking up the sun. While her smile fell, Angel wasn’t one to smile often, her brown eyes glistened and every morning, whenever she stepped out of her house, she felt the one thing she desired the most. Freedom. With a delicate and graceful hand, she waved at her friends. One thing she knew for certain was her outfit was nightmarish and she knew she was going to get grilled.

As Angel stepped out from beyond the door, Indy had a front-row view and laid the first eyes on the outfit the Faith Forward leader had chosen for today. It was, as expected, extremely conservative given the family but it couldn’t hide those eyes, the first thing the world traveler remembered seeing when she first met Miss Vazquez in her homeroom class. Contrasting her silver pools, those deep brown eyes looked like caverns one could get lost in, and Indy was willing to not be found. However, she quickly learned the extracurricular activities that Angel participated in and the prospect of expanding on what she had experienced with Kai on the Bondi Beach sands was indeed as dim as those eyes were right now.

The outfit did give Indy hope that her faux pas with the deep navy denim shorts would be spared, but a new problem emerged. When Levi got hold of the family’s Bentley, seating wasn’t usually an issue. But Naomi’s sedan meant someone had to sit in the middle of the back seat. Being the tallest at 5’7”, Indy wasn’t an option, and Lottie was in her own world at the moment, so Angel, the smallest member of the Hive Five, usually got the role. For some reason, today it seemed more daunting than usual to have the girl Indy may or may not have a crush on, and who may or may not be the main reason she accepted Naomi’s offer to join the Hive, right next to her. But Naomi would suspect something if Lottie was forced into the middle. Anything that could potentially make the Hive tardy, especially on Homecoming Day, would not be acceptable.

“Shit. Well if God isn’t going to help me out of this, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, one of you better pick up the slack here.”

Without Naomi needing to say a word, Indy returned the wave, unbuckled and hopped out of the back seat, keeping the door open for the arriving Angel. She could spot the mother Vazquez watching from the doorstep and knew that she had to play up the good Christian girl angle at the moment. Luckily given her time in Florida she had some practice. “Good morning, Angel,” the blonde offered. “What a glorious day the Lord has given us. Blessed be the fruit.”

“Good morning, Indy,” Angel locked her gaze with her friend, briefly, as if she was peering into her soul. She rolled her eyes in response. It wasn’t like her mother could hear them, but sure, why not. She could play her part. “God is good,” she asserted. “God is great.” Behind her tone was dry sarcasm and whether her friends knew it or not, most of the things Angel said about God were not said with conviction but as a joke.

For a moment, Angel’s stare did travel downward to the blue denim shorts and Indy’s long, smooth and tanned legs. She did think of a compliment that could make her friend feel good. Not many people could pull off short shorts like Indy did and not many girls could make sporty look hot, but Indy obviously could. That was part of why Naomi adopted her. She had potential. Making someone into your likeness, just how people tried to live life in the likeness of God, all started with potential.

Indy was a lost soul who was given a chance to join the fold and be like Naomi. She was beautiful and had a body the Hive could work with. Most importantly though? She wasn’t too involved with the school, which meant they could groom her properly. Train her to be a proper bee and fly high toward the heavens, with the best of the best. Crème de la crème. This was Indy’s chance to prove she wasn’t a coward and could kick it with the cool kids, dressed in class, never bothered and never harassed. As long as she did what she was told, she’d be able to escape the thunderdome. If it wasn’t for Levi, Angel wouldn’t be here but she wasn’t going to put a target on her back, so she’d play along. Pretending was the one skill she’s become the master at.

“That’s blue,” Angel curtly pointed out and slipped around her friend, nestling herself in the backseat between her and Lottie. “You don’t own any black bottoms?”

“Fuck, even Angel’s going to give me hell for the shorts? She’s dressed like a 50s librarian!”

Indy wanted to say that colors were dumb, that people should just be able to wear what they were most comfortable in, but that was certain to get her sent packing from the Hive. Naomi was very clear that coordination was an important part of what they did for the school. The fact that Indy couldn’t find any black shorts this morning nearly made her blow a gasket, but her mom didn’t have any either and she weighed what was worse in her mind: showing up with the deep blue shorts, or showing up in Walmart shorts. She made her choice, and now even her crush was making her pay for it.

Instead, she blushed and demured as she sat back down behind Levi and buckled back in. “I think my black shorts got lost in the move over from Australia,” she offered as a weak excuse. “I thought for sure I had a pair, but I couldn’t find them, and I didn’t want to wear pants with the bomber jacket, so I thought since I wore the light blue denim for Wild West day, it would be OK if I did this today, and I’m wrong, and I’m the worst, and I’m sorry.”

Levi shot a knowing glance towards Naomi, before glancing back to his reflection in the passenger side mirror. “Don’t be sorry, be better. It’s kind of the entire point of the color coordination.” He moved a stray strand of hair into place, always preoccupied with perfection. “It’s whatever, you’ll just take the picture we post at the end of the day.”

"We’re all aware that Indy’s shorts are unacceptable.” Naomi could have let it continue and part of her wanted to. People that were made an example of always learned how to avoid such a thing in the future; Indy may have been in the Hive but before they were Five, they were two: Naomi and Levi. Just because you were in the Hive didn’t guarantee you’d be there come graduation. Hell, come next week. But Naomi was nothing if not understanding; Indy had a strike on her record. Everyone got one. They rarely got two, let alone three. "But she’s going to make up for it, isn’t she.” It was clear in Naomi’s tone, her calm but cold, calculated tone as sharp as a chef’s knife, that she wasn’t asking a question. "Levi is right. When it comes to the group photo, Indy will just be on the end, from the waist up.”

"Angel, your effort is appreciated. If you need some pins to make yourself look less like someone from the Church of Latter Day Saints, speak up.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Angel voiced. “Don’t know if Indy is going to fit a small but… I have another skirt in my bag.” She paused and shrugged to herself, coming to a decision rather quickly, “I guess we won’t know until she tries it on.” And with that, Angel took her black plaid skirt out of her bag, placed her bag on the oblivious Lottie’s lap and started undressing her skirt, revealing her cheeky, silk white underwear. Unceremoniously, she tossed her skirt at Indy. “Try that on.”

Indy was stunned for a moment. Sharing clothes with Angel? It seemed like something she would do in a dream world where her crush didn't get her fashion tips from Mormon missionary catalogs. Granted her top was better suited to make the skirt work than the drab blouse her Hivemate had, but there wasn’t much time to think about that as Miss Vazquez quickly revealed where the virginal white was hiding in today’s outfit. “Uhhhh, right, yes…”

She unbuckled the shorts and slid them down, the sea green bikini cut now on display for the clique. It took every ounce of restraint she had built up in California to avoid getting more than a peek at Angel’s bare legs, like avoiding staring at an eclipse. She was liable to burn more than her retinas if she kept it up. Unzipping the skirt and sliding it over the flats and up her legs, the small size definitely wasn’t making it easy, but it ended up sitting just below where her shorts were on her thighs. “It’s going to be more like a mini skirt on me, but it will work. I have some Spanx in my locker I can wear underneath, so… are we good? Do I get to be in the picture again?”

Lottie watched with rapt attention as Angel revealed her white silk underwear, trying not to stare too obviously. She couldn't help feeling a twinge of envy at the other girl's lithe figure and the effortless way she carried herself, but that was a can of worms Lottie would not dare open in the vipers’ nest.

As Indy slid the black skirt up her long, tanned legs, Lottie let out an appreciative hum. "Mmm, looking good, Inds!" she purred, giving her friend an exaggerated wink. Her grey-blue eyes lingered a moment too long on the exposed skin above Indy's knees before snapping back up to meet her gaze. "That skirt is so cute on you, babe. It's giving, like, sexy school girl. No spanx. Embrace your inner slutty Britney!"

Lottie pulled out her phone once Indy and Angel were both appropriately dressed again, switching to Instagram to record a short story heralding the arrival of the Hive. "It’s Hive-o-clock bitches!! Let’s blow a kiss and serve some lewks~!" Lottie panned the camera around the car, recording regardless if her Honeys planned on indulging her or not. Not a problem—they were hot, they were (now) coordinating. They were ready to blow some Bevvy Hills minds.

[BrutalBx]

---

TRIGGER WARNING: POLITICS/RACIAL UNDERTONES

---

“Yo, let me talk to ya.”

Isaiah Strickland gazed at himself in the mirror, holding his hair brush in his dominant left hand, his walls adorned with his political dreams fading away in lew of a sold out crowd of like minded young men and women who wanted what he wanted, who felt what he felt and shared his vision. He looked out at their faces and saw the future, a better future for the world and everyone in it and everyone yet to arrive in it. This was the song, his one shot to make a mark.

“If you got no critics, you’ll get no success;
Don’t shoot yet son, don’t stress son,
Truth is on the side ‘o’ the oppressed
Be a Red man, yellow man, God be a black man,
Don’t matter what, just be a good man.

Don’t throw away your shot,
You got one, take aim, give it everything that ya got.
Don’t fire on your people, fire on society
Broker change, make it better, now that’s a priority.

Guns don’t kill people, black motherfuckers with guns kill people.
You see that on the news, you read that in the paper.
Don’t take that shit, it’s my world, your world, we’re the ones that gonna shape her”

“ZAY! YOU’RE GONNA BE LATE!”

A shrill voice cut through Isaiah’s daydream, almost causing him to stumble backwards over his textbooks. Steadying himself, Zay shook himself free of his fantasy and let his eyes fall upon the alarm clock on his bedside table. The wailing banshee downstairs was one hundred percent right he was going to be late! Scrambling around his room, the aspiring activist swiftly gathered some red and black clothes to stuff into his bag for the homecoming uniform before tossing it over his bare shoulder. As he prepared to exit, Isaiah picked an envelope up off his cluttered desk and stuffed it into his joggers pocket before leaving the room.

”Wooooooow, we get it Zay, you’ve been working out over the summer. Put a shirt on you whore.” Peri was Isaiah’s older sister. The only daughter of his father Tony. She graduated the year prior but had yet to do anything with her life, claiming a gap year. Most days she worked the phones at their Dad’s bespoke furniture company and then spent the evenings and weekends in the company of who the hell knows? She was her own person and Zay wasn’t her keeper. “Who’re you trying to impress huh? My baby brother got a crush? She teased as she took a bite out of her toast.

Isaiah shook his head as he picked up his earbuds from the kitchen counter top, narrowly avoiding a piping hot butter splash from Peri’s breakfast; the girl had no spatial awareness. “My business is my business, Peri. Same as yours is yours. But I know you’re just going to keep probing. I’m on a health drive at the minute so I’m jogging to school. Nothing more to it than that. Which also means you can take my car to work, you know if you actually decide to go. I’m assuming both dads have already left?”

Peri pouted her painted plump lips. Zay knew her too well. She was going to ask for the car tonight anyway so this worked out in her favour. ”Yas, Queen. Daddy Rich asked me to remind you to call…shit I forgot. What was that name?”

Sighing, Isaiah placed an earbud in as he looked at his older sister. “Montez. He wants me to call Montez. If you go in today, tell him I’ll do it when I get a chance. I’m booked up with tutoring and basketball and stuff. Don’t work too hard, Peri. Love you.” He popped the second bud into his ear and began to walk out of the house.

”Love you too, you fucking dingus. Go get laid! It’ll loosen you up!”

2Pac’s banger played in Zay’s ear as he ran down and out of his street and towards the school. As the heat in his body began to rise and the thin layer of sweat began to form, Isaiah had a thousand and one things on his mind. This was not unusual for him but normally those thoughts were centred around his grades and school. Recently though, there’s been a shift in his mentality.

Like the song was saying, all eyes were on him. When it came to his two dads, Tony and Richie, they had a lot of expectation on Zay and with graduation round the corner there was no doubt they would be piling on the pressure. They wouldn’t mean to, they weren’t troublesome parents by any means, in fact they were incredibly supportive of anything Zay did. Yet his grades were some of the highest in his class and his politically charged persona embodied Ivy League like nobody else. They wanted him to be a valedictorian; Isaiah meanwhile, wasn’t sure he wanted that.

Then there was the thing Peri said about having a crush. She wasn’t exactly wrong. For the last three years, Zay had very much flown under the radar of all the social cliques and houses. He was nice enough for everyone to get along with but not bold enough for anyone to take notice of. He had dedicated himself to his classes, his extracurriculars like teaching the ASL class, tutoring and basketball. It was cliche but Isaiah hadn’t really had the true high school experience of hooking up, dating, falling in love, having your heart broken or making what one could consider a true friend. This year he wanted to change that. This year he wanted his cake and to eat it too. He wanted to get the grades, get his petitions signed and he wanted to be noticed, he wanted someone to see him, the real him from behind the clipboard. So he had been walking out and he had freshened up his style. It was a new year but it wasn't a new Isaiah, just the real one.

As he rounded a corner, Zay narrowly avoided a woman with a child. He nodded politely in apology before carrying on his run. Seeing her, it reminded him of the biggest challenge on his mind, the one that felt like a noose around his neck, waiting to hang him for treason. The letter in his pocket, a note which arrived several weeks into the summer vacation from a man called Montez Bell; Isaiah’s birth father, or so he claimed. Zay had only ever met one member of his blood family and that was his mothers mother, Granny Hobbs, whom he still visited to this day. He knew next to nothing about his father, Granny wouldn’t share much, just his name.

Obviously as a child of adoption, there were huge parts of Zay that wanted to teach out, connect with the man and find out answers to all the questions he has had since he was six years old and his dads sat him down to tell him the real truth about his origins. Then there was the other part of him that didn't want to know. He had a good thing going, two Dads that loved him, a sister that loved him and yet curiosity was eating away at his gut like a disease. Identity. He wanted to know what his was; there had to be more to Isaiah than even he knew. Speaking to his father could be a way to find out.

Isaiah arrived in the parking lot with a decent amount of time to spare. He glanced up at the monster that was Beverly Hills High, his bare chest heaving as he caught his breath. He was getting some stares and looks but that was fine; it was what he wanted. New year, real me. He waved at an approaching vehicle which he knew contained the Hive Five for no other reason than being polite. Zay then quickly made a swift beeline to a bathroom to switch into his actual wear for the day which was a pair of black jeans and a white polo with a thin black cardigan with red trimmings. No one could say Isaiah wasn’t showing his school spirit. He left the bathroom with his bag and made his way towards his homeroom, it was time to quiet the overpowering and overwhelming noise in his head and focus.

Easier said than done.

Most of the kids in his class he had known for years, there were none that he could really say he had gotten close to. For a long time he had convinced himself it was because they wouldn’t let him in. In actuality, the more likely scenario was that Zay wouldn’t let them in. He was too guarded, too tightly wound. All that mattered was proving to his parents that he was worth the chance they had taken on him. Now he was going in with a fresh mind set and a new purpose. This year wasn’t going to be different. This year was going to be the best ever.

He was gonna graduate.
He was going to make friends.
Maybe he was even going to find love?
All that was for sure was that nothing was for sure.

And for Isaiah, that was fucking terrifying.

[Fabricant451]

_{Exit Music (For A Film)}

By the time Sara Delgado woke up to a room that was as comfortable and familiar to her as a prison cell, Himani Chakrabarti had been running for a half hour with no destination in mind. Running was one of the only things that made sense to Himani; one foot in front of the other, forward momentum, feet stamping the ground in a quiet affirmation combining with the aching heat of muscles screaming along the skin as if the entire body was announcing to the world that she was alive and here to stay. In another life, Himani would have done well as a cross country runner. Joined a team. Maybe go to the Olympics. Be somebody. But in another life, Himani might not have had to run at all. Everyone ran for different reasons, some for sport, some for exercise, some just because it was a cardio day; Himani ran because it was freedom. Himani ran because if she didn’t, she would drown. Himani ran because she didn’t want to look back. The pain in her legs as she pushed closer to the seven mile mark was nothing compared to what would happen if she didn’t run.

The route Himani took was never the same but she knew the streets and walks like a GPS did. Going left one way led to this location, going right was a dead end, three streets ahead and that was where the nice old couple sat in chairs petting a dog that was almost as old as they were. Himani liked that couple, they always waved at her on the days she passed and Himani always considered stopping to pet the dog, to converse with the old couple, but she never did. She couldn’t stop. Stopping was death. Her pace was as important as the route she took; it didn’t matter how fast she went as long as she was going and she always went to the same place. To the only place where Himani was allowed to smile. To the only place where she was able to smile.

When she ran, her hair was in a ponytail, only a few loose strands draped against her forehead and drifted with the pumping of her legs to bristle against her ears. Himani hated her ears. They were big, goofy, floopy, unpierced, and the only time they were ever visible was when she ran like this. When her hair was freed from the confines of a scrunchie, she made sure it covered her ears. Himani hated her hair. It was long, messy, an ugly shade of brown, unkempt even when she brushed it, and it sometimes got food on it when she ate too quickly because her hair reached all the way to the top of her breast.

What face did she make while running, she wondered. Was her mouth open even more than normal - her stupid overgrown front teeth made it so hard for her to close her lips which was another thing Himani hated, were her eyes wide, nostril flaring, eyebrows bristling? She hated each of those parts of her face. Her eyes were too big. Her nose was too pointed at the tip but too wide in the nostrils. Her eyebrows were too bushy, like Frida Kahlo. Her upper lip was always slightly lifted thanks to those hideous buck teeth. When she ran, those flaws didn’t matter. No one looked good after running for miles and Himani could feel normal for those wonderful times between starting and stopping.

At school, Himani smiled from the first bell until the end of the school day. She laughed. She had people who liked her at least enough to not talk shit about her until she was well out of earshot; of course with her ears she was sure she could hear them from the next state ove. She had people applaud and cheer for her. Well, not her. The Pirate. They loved the Pirate, how he ran in the gym during pep rallies, how he danced by the stands at football games, how he tripped and fell on his big stupid ugly face for a comedy gag. Everyone loved the Pirate and under the Pirate was Himani. Everyone loved Himani.

Except for Himani.



By the time Himani Chakrabarti ran for the sixth mile with legs screaming at her to stop, Sara Delgado was gently folding the bedsheet back under the pillows she had fluffed already. Her mother had taught her the proper way to make a bed and it was an almost zen-like experience to Sara now. Every morning she made her bed, every morning she took a small amount of pride in the making of said bed, and every morning for five minutes she sat on the end of her bed and tried not to cry as she spoke three words to herself under her breath like a meditative mantra. “Today’s your day. Today’s your day. Today’s your day.” At the end of those five minutes the mantra always ended with a slight change of wording. “Tomorrow’s your day…”

Sara’s room was comfortable but cold. The walls were bare except for a single hanging poster of the periodic table, something that Sara didn’t even need hung up anymore - she had learned the table before her sophomore year and had impressed her chemistry teacher by correcting the mistake and mentioning that Seaborgium was 106 and Bohrium was 107, not the other way around and then again for mentioning that Bohrium and Borium were two different things with the latter not even being on the table at all. For the rest of the semester, the chemistry teacher would randomly ask Sara a number and Sara would say the element on the table. Sara thought it was meant to embarrass or humiliate her on the off chance she got it wrong but she never did. For her troubles, all she got was a begrudging A+ on the report card and a revolving door of lab partners who spent labs on their phones while Sara did the experiment, the lab report, and got them a passing grade because of it.

The sun peeked in through the open blinds inside Sara’s room and shined its morning light on the spotless floor that was swept every weekend, the study desk that looked unused other than the numerous post-it notes with platitudes and doodles of a cookie with eyes and hands holding hands with a carton of milk with hands and eyes, and the bookshelf with a bunch of textbooks and study guides organized by subject matter. On the nightstand next to Sara’s bed was her cellphone, a navy blue covered diary, and a clock radio. The only personality to be found in the room was contained solely within the post-it doodles but even they seemed trapped in the diminutive canvas. Trapped in the same way their artist was. The only thing missing from Sara’s room were bars on the window.

Ever since she and her mother moved into this house, owned by Sara’s abuelita, Sara was given the biggest room in the house and all she had to show for it was a neatly made bed every morning. The clock radio buzzed to life with a static hum as the frequency of the morning jazz song (today it was Art Blakey) woke Sara from her five minute mantra, a sniffle punctuating her mumbled words as she slid off the bed and turned off the alarm before scooping her diary and phone into her hands, transferring both to the study desk as she opened her bedroom door (devoid of any poster hangings as well) and stepped her bare feet onto the creaky carpet floor en route to the toothpaste pastel colored bathroom.

Her mother’s towel was still damp as it hung on the towel rack and Sara sighed in realization. Another early shift. Another breakfast alone. Another morning where her only conversation was with the friends in her head who were interested in hearing her talk about the difference between arachnids and insects. It wasn’t always so empty, but with her dad in Mexico for most of her life, her mom taking whatever shifts she could at the hotel, and her abuelita living…elsewhere…Sara hadn’t had a conversation with another person in what seemed like forever. No one to tell her good morning. No one to ask how school was. No one to call and talk with until the sun went down. Nothing. No one. No one except Chipper and Derry, the names she gave to her cookie and milk doodles. They were the best of friends, Chipper and Derry were. Sara was jealous.

At school, Sara got some of the highest grades, tutored, was well on her way to being in the consideration for valedictorian - though she figured that wasn’t guaranteed and that someone more popular but with a worse GPA would get that satisfaction - but that was all she had. Her name at the top of a list no one cared about. Inside her drawer at the study desk was her acceptance letter to Pomona College, underneath which was a pamphlet about financial aid and scholastic scholarships, both of which she had applied for. Yet another list her name was at the top of. What good was being at the top of lists if no one cared? What good was being one of the smartest, academically, at school if teachers still got her name wrong (it was Sah-rah, not Sehr-uh)? Everyone at school had friends. Laughed. Smiled. Didn’t eat lunch in the janitor’s closet. Everyone knew each other in some capacity. Had memories and jokes, gossip and stories, kisses and romances. Everyone, even with their dramas, went to parties and hung out and would look back on these years fondly.

Except for Sara.

While Sara was showering and getting dressed, then getting changed as she double checked the theme of the day, Himani Chakrabarti had finally stopped running. She wasn’t out of breath or even all that tired, but she was in desperate need of water, which was the reason she stopped running. Close by the school, close enough that some students dropped in during lunch periods and still had enough time to spare, was a convenience store. Himani waved to the cashier before going to the cold beverage section, grabbing a water, cracking the top, and drinking half the bottle before grabbing a second one. Cradling the fresh bottle under an arm, Himani brought two fingers to her neck and looked at her wrist. She didn’t have a watch, she’d just seen people do this in medical dramas.

When she stepped outside the convenience store, the drawstring backpack with the FILA logo on the bottom re-slung over her shoulders now that it contained a bottle of water more and four dollars less, the morning heat wafted over her and added another layer of sweat to her forehead and legs. She had been wearing running shorts and a sleeveless, plain blue top. Sweat had formed on her legs, perhaps the only part of herself that she didn’t hate, and she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She couldn’t go to school like this. Sweaty. Not in school colors for spirit day. But inside her backpack was a small bar of disposable soap, a hotel sized portion of shampoo, and a change of clothes. One of the perks of being the mascot was the school trusting her with a key to the gym storage area where the mascot was stored; that same key got her access to the gym locker rooms which had a shower attached to them.

Every day she ran and every day Himani showered and changed in the school gym locker room. Today would be no different. Himani wasn’t sure if people knew that she treated the showers like they were in her home, but the alternative would be going to school caked in sweat and stench and while she was well aware that some students, definitely underclassmen, would surely be into the idea of smelling a sweaty girl’s armpits or, like, licking sweat because she’d been on the internet, in practice the only thing that happens to a high school girl showing up sweaty and rank is being known as the smelly girl. Himani was many things, and as she looked in the mirror in the bathroom next to the showers, the things she believed herself to be came flooding into her. She was ugly and no matter how much lotion she rubbed on her face she always would be. She had big front teeth and no matter how many times she brushed and gargled and brushed and gargled she would always have them. She had gross hair and even as she brushed and brushed and brushed she always would, but at least it covered her big, floppy, ugly ears. And at least she wouldn’t be the smelly girl.

Himani smiled as she finished brushing her hair and brushing her teeth. The mirror didn’t crack but the girl looking back at her was believably happy. Which meant Himani was genuinely happy. Her enthusiasm for all things BHHS might have been annoying to many, but her enthusiasm in general was earnest. She loved the school. She loved the people. She loved the students. She loved being the mascot. She loved that her outfit for school spirit day was a red t-shirt that she made herself that had BHHS in big, bold, black letters, under which was a picture of her in the mascot costume under which was her graduation year. The back of the shirt had the statement “LET’S SHOW ARRRRR SCHOOL SPIRIT!” with a pirate sword as the exclamation point. Her black shorts just had the BHHS logo on either leg and on her face she stuck four star stickers, one red and one black on each cheek. And on her ugly, frizzly, dirty brown hair she put a red and black bandana - like the one famous pirate Jack Sparrow wore; some of her hair still spilled out from the back, and of course there was still hair to cover her ears.

Homecoming week was the best. It was when Himani was at her most popular because of school spirit being at a school year high. Pep rallies. The game. The dance. She didn’t have a date for the dance, of course she wouldn’t- she wasn’t gorgeous like everyone else, but she loved going to the dance and dancing to the fast songs and swaying like she had someone to dance with on the slow songs. Showing up to school as a cowboy, a hippie, in pajamas…the one week it was cool to show pride and excitement in your future alma mater. As Himani put her jogging clothes in her gym locker and headed for the quad now that students were starting to arrive, she couldn’t help but to smile as wide as ever. In a few hours she’d be in the costume, rallying the crowd, responding to their cheers. Everyone would be there. Everyone would love it. Because everyone loved homecoming week.

Except for Sara.

Sara didn’t even know why she bothered sticking to the theme of the homecoming events. Any effort she put forth went unnoticed and made her question the point of even trying so hard. On Wednesday while people wore cowboy hats, denim jeans, or god forbid the people who wore Cowboy Barbie pink, Sara had a historically accurate outfit based on the Spanish vaqueros complete with sombrero and overly warm sarape and buckskin shoes and woolen bolero jacket. The most she got was a teacher telling students to take their hats off indoors so people behind them could see the blackboard. The janitor was concerned she would overheat, though, which she thought was a nice consideration until he followed it up with the bleak thought that an ambulance called to a high school is never good for anyone, especially if they found one in the janitor’s closet. Sara laughed it off but she was the only one.

Naturally after a week of trying, Sara tried a little less with her outfit today: a red and black striped shirt and a little face paint on her cheek that read ‘BHHS’, only really perceptible if you were looking into her eyes and she assumed that no one would even notice. Nor would they notice that her black pants sort of combined with the striped shirt to give her an almost Freddy Kruger vibe. All she was missing wasthe hat.After checking her outfit in the mirror in the bathroom, Sara returned to her room for the last time that morning in order to put her diary, phone, and the completed homework folder into her backpack all before swapping the main pun drawing that was pinned onto the center of the backpack. Today’s pun? Carrate.

The kitchen was quiet with the only evidence someone had even used it being the coffee mug sitting in the sink with a puddle of water pooled at the bottom. Sara sighed as she took out the items for today’s breakfast. Before, back when her abuelita was still around, she would almost always have some fresh made pan dulce and hot chocolate for Sara; now the only thing greeting Sara were the ingredients she prepped the night before just so she could cook them that much faster. Before, when her mother would miss mornings, Sara would at least have a note telling her to do her best, to have a great day, little words of encouragement or the puzzle section from the newspaper so she could have entertainment while she ate; now there was nothing other than that damn coffee mug.

The only sound in the ktichen for the next twenty minutes was the cooking of oil, potatoes, chorizo, the gentle scrape of a spatula adding peppers and onions, mixing the ingredients, the crackling sizzle of a pan over a medium heat, and the clink of a fork as she placed her chorizo con papas onto a tortilla and ate her breakfast. Water rinsing the plate added to the puddle in the mug and after pausing to say a short prayer by the cross hanging in the living room - something her abuelita did and Sara did simply to respect the home Sara was graciously allowed to live in - Sara was outside and locking the door behind her. She had five minutes to get to the bus stop. Most senior didn’t take the bus to school, but most seniors weren’t Sara Delgado. Her seat on the bus was practically reserved. Right in the front, behind the driver, she sat by the window and her backpack next to her. No matter how full the bus got, no one ever seemed to want to sit next to her.

From the bus window, the outside world looked so pleasant, especially at this time of morning when people were waking up and beginning their commutes or morning exercise. Behind her she could hear people talking about a break up, discussing the progress they made in some video game, saying how they were going to not bother going to the football game tonight so they could catch a movie instead. Dozens of conversations going on all around her and Sara was hearing bits and pieces of all of them. Was this what ghosts felt like? Invisible but present? Chuckling lightly at jokes she wasn’t meant to hear, silently correcting the people comparing homework, checking her own wardrobe when others complemented their friends. The only difference between her and a ghost in this moment was that people got excited at the idea of seeing a ghost.

As the bus roared to a stop and the doors filed open, Sara was the last one to step off - the doors damn near closing even as she was still descending the steps, and she stepped off with a smile. Even if no one knew her name, even if no one ever really thanked her for helping them pass trig or history or chemistry, even if she had to eat another lunch in the janitor’s closet she still smiled as she stepped onto the sidewalk and towards the quad. Sara didn’t know why. She didn’t have much in the way of school spirit and at the rate she was going she wasn’t even going to leave here as anything more than a face in a yearbook that other graduates struggle to even remember one single anecdote about…but still she smiled. She wondered if anyone else smiled as they walked towards school by themselves and promptly shook her head. Why would anyone do that? That was weird. No one other than Sara smiled for no reason, putting on a brave face for as long as it took for it to fade- which in Sara’s case was up until her classmates filed in and brought with them their drama and their conversation and their continued ignoring of Sara Delgado.

Except for Himani.

Himani Chakrabarti was in the quad, leaping in front of arriving students - underclassmen being the majority - and after the heart attack shriek of surprise from the unsuspecting students, she handed them a flier using only her words. “YARRRRR I SEE YOU’RE FLYIN’ THE SCHOOL COLORS. GOOD ON YA, MATEY! YOUR SPIRIT IS REQUESTED AT TODAY’S ASSEMBLY! DON’T MISS IT OR I’LL MAKE YA WALK THE PLANK, LADDIE! YARRRR!” It was early in the morning but that didn’t stop Himani from making sure students started their day having a laugh even if it was at her expense - at least four different students whispered how ‘cringe’ she was being after she moved on to the next group, but Himani didn’t let that stop her. If she let the remarks of other students ruin her mood then she wouldn’t be Himani Chakrabarti. Their words couldn’t hurt her anymore than others already had.

By the time Himani was sure she had gotten to most everyone she saw in the quad, it was almost time for class to begin. The girl with endless energy and school spirit darted up the stairs into the school and up the stairs towards the classroom; she wasn’t supposed to run in the halls but for Himani, running was life and anything else was the opposite. As she made her way to Mr. Phoenix’s class, she said a loud hello to everyone in the classroom - the same way she had to everyone in the quad. Everyone.

Except for Sara.

Sara had noticed Himani running in the quad and got her hopes up that she would be greeted in kind. She even slowed her steps and held her breath when Himani was greeting some sophomores just in the grass as Sara passed them, but after Himani did her piratey song and dance for them, she turned and looked through Sara, sprinting right past Sara in order to greet a group of three. Sara didn’t drop her smile, but it did crack and quiver. Her footsteps regained their speed as she made her way towards the entrance to school.

“Sara!” A voice called behind her and Sara froze. Her head turned with her body to see the face of someone she had tutored. She knew him well because he took three lessons to learn the difference between sin, cosine, and tangent. After all this time he still didn’t know her name?

“It’s…it’s actually pronounced…” Her voice was so quiet and foreign to her own ears that she barely recognized it. When was the last time she heard herself? Her spoken word went unfinished as the guy calling her name waved to a red headed girl who came bouncing over to him. The way they embraced was all Sara needed to see to know that he had the right pronunciation all along. Turning back around, Sara disappeared into the school as she always did. A ghost roaming the halls, scoring high on tests, haunting the janitor’s closet, sitting in the front row in Mr. Phoenix’s class.

Maybe today wasn’t her day after all.

[Melissa]

_{Timestamp: Between 7:00am and 7:30am
Location: BHHS Art Room ➜ Homeroom
Starring: Tatum Sterling}

The art room was hidden in the east wing of Beverly Hills High School, nestled away from the hustle and bustle of the main corridor. It was a secluded sanctuary for all who ventured there, tucked into the far end of the ground floor past the hum of everyday academic life. The walls were adorned with splashes of color, a tapestry of eclectic work from past and present students, and tall, wide windows filled the studio with natural exposure. Paintbrushes stood poised in jars, waiting to bring blank canvases to life and the scent of paint hung in the air, endless tubes of acrylics strewn across the brown paper covered benches.

Mornings were Tatum’s favorite time to be in the studio, specifically when the rays of early light from the sunrise streamed in, illuminating the space in warm hues of yellow and orange. It also never hurt to have the room to herself so she could work in peace, most students not willing to wake up that early to make progress on their projects. The brunette sat pensively in front of her easel and canvas, her wavy hair held back from her eyes by a navy bandana. She gazed critically at her nearly completed painting, nitpicking the smallest of details to ensure it was up to her high standards.

The piece showcased a girl’s reflection in a broken mirror. Painted fragments of glass covered the canvas, with different slivers of facial features scattered across the shards- lips, teeth, nose and freckled porcelain skin. Adding a few final brustrokes, Tate sighed, wiping her hands on her paint stained jeans. The girl looked deeply into the mirror she had positioned next to her station before turning it towards the wall, no longer needing the reference of her own face for the self portrait. She rarely made herself the subject of her paintings, preferring to choose her friends or family to base her work around. Recently though, she had been feeling some type of way, and she often found that the best way to cope and process was to look at her own inner turmoil from a creative lens.

In the simplest terms, it was an abstract depiction of the dilemma the teenager found herself in, but at its essence, the canvas detailed the fragmented nature of her identity and her struggle to reconcile external expectations with internal authenticity. She had always been torn between being the person her mother expected and told her to be and figuring out the person she truly wanted to be. It was a weight that was getting harder to bear each day. In her youth, it was easier to conform to the rigid standards imposed upon her, but as she approached adulthood it became much more challenging to control the dissonance between her perception of self and her actual reality. In the painting, she had utilized cooler toned shades- blues, teals, pinks, and taupes- to evoke the sense of detachment and melancholy she felt.

The clicking of heels echoed on the linoleum tiles and bounced off of the walls of the empty room, indicating someone’s imminent approach. Tatum turned and made eye contact with Mrs. Gibson, the art teacher, offering her a warm smile. Mrs. Gibson was always polished and had a certain air of sophistication about her. Maybe it was the many years she had spent out east as an art curator for some of the top galleries in Manhattan that informed her poise. She held herself with pride, each step strong and deliberate.

“Morning, Mrs. Gibson,” Tate chimed, setting down her paintbrush on her palette, “Thanks for lending me the studio keys again so I could come in before homeroom,” The brunette reached down to open her backpack and fished around until she found the keychain that she was looking for, “I really appreciate it.” She expressed, extending her arm out to return it to the older woman.

Shaking her head, Mrs. Gibson motioned for Tatum to take back her outstretched hand. “Please hold onto them, I insist.” She stated, “I had an extra set made so you could keep those, I’m not sure why I didn’t do it sooner given how often we do this dance.” The woman leaned up against one of the benches, eyes drifting towards the canvas propped on the easel.

“Are you sure? I couldn’t take these… besides, I’m sure the administration would freak out if they knew a student had the keys to a classroom.” The voice of reason in Tatum’s head (and the avid rule follower in her) sounded an alarm, the girl letting those thoughts become words that fell from her lips.

“Ms. Sterling, you are one of the most promising students to come through my studio in years. Nothing would bring me more happiness than to grant you the ability to come and go as you pleased. How else will you continue to hone your craft?” Mrs. Gibson affirmed before moving closer to inspect the painting more intentionally, “You’ve outdone yourself with this one, Tatum, it’s exquisite. Any specific meaning behind it?”

“It’s uh…” The brunette started, attempting to find the right words, unsure of how to explain the innermost workings of her psyche. “It’s personal, but I guess I could summarize-”

“No, no, dear. That’s quite alright.” The older woman could sense Tatum’s unease and dropped the question all together. With a sigh, Mrs. Gibson clasped her hands together behind her back, “Art is, in my opinion, a therapeutic outlet. I only hope that you were able to find some resolve for whatever this piece was based on.”

Tatum cocked her head, looking at the painting, and then back to her teacher. “I think so, at least momentarily.” She replied, not sure if that was true, or just something she was saying to deviate the subject. Hoping for a reprieve, the girl tapped her phone to check the time, realizing she should probably start heading to class. Quickly and efficiently, she brought her brushes and palette over to the sink to rinse them off for the next student to use. “I better get going, the bell is going to ring in a few minutes and the last thing I need is Ms. Honeycutt to write me up again.”

The brunette gathered her belongings before shifting the easel back towards the wall so no one would bump into it. “Thank you again, I’ll be back later. Between you and me, I might ditch the pep rally.” She laughed, “I’m not really the school spirit type, as you could probably guess.” Tate motioned to her lack of red and black clothes, not one to dress in theme like some of her peers.

Mrs. Gibson chuckled, but nodded, “Quite alright, but you might surprise yourself, maybe this year will be the year you find a reason to join in on the fun.”

“Doubtful, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.” The teenager smirked, turning on her heel and heading for the door. She wondered if that was possible, but shook off the notion and just took it as wishful thinking.

“And Tatum,” Mrs. Gibson called after the brunette, the girl stopping in her tracks and spinning around to face her, “I trust you and I know you’re responsible, so I know you wouldn’t do such a thing, but please don’t let anyone else use those keys. I shouldn’t need to say it, but you know that some students would abuse that kind of privilege.”

Tatum nodded sharply, understanding completely. “Of course, you have nothing to worry about Mrs. G.” The girl reassured her teacher before continuing out of the art room and towards her homeroom. She bobbed and weaved her own path through the busy hallways, giving most of her peers a wide berth and staying out of the way of more bold personalities.

Within minutes she had arrived at Mr. Phoenix’s room, the clock reading 7:27am. She was on time without being the first one there, just how she liked it. Tatum took her usual seat on the left side, closest to the window; she tended to avoid the back of the class as well as the front, preferring to sit in the middle where eyes didn’t tend to linger. Getting situated, she reached down into her bag and grabbed her sketchbook and pencils, opening to a fresh page and beginning to draw whatever next crossed her mind.

[Bee]

_{TW: Body Shaming
TIMESTAMP: 6:30 AM, October 18, 2024
LOCATION: Le Residence, Golden Triangle, Beverly Hills →
Beverly Hills High School, Beverly Hills
NOW PLAYING: ILLIT | Magnetic}

---

---

”...like it’s magnetic…”

Hana Le sat in front of her mirror, brushing across her face lightly with a brush to finish up the last touches of her makeup for the day. Staring at her own reflection, she made sure that every imperfection was covered up. Every time she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw herself, as well as a picture of Momo from TWICE and Chaewon from Le Sserafim staring right back at her. Hana’s light brown eyes would glance over at them every once in a while. There wasn’t a particular reason why she decided to put those two in front of her vanity mirror, but it felt… empty and hollow without having them there to stare right back at her, despite the pictures being mere pieces of paper at the end of the day.

They had no idea who she was, but yet, Hana adored them like an ant on a picnic table.

”You, you, you, you, you, you…”

The dancer was in her own little bubble on this brisk, albeit sunny morning, gently singing to herself as she applied the finishing touches on her makeup. Her Airpods were firmly secured in her ear as she further sank into her rhythm-gapped world, blasting music as loud as her iPhone would let her.

The wee hours of the morning were the only time that Hana could get some semblance of solitude before life would kick off and do its thing. The nights weren’t long for Hana, she was often asleep before they even had a chance to flourish. The way that schedules were, there was a very little chance that Hana could function properly past 10:30 PM. And given how Hana would react to caffeine sometimes, coffee and energy drinks were far from the first option to keep her awake. Hana usually just suffered and pushed through as long as she could, before inevitably falling asleep.

The student had been up for about half an hour, after her alarm for 5:45, 5:47, 5:49, 5:51, 5:53, 5:55, and 5:57 AM had blared. Even after so, she had hardly emerged from her fortress.

Not even to grab a bite to eat.

She knew that as soon as she left for the day, she’d have to face her parents, who almost always had something to say. It was never something worth hearing anyway, but it always cut deep. What was it going to be this time? Hana was hoping that they were off doing something else, but chances of that were slim.

Popping her lips, Hana looked at herself in the mirror one last time, before taking one deep breath. The cool Autumn air filled her lungs, the crisp air giving her a slight jolt of energy as she exhaled. Collecting her lilac backpack, Hana came out from her identically-painted room and proceeded down the hallway.

She passed by her older sister, Holly, as she went down the stairs. Based on the less than one second glimpse of her, she looked like hell. She looked like she’d been up for the whole night, and judging by the rather strong scent of coffee (and stench of stale air after being holed up in her room all night), she wasn’t going to be putting a stop to that anytime soon.

Turning her head back, Hana eventually emerged into the main hallway, and she could already hear the relatively loud Vietnamese news playing in the background as her parents conversed amongst themselves. She knew she was going to have to go inside to grab her lunch for the day. At the same time, her heart took a little leap down to her midsection.

What were her parents going to say today?

Walking into the kitchen, Hana took her Airpod case out and put her headphones inside, before her parents turned to look at her.

”Hana, your lunch on the table.”

Her mother said, as she was washing an apple underneath the faucet. Her dad was staring at his phone, and based on what was blaring from it, he was most definitely scrolling through Facebook, watching videos of people claiming things like mixing coke and durian would kill you, or eating snake testicle soup would make your balls bigger. Eventually, her father looked up, adjusting his glasses as looked over Hana’s outfit and scoffed.

”Hana, you look fat.” Her father remarked, continuing to scroll through his phone, before addressing Hana’s mother ”Bạn gói quá nhiều thứ vào bữa trưa của cô ấy (You pack too much in her lunch.).”

”Cô ấy chỉ ăn nhiều thôi. Có lẽ tốt hơn là chúng ta nên mang theo ít đồ hơn cho cô ấy. Tiết kiệm tiền và giảm cân. (She just eats a lot. Maybe it's better we pack her less. Save money and lose weight.)”

Hana grit her teeth as she silently grabbed her lunch. Though she had been hearing this her entire life, the words cut her hard all the same.

"Chẳng ích gì khi cô ấy ăn mặc như một con đĩ. Ở Việt Nam, cô ấy sẽ bị đánh vì ăn mặc như vậy. (It doesn't help that she dresses like a slut. Back in Vietnam, she would be beaten for dressing like that.)" Hana's father remarked, "Trẻ con ở đây hư quá (Kids here are too spoiled.).

Hana tuned out the rest of what they were saying, as she stuffed her lunch inside her backpack and made a beeline straight for her car. Along the way, she whipped her phone out, immediately pulling up the text conversation between her and Amy Kwon, her longtime friend, and began typing furiously.

”my parents called me fat again 😐”
“why are they like this”

Hana mashed on her iPhone, her heart thumping against her chest as she made straight for her car. Though she had expected this, it still managed to knock her off her rhythm, and it often had a bit of an influence on her. Once Hana made it to her car, and the door was closed, the car was turned on and idled for a few seconds as it took a few seconds before her car recognized her phone that was connected.

Hana was on her way, getting further away from her personal hell, as well as her personal haven.

_{NOW PLAYING: VIVIZ | Maniac
TIMESTAMP: 7:25 AM}

Hana had made it to school (relatively) safely, not without the obligatory dodging of a few dangerously ignorant Tesla drivers that seemed to have more money than sense on the road. She was on her way to homeroom, to Ms. Belmonte’s class. It was more like Ms. Boremonte’s class to her, as the subject matter didn’t really seem to grip her. Though, it was something she felt she had to take.

Luckily, it was the first class of the day, which meant she didn’t have to spend long dreading the class. Slipping in through the door, she looked at those who were gathered in the room, before taking her seat and putting her things down, reluctantly ready to get yet another school day started.

[Hey Im Jordan]

_{Starring: Owen Lyon
Featuring: Troy Lyon & David Powers
Location: The Lyon's Den ➜ The School Parking Lot
Time: 7:00 AM ➜ Just Before the First Bell!}

From the outside looking in, the building looked rather dilapidated. At first glance it even looked more like a warehouse than anything, with no clear advertisement on the outer walls, and the sheet metal door sticking out like a sore thumb surrounded by the glam and glitz of downtown Beverly Hills High. It wasn’t always so bad, but without someone to watch over it for the past year or so, time was winning the battle. Paint needed to be reapplied, one of the windows was boarded up… it was a mess.

Faded advertisements were pasted on the building, proudly declaring it The 365 Combat Club. The club had stood for many years as one of many combat gyms in the LA area. There was nothing special about it. It didn’t have the newest equipment, it didn’t have the best trainers. It wasn’t like the 365 boasted a secret training technique to go from zero to hero; in fact, the old owner was quite fond of saying the only secret ingredients to success were hard work and dedication.

By the time he’d gotten old and frail, the only people left were those dedicated few. When the owner had passed, the 365 shuttered its doors and its fate was unknown for a while.

Until, almost overnight, the new owners arrived and made changes. Though the label on the gym door still said ‘The 365,’ the window and door both had new logos naming the place The Lyon’s Den and small text underneath saying ‘combat club and gym.’ Today was the first day of the gym’s second life, and to top it off, the new owner’s son was standing on a ladder balanced precariously against the wall of the warehouse building his family would now proudly call their second home.

With a hammer in one hand and banner in the other, Owen Lyon was trying to figure out the easiest way to get a nail from between his teeth and into the hole where he could hammer it in. This was the last thing he was expected to do until he could finally leave and go to school, something he was so excited for that it honestly disturbed him.

The truth was, he was basically his father’s prisoner. Before they had left their old town, Owen had gotten in trouble for being the centerpiece of a brawl at a sporting event. In his head, Owen counted it as a victory - he stood the tallest at the end, and that counted for something. He had hoped to sell his dad with that line, but his dad was just pissed he got in a fight outside of the gym. Again. And in public! Owen was lucky he was still allowed to drive himself around town, even if he had to drive his mom’s minivan.

He leaned his body up against the wall to hold up the banner as best he could. He took his free hand to grab one of the nails he held between his teeth and jammed it into the hole on the banner before he slammed it with his hammer. Bang! Bang! The ladder shook with each blow, and Owen found himself briefly concerned with falling off the ladder, and even more briefly he compared himself to a modern day Martin Luther. After all, the gym was basically his church.

Inside the gym, the sound of the hammer hitting the wall reverberated through the building. There were only two occupants, one laying in the center of the sparring ring near the middle of the gym, and one resting on a bench. On the bench, the man had his feet resting on a skateboard. His legs moved a million miles a minute, sliding side to side as he waited for something, anything to happen. When the hammering started, he jumped in his seat. “Christ!” He said, shaking his head as he looked across at his older brother - Owen’s father, Troy. “Are you sure he should be doing that alone?”

Troy sat up and shot his younger brother a scowling look. “You for real? Owen can hang a fuckin’ banner on his own. He’s damn near a grown man, but don’t tell Ky that.” He shook his head and grabbed the ropes to pull himself to his feet. “Why are you even here, Davy? Don’t you have anything better to do?” He asked, leaning on the ropes to peer down at Davy as the banging came to an end, and Owen’s work seemed to be complete. “For fuck’s sake, you have a toddler at home.”

Davy shrugged his shoulders. That was true, he did have a baby at home, but he felt like he needed to be with his brother and nephew, “Ely said it’s cool if I take a couple mornings to come here and make sure you and our little I.E.D. aren’t up to no good. Besides, if anything I get stressed with the baby. She’s so… small. I didn’t know they were that small!” He exclaimed, shaking his head.

“I don’t like when you call me that. I’m not even that explosive!” Owen had arrived on the scene, heading back inside to tell his father the deed was done before he went to school, but he’d caught the last part of what his uncle had said and felt a need to defend himself. Unfortunately, it was disastrous as both Davy and Troy burst into laughter. “I’M NOT. I’m not! I’ve never gotten mad or hit someone who didn’t deserve it! I just get angry sometimes. That’s messed up.” Owen frowned as he looked between the two older men, wanting one of them to say something, anything.

“I’m getting a beer. Owen, don’t go anywhere.” Troy finally said, hopping out of the ring. Owen seemed noticeably displeased with what he’d said, but didn’t protest and didn’t move either. Like a good soldier, Owen was awaiting orders.

On the other hand, Davy’s life wasn’t decided by Troy’s mood, and he was happy to poke the bear. “What are you talking about? A beer? Dude, it’s like 7 AM - HEY!” Davy was cut off of his words by Troy leaning down to snatch the joint he held between his fingers. Wagging a finger at his younger brother, Troy tutted.

“New dads shouldn’t be high. And what are you talking about? I’m a grown man with two grown ass kids, I can drink whenever I damn well fuckin’ please. You look like a hypocritical asshole, judging me for a beer with breakfast while you get ready to smoke a jay in the gym. Read the fucking rules. There are two rules.” Troy said, pointing toward the chalkboard hanging on the wall. In the corner, it had a message, written in the flowery printing of his wife.

Hello new gym people! Please make sure to follow these very important rules:

• no smoking
• no bitching whining

Thank you and we hope you enjoy your time here!

Davy shrugged. “Point made.”

“I wish she hadn’t put the thank you, but she’s pretty amped about the opening. So fuck off and follow my wife’s rules.” Troy pocketed the joint he’d snatched and then looked back at his son. For the time being, it seemed, he’d forgotten about the morning beer and was once again locked in on Owen. “Speaking of rules, Mr. Owen. I got some you need to follow. You’re going to BHHS now, and keeping it real? That place sucks. I wish you didn’t have to graduate from there, but I had to come back and save the gym before they declared it condemned.

I have some advice.”

“I don’t need advice. It’s fucking high school. I’m gonna keep my head down, finish up my last year, and then go to college. Wooooooooo, Chico State.” Owen said, mockingly lifting his arms up and flailing them around. “Maybe I’ll get a real job. Unlike Ruby.” Owen couldn’t help but smirk as he took the opportunity to dunk on his sister. It was especially sweet to do it when she wasn’t present to defend herself. Unfortunately for him, their father was.

“Rule number fuckin’ one! Don’t disrespect your sister in front of company -”

“This isn’t company. This is Davy.”

“Okay. Ouch.”

“RULE NUMBER TWO. Don’t interrupt me, boy wonder.” Troy said in a snippy voice, folding his arms over his chest. There were very few things in this world that annoyed Troy more than being interrupted, and unfortunately for Owen, disrespect for his daughter was up there too. He huffed and shook his head, before carrying on. “Look, son. I did my time at BHHS. It isn’t like normal schools, that’s why I told Kylie no when she suggested we move back here to be closer to family. That school? It breeds hate and drama. I don’t know what it is, but the four years I was there? Hell. Literal, actual, factual hell. I got involved in a drug war. I was seventeen. It’s probably the fuckin’ same old shit. First rule. Find Scott, and stick close to whoever he hangs out with.”

“Who’s Scott? Scott like, my cousin Scott? Dad, I only talk to him at Christmas parties.” Owen explained, shaking his head. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to be worried about. It was a school, and he only had a matter of months left anyway, then before anyone knew it, he’d be out and on his way. “Dude, you’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“No, no. Your dad has a point. It was weird for my time too - there was a beach party, and someone writing a LiveBlog about the school used it to try and succesfully! start a social war. Me? I was, uh, sixteen. Happy to say I was never implicated!” Davy beamed, as if there were something to be proud of in his statement. “The Weekend Warrior, it was called. Or something like that? It’s probably still up.”

“Always something with that fuckin’ place. You better not get involved in no drug wars, no social wars, and no goddamn fights. Don’t associate with anyone named Green, they’re probably evil. Especially the women - not sexist, it’s just the truth - some of the guys are okay. Henry and I used to drink. Stick to people you know. Find Scott, and stick to him. Listen, Owen. This has gotta go well, I don’t wanna hear nothin’ about no fights, no spunky scraps, no women -” “Something tells me that won’t be a problem.” “ - What did I just say about interrupting me? Fine, you don’t wanna go hang out with Scott? Fine. Whatever.” Owen shrugged and Troy sighed, trying to remember where he was. “Forget it. The most important rule, the number one rule of BHHS, is simple. DTA. Don’t. Trust. Anybody. Snakes in the grass, the lot of ‘em. I don’t even want to be here as a fuckin’ adult, but they wanted to condemn the gym. My gym. Fuck that!” Feeling himself get on a tangent, Troy paused and took a breath to halt it before he looked back at Owen.

“Understood?” Owen nodded and Troy stepped forward to stand in front of his son. Thinking the situation was a little dicey, Owen visibly tensed up. It wasn’t unlike his father to go for a takedown as a test, and he needed to be prepared. He flinched as Troy lifted up a hand… and then lazily brought it down on his left shoulder, then up over his head and onto his right shoulder. “Good. Then I absolve you of your sins.”

“Does that… did I sin? What are you talking about? Am I an Avenger now?” Owen asked his father. Before his father could respond, a chuckle came from his uncle, and Owen turned his attention in that direction.

“It means you’re not in trouble anymore, little dude.”

“Davy’s right. Go be a kid. Oh, I’m gonna need the minivan today, so…” Troy dug around in his pocket and fished out the key to his beloved car, which he tossed to Owen. Owen watched it sail through the air, and found himself too stunned to catch it. “You can take mine. Jesus, Owen. What is wrong with you? When my dad said I could drive his car? I was amped.” Troy shook his head, but Owen’s brain was still running a million miles a minute just to try and keep up with the situation.

“So, let me get this straight… I’m free, and I get your car?” Owen asked, and Troy nodded. Owen frowned. There must have been a catch. One he didn’t see, or something like that. There was something his dad wanted from him, he knew that much… it was just figuring it out what it was. “What’s the deal?” He asked, and Troy just shrugged.

“There isn’t one. I was too harsh, and you did a good job setting up around here. Keep it under 10k, don’t lose my CDs. It doesn’t have bluetooth, so deal with it. You show up to BHHS in a minivan and you’re going to get roasted before you even have a chance.” Troy explained, watching as Owen turned to walk away. “Be back here by six at the latest. You’re working with the beginners, got it?” He asked, and when a thumb was thrown into the air by his son who stepped out of the building, Troy sighed. He looked at Davy and spoke in a stern tone. “You have no idea how lucky you are. They’re so much easier when they’re small.”

“I feel like all she does is sleep and poop?”

“You know how much easier my life would be if the I.E.D. did nothing but sleep and shit?”

“Okay, once again. Point taken.”

Owen slipped out of the gym, stepping underneath the banner he’d spent his morning hanging up above the entryway. With bright red paint and his mother’s tell-tale writing, it practically shouted its message to the streets:

Outside of the gym, Owen was sliding behind the wheel of his dad’s car for the first time. As he sank into the leather seat and put his hands on the wide steering wheel, Owen found himself wondering if he was truly ready for this kind of responsibility. He put the key in the ignition and turned it, with the car immediately roaring to life in response as the stereo blasted the music his dad listened to.

He revved the engine for a moment, and then shifted it into gear. He pulled out of the gym, and was on his way. He couldn’t help himself but smile as he drove down the streets and toward the new high school, his phone guiding him along the way. He was a new man! Free from the baggage of fighting all the time at school, free from the warden’s judgment, and most of all… well, he would have been lying if he said he didn’t like the car he was driving now.

By the time the next song had ended, Owen had found his way to the parking lot of the school and slid his car into a parking slot alongside a red car, in line with… a lot of other fancy looking vehicles. He considered for a second that he should park somewhere else - it seemed like this was a place where the car people gathered, but then ultimately decided he didn’t care and killed the engine.

Owen Lyon was finally here.

[Aces Away]

_{Timestamp: 7:15-7:25am
Decky, Sin, and Monarch
Feat. little Danny
TW mild drug mention}

________________________________________________________________________________

“We’re gonna be late.”

“We ain’t gonna be late, calm your fuckin’ tits-”

“You’re the only one that cares if we’re late anyway-”

“I care!”

“...I stand corrected.”

The daily morning banter between the four teens on the two motorcycles rang through all of their headsets with minimal crackling and interference as they sped down the highway, filtering between cars and taking off like a shot as soon as there was empty road ahead. Monarch, who was vindicated in her worry by little Danny Boaz, gripped tighter around Sin’s middle in victory since the other girl couldn’t see her grin. When it came to the four transfers from Gravette, Oregon, if Danny put his foot down about something they very easily listened, so having him in your corner basically gave you a win in whatever argument was taking place. Decky sped up while grumbling incoherently into the headset, creating a gap between the two bikes, and Sin very easily picked up speed to catch up, the two of them once again weaving in and out of traffic like a synchronized dance.

They pulled off the freeway and up to a stoplight, the two operating the bikes taking the brief reprieve to shake out their hands and crack their fingers before the light turned green and they were off again, taking a right onto the main road to the school.

“Don’t forget I’m helping the Homecoming committee break down everything from the rally after school, so I won’t be meetin’ up with y’all,” Monarch reminded as they pulled into the parking spot they used for both bikes, waiting until Sin gave the nod to hop off of the back and remove her helmet. She quickly got to work unclasping and removing her ponytail wrap and letting her braids fall loose around her jacketed shoulders. Beneath the leather jacket that she removed next was her outfit for today’s theme, a lacy red mini tank with a sash tying it off at her waist above low rise black jeans. Not her usual style for school, but she was feeling a little extra playful today and her older sister Empress wouldn’t stop hyping her up after barging into her room this morning, so today it was less comfy cardigans and more what she tends to wear when going out.

Little Danny bounded over to her from where he’d just hopped off the back of his older brother’s bike, and with a soft smile she dutifully helped him undo his helmet clasp and took the protection off of him, tossing it it to Decky who had only just looked over. Monarch tousled Danny’s curls to help him bring back some of their volume after being crushed by the helmet while the older boy fumbled with the sudden object in his grasp before he finally got his grip on it, causing his friends and little brother to laugh at his plight. Decky locked their helmets onto his bike and then the Boaz brothers unzipped their jackets at the same time to reveal a matching colored collared button up for the older and a basic sweater over his button up for the younger, but Monarch had to at least give them credit for joining in on spirit week at all.

“I can stick behind if you need,” Sin offered the other girl, shaking out her own hair and grabbing Monarch’s helmet off of her. When they were also secured, Sin took her own jacket off to reveal that she’d leaned almost entirely towards the black end of the theme, with nothing but a bit of her red bra strap peeking out from under the plain black tank to show she was playing along. “I got nothin’ else to do today aside from homework.”

“If you're gonna wait around then you might as well help, Sin,” Monarch countered with her hands on her hips. “More hands make for less work.”

“Yeah, Sin,” Decky mocked. “Put that free time ta good use.”

“And why can't you help too?” Monarch asked, turning to him with a raised eyebrow. “You love demolishin’ things. Use your passion to help your school.”

“The fuck would I do that for? Destroyin’ shit and breakin’ down props for a school function are nowhere near the same thing and ya know it, don't try and guilt me,” the older boy responded immediately, rolling his eyes. Monarch liked to try every now and then to get her friends involved in the school, but now that they were seniors it's become more of a teasing point between them all than her thinking she could actually convince them. “I got work after school, and I got Danny ridin’ back with me anyway so it wouldn't make no damn sense for me ta stay.”

“Fine,” Monarch huffed good naturedly. “Have your logic and reasons.”

“I will, thanks.”

“So…am I stayin’ after or no?” Sin asked when they’d finished, still having not gotten a straight answer.

“Are you gonna help break down?”

“Are you gonna do my science homework for me to make up for the lost time?”

“No.”

“Then you’ve got your answer too baby girl,” Sin answered, throwing her arm around Monarch’s shoulders at the same time Decky took Danny under his own. “You can text me and I’ll come back for you, though," Monarch rolled her eyes and adjusted her glasses on her face, not surprised Sin would choose multiple trips over doing things for the school for free. "Anyway let’s go, I wanna smoke before homeroom and we’re quickly runnin’ outta time. Decky gimme a- hey!” She turned her gaze from the shorter girl to the boys, but they were already halfway across the parking lot with Decky’s middle finger raised high in response to her call. Danny was desperately trying to pull his older brother’s arm down and out of sight, but the younger boy was failing miserably while his brother continued to wave goodbye with a single fingered salute. “Jackass! I was gonna steal a blunt!”

“I know, that’s why I left!” Decky called back over his shoulder, finally dropping his arm while he and Danny made their way to the front of the school. While the girls were going to be heading to the back before homeroom, Decky’s focus was on getting his little brother to his homeroom first.

“I can walk myself if ya wanna go with ‘em, Decky,” Danny assured as they reached the front doors, head craning to follow the girls’ quick path towards the back before his view was cut off by the building. “Ya don’t really gotta protect me in the halls-” Decky pulled his little brother in closer to him seconds before the smaller boy was almost elbowed in the face by a taller kid throwing his backpack over his shoulder, and simply looked down at Danny with a raised eyebrow. “Well that wasn’t fair, I was distracted.”

“You’re always distracted, kiddo,” The older boy responded, ruffling his little brother’s hair with the same hand as the arm around his shoulder. Danny hadn’t mentioned anything about walking himself to class before, so Decky was curious as to the reason. “What’s this all the sudden? Are ya embarrassed that I walk ya ta class?”

“No! ‘Course not, it’s just that ya didn’t even get ta smoke or anythin’ this mornin’ an-”

“Hey, I’m fine,” Decky cut in, looking around at the faces they passed to make sure they were still in their own little bubbles. Decky’s habits were no secret in these halls, but he didn’t need the school’s eyes and ears latching on to anything his brother said and skewing it for the sake of the rumor mill. Compared to before they moved out to BH, Decky was practically sober. During school hours, at least…when it came to the harder shit, at least. Look. He was better, ok? “If I need ta chill I’ll just slide outta class for a minute. Don’t go worryin’ ‘bout shit like that, it ain’t your problem.”

“...Okay, sorry,” Danny responded as they came up to his homeroom.

“And stop apologizin’ for carin’,” He added with a soft smile at his little brother as he gave him a light shove towards the doorway. With a responding grin and an enthusiastic wave, little Danny disappeared inside and Decky turned on his heel to head to his own homeroom, already planning his first chance to slip out for as long as he could get away with.

[LovelyComplex]

_{@LovelyComplex & @smarty0114}

________________________________________________________________________________



________________________________________________________________________________

In typical Jordyn fashion, she was the last of the Jones to wake up. In sudden urgency she stirred awake and jolted into a sitting position, her curly hair going every which way. Wiping the drool off her face, she checked her bedside where her alarm was. When she saw the time, her eyes widened, “Oh no!” Rushing off her bed, she began her morning routine and complained out loud, “Thanks for waking me up!” Stopping in the hallway, she called out, “DJ? PJ? Addie? Dally? MOMS?!” At that moment, Jordyn Jones realized she was home alone and everyone LEFT.

Priority number one. Feed the kids. Going back to her room she said good morning to all her pets and gave them their breakfast. As she went to each cage, she debated who would be the lucky one to go on a field trip. Jigz went last week and she wasn’t easy to hide so unfortunately, Jiggy Wigz would stay home. Jarvis was asleep and it would be rude of her to wake him. That gave her three options. Big Cheese, Master Splinter, or Hamtaro. After she gave each rodent their balanced diet meal, she thought about the day ahead of her and realized she needed to pick the pet with the most spirit but also wouldn’t panic with such a rowdy crowd. The choice was obvious.

Of course, first, her babies needed to eat and she needed to take a five minute shower and throw some clothes on. She might be late for homeroom but it was a risk she was willing to take. Putting a bonnet on, she stripped and rushed into the bathroom. “Alexa play wake up playlist.” The song that blasted in the bathroom speakers was Pina Colada Boy by Techno, the Candy Crew Remix. As she showered she swayed to the music, going side to side, covering her whole body with soap and brushing her teeth. Multitasking! Gotta’ go fast. Five minutes passed and the bathroom door flew open, steam rushing out and JJ in her Dragonball bathrobe. If she didn’t leave the house in ten minutes, she was definitely going to get detention, again!

The battle began where she threw her clothes out of her dresser, not bothering with her dresses in the closet, and decided on a black shirt, jeans, and black converse. There was no point in stressing about the details and getting both black and red in her ensemble; spirit week wasn’t THAT deep. Plus, red could easily be applied to the lips. After doing light make up on her eyes, to give her LIFE, she realized she did not have red lipstick. The person with the best make up was her step sister, Adelaide, so she knew where she needed to go.

Unceremoniously, JJ invited herself into the botanist-in-the-making’s room, crashing into the door before opening it. Suddenly, she felt like she was actually at a rave with the music coming out of her phone and all the colors of the rainbow from her sister’s room. The LED lights were definitely a vibe. What made this rave unique was all the plants that made this room more of a jungle (you could get lost in it!), which was honestly Addie’s element. Plant mama. Going to Addie’s vanity JJ skimmed through the selection of lipsticks she had, there were many, before finding the perfect red. She looked at the mirror, applied, and smiled at herself. GORGEOUS. With the same lipstick, she left a message for her sister on her mirror: thanks for the pop! -JJ

She was what they called absolute perfection. As she rocked, skipped and pirouetted back to her room, all while putting her hair up in a cute, messy bun, she went to the chosen one and opened the door to freedom. “Big Cheese. Since PJ absolutely traumatized you, I decided you deserve a treat. You’re coming with mommy.” And with that, JJ was dressed for her day. Putting headphones on, so the party kept going but now just for her rather than the whole house, she exited stage left to get to school on her Hip-Pea.

---

TIMESTAMP: A bit after Hopeless

Parking her moped by the bikes, she looked at the barren lands, no classmate to be seen since they were inside heading to homeroom. Oh man. Her mom, the one she came out of, was going to be PISSED. Securing her moped with her chain lock, because her mom always told her to play it safe, JJ was standing tall and staring at the even taller building (she wasn't even that tall) that was her school. Opening up her tote, she smiled to see Big Cheese straight up chillen. Taking him out, she held him with both hands and reintroduced him to her school, since he hadn’t been there in weeks. It was then when she saw Jamie Callaghan off at the distance coming from a path less taken, that led to… the murder shed or something… and he looked distraught.

Looking at Big Cheese, she sighed, “He doesn’t look okay. What? You think I should check on him?” The mouse didn’t say anything in return, just stared at his mother with big, beady eyes. “Remember that time, sophomore year, I talked to Jamie for gym? He didn’t even notice I took a ball for him! Dodgeball is ruthless and should be canceled.” Her eyes softened as she stared at her eldest and nodded. “You’re right though. I need to be a good egg-xample. Bleh. Fine, you’re right. Man, why are you such a softie, Biggie? I could only aspire to love like you. Okay, okay, let’s go.” Together, JJ and BG found their way walking off the sidewalk, on grass and to the gravel path that led to the unknown and she approached Jamie, with mouse in hand. “Hey… are you okay?”

“Christ, JJ” Jamie jumped as JJ pierced through his veil of silence. His hands were still shaky, rubbing at the mark on his neck, face flushed red. “I am…fine. I will be, at least,” he said, cautious. He knew of JJ, or more accurately, he knew her sister. He really didn’t need his business getting back to the media wing, in any capacity. Jamie didn’t get to where he was by handing his secrets out for free. He took a breath and eyed the girl and her rat. “What’s that one’s name?”

“Oh this guy? This is Big Cheese. He’s my old man; had him the longest.” Jordyn explained, pride written all over her face. Bringing her hands out, she smiled and offered, “Want to hold him?” The girl wasn’t naive, she could tell her peer wasn’t okay and based on quick observation, she had a good guess it dealt with the mark on his neck. “He doesn’t bite, scouts honor,” she assured. Still, it wasn’t her place to pry. “Seriously, he’s soft as heck.” Gently, she ran the back of her pointer finger on the mouse’s back, going down his spine, casually and with ease.

After four years, Jamie had grown used to JJ’s revolving door of rodents, but that did not mean he had any desire to touch them. Especially not the ones with creepy, little tails. He looked down at Big Cheese with a look that was equal parts uncomfortable and grossed out. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said, grimacing at the mouse as though it might grow wings and fly at him.

He was saved by the ding of the school’s warning bell, signalling their time to get to class was running out. Jamie looked down at his watch and let out an annoyed sigh. AJ was not going to make him late to class. “Walk with me JJ, I can tell Belmonte that we were doing something for the paper.” Never let it be said that Jamie Callaghan didn’t perform charity. He gripped his bag tighter, and sent one longing look back at the baseball shed before turning back to the main building. “Speaking of Belmonte, how does she feel about Big Cheese?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at the girl as he stepped towards BHHS.

“As far as she’s concerned, Big Cheese is not here,” JJ whispered in response, slipping her mouse back in her tote. There was no way she’d get sent to the office. Not today, Satan. Walking beside Jamie, JJ thought of something to talk about. It wasn’t everyday she got to chat with one of the editors in charge of the Pirate’s Hook. The iconic duo of Trixie and Jamie were known in all grades, competing with the likes of the Hive and the Elite. They knew how to find out things, and bridge rapport with people who were even better at it, like Monarch. They had a network of people and with that they used it as a shield or a dagger. One thing she noted awhile back with her classmates was how caught up they were with themselves. They rarely looked outward so of course they’d never see how much JJ did pay attention. How much JJ saw. Her mother had told her she was wise beyond her years, understanding concepts that take most people their whole lives to figure out. An old soul in a youthful body, that used levity and humor throughout her day, because she wanted to. Because she could. Because smiles and laughter were the best form of therapy.

There were so many questions she could ask but she decided on a simple one. “So… Do you have a date tomorrow for the dance?” Jordyn calmly asked, curiosity being one of her notable traits. Jamie’s breakup with AJ had spread fast around the halls of Beverly Hills High, especially because of how public their relationship was to begin with. With AJ’s loud passion and loyal soul, and Jamie’s ruthless ambition and clear direction, don’t forget the promposal, they were a couple her peers rooted for to win the superlative “Best Couple” this year. At least from her observation they looked at each other with an overflow of love and balanced one another in a cute way, that was their own. Where AJ was the drive, Jamie was the plan. Where AJ was the spirit, Jamie was the truth. Where AJ was the line, Jamie was the kite. Or was it the other way around? Regardless, they were cute, at least while it lasted. They would’ve been the second lgbtq+ couple to win that, the first being Levi’s parents, Hailey & Hana Green. Love was a fickle thing though and they broke up before the summer. It was sad but they’re young and alive, and that was a beautiful thing in her opinion. “I only ask because you seem a bit off, and I thought hey maybe he’s worried about the game or maybe he has pre-dance jitters. You can totally ignore me though if you don’t want to answer. Just thought I’d ask…” Her voice trailed off, knowing she was rambling and needed to put the brakes on. She talked too much sometimes.

Jamie glanced away, gnawing on his lip at JJ’s question. It was salt in a fresh wound. AJ wasn’t his date, but Jamie had been looking forward to making eyes at him from across the dance floor, and reveling in the fun of it all. He’d thought that was what AJ was all about and he’d tried to be that and he’d clearly failed miserably. “Does Trixie count?” He forced an easy smile and looked back at JJ. “No date, which is fine, because dates are distractions.” They took a few more steps, silence hanging between them. “Not much of a point to it, is there?” Jamie didn’t wait for a response. “I’m not a Candy. I don’t believe in love at first sight and shit like that, and really, the truth is, most of these relationships will be done by the time we come home for Christmas next year so…” Jamie trailed off, heaving a sigh and shaking his head. His reflexive cynicism wasn’t fooling anybody, least of all him.

That’s a bingo.

Jamie gave her more than something casual and blasé to pass the time. He gave her what she could only deduce was a glimpse of himself, his issues, and his rather shitty perspective on life. They had approximately seven minutes from their current point to get to their final destination: the Business room. They had to go through the lobby, pass the main office, take a right, greet the nurse and keep moving forward until they sailed straight to the land where Ms. Caterina Belmonte reigned. Room 105. That was seven minutes to give Jamie Callaghan some food for thought or at least leave a good impression on him where he’d consider being her friend. She wouldn’t mind having more friends. It made the school day that more interesting when you had someone from every corner of the world. The world being her school. “Platonic love certainly does count,” JJ beamed, adjusting her backpack and tote with Big Cheese, as she looked at her surroundings, taking in the atmosphere, the ambience, and the angle, while still being ever present to her seven minute companion.

“As for all that other hodge-podge stuff… who cares? Labels and all that jazz, that’s not really what people are going to remember when we leave this place; you know what I’m going to remember?” JJ glanced over to the boy beside her, no malice in her tone and her eyes sparkling with genuine thoughtfulness and good intention. She was going to tell him what she remembered regardless if he wanted to hear her or not. He cracked the door open and she was going to peek in and try her best to inch it open, even more. “This. You taking the time to talk to me. Do you remember freshman year, in English 101, I sat right behind you and Trixie? I remember asking what you were planning to write to impress the seniors for the newspaper club and you brushed me off like I was a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things. Well this speck in time still thinks about that day.” She paused, letting her words and the silence in between them weigh in their exchange. Even silence meant something and had meaning. All Jamie needed to do was focus on her and see what this moment was at face value. Someone wanting to be his friend.

“After we graduate, I’m not going to remember my SAT score or whether I got into the college of my dreams — full disclosure, college is a scam and I’m just going to community — I’m going to remember the moments. And if that includes someone to love, someone I can consider mine, and me theirs, even if it might be fleeting... at least I had someone that made me happy. At least I had someone to hold. At least I can say I had someone who, without a doubt, made me the happiest I could ever be, and was someone I needed, right now." She cleared her throat, hoping he didn't mind the lecture. Jones had habits, they liked to talk. After a beat, she continued, asking the same rhetorical question he asked her. “What’s the point, Jamie Callaghan?”

“Hm, maybe if you stopped stressing about having all the answers, you’d be able to see for yourself.” She teasingly nudged him and gestured toward a group of kids huddled, in their red & black attire, hyped and talking about the upcoming game. She then pulled his attention to a couple, where the boy was carrying roses and he nervously asked the girl if she’d be his date for the homecoming dance. Her response was absolute shock but once she snapped out of it, stunned for a second, she squealed yes and embraced him tightly. “I’m here for the confetti.”

Jamie thought that receiving a pep talk (an admittedly decent pep talk) from Jordyn Jones, the girl with the rodents, was not exactly a sign of a Jamie Callaghan renaissance. He was certainly not about to metaphorically start dancing in a cage with a new lease on life, à la Miley Cyrus, but he did feel better. Not great, but better. He supposed that counted for something. “You are oddly wise for a girl who sneaks her pets into school.” As they approached room 105, Jamie paused his stride, turning to JJ. “I’m definitely going to regret this if the mouse causes a scene, but hey, fuck it. Ethan Green’s throwing a party tomorrow night. Family vineyard, very boujee. Theme is Risky Business, which I’m sure DJ will either love or have some snarky comment for. He’s renting a bus or some shit, to cart everybody over. You guys should come.”

“Wow, that’s extra extra, but I’m all for it. And DJ is going to be so excited even if she might not show it. I have this weird head canon that if her and Ethan actually were in the same orbit they’d have popcorn worthy debates on films. You ever notice them go off on their own tangents or is it just me? Might just be me.” JJ not only seemed to make Jamie feel a little better but she also got invited to a massive social event that would set in motion the rest of the year. Honestly, as much as she would love to bring Biggie or Jigz or Master Splinter or Hammy or Jarvis, she didn’t want to risk them getting caught up with a bunch of teens and maybe getting squished. Parties were chaotic at this school.

“Jamie, Jordyn. This is a first, seeing you both coming in together. And cutting it extremely close.” Ms. Belmonte greeted, skimming her email. She was sitting at her desk which was in front of her homeroom class, far left, sporting the school colors with a red dress, black boots and a suit jacket. “I hope everything is okay,” she subtly probed. It was hard to read Ms. Belmonte because her voice was raspy, in a sexy way, which was distracting. As was her face, that was distracting too. And her body. Very distracting. It was hard to explain the effect Ms. Cat had on her students. She was way too hot to be a teacher but here she was teaching trust fund babies tools and resources that would help them when they inherit their family’s businesses, stocks and estate.

Jamie grinned. “Newspaper business. It never ends, Ms. B.” Jamie took his seat near the front, close enough to be noticed by Ms. Belmonte, but far enough away from her that he could listen in on what people were saying. Some of the best gossip got whispered during class sessions. There were seats open on either side of him, and while he didn’t offer one to JJ, the door was open a lot wider than it had been an hour ago. He pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly made a post about Ethan’s party, sending it out with a whoosh. “Ahoy, or whatever. Anyone who’s anyone will be washing down tomorrow's dance with shots and jungle juice, at a vineyard so kindly provided by one Ethan Green. Risky Business is the theme, bus is the method of transportation, and getting wasted is the end goal. The bus leaves after the crowns come out, be there, or be wherever losers go,” he announced, droll and unfazed by the authority figure mere feet from his desk.

“Not the time or place, Jamie,” Ms. Belmonte softly reprimanded. He knew she wasn’t going to do anything because she knew the parties were important in the social scene at this school but she could at least act like she wasn’t intrigued herself. Risky Business? An interesting choice to start the school year. “I didn’t hear a thing, just don’t be dumb and bring protection.” She advised her class who all reacted either by laughter or by grimace.

“There will be no blossoms getting pollinated by all the bees this weekend, Ms. Kitty Cat!” JJ joked, excitedly taking a seat to Jamie’s right.

“Not the bees,” a kid laughed out loud.

Quickly, she rummaged through her tote, made a kissy face to her mouse, before taking out a pen and note card. She scribbled her number on it and slapped it on Jamie’s desk. “Want to go to the party together?!”

“I did invite you, so it’s proper etiquette” Jamie made a contact for JJ and sent a quick text, so she had his number. “Don’t abuse the number, I don’t just hand it out like candy.” He had a feeling that she wouldn’t heed that for longer than two weeks, but what could he say? He might’ve been cold blooded, but JJ had practically held a heat lamp to his face until he warmed up. He had to give her something.

“Okay, okay but there is something I need to ask you. What did one lung say to the other?”

Jamie sighed. He was beginning to rethink this already. “What?”

JJ smirked. He was playing along. This was a fantastic sign. “We be-lung together!” She giggled at how terrible her pun was and slapped her knee. That was a knee slapper indeed.

Jamie tried his best, but a smirk broke through his stoney expression. “God, it’s not even lunch yet.”

[BrutalBx]

---

---

Odina was in that beautiful place between awake and asleep. She couldn’t open her eyes, lest she lose the visage of perfection which she was dreaming of. She couldn’t move too far in the bed or the perfect warmth that enveloped her skin. Odina’s hand reached across the bed to feel the warmth of the body that lay next to her, or that should be next to her. Nothing. She realised that she couldn’t feel any kind of dip in the mattress either, there was no one there but still; she didn’t want to open her eyes.

Then she felt it.

That unmistakable, unexplainable aura.

It sucked her in the previous night. Down by the beach, Odina saw those peroxide golden waves and that style all her own. Those big painted lips and a vibe that made absolutely no sense yet perfect sense at the same time. She’d heard the rumours of the manic pixie who was undeniable but she never thought she would ever meet her, let alone be seduced by her but yet she was and it was so damn good.

From beneath the bed, a mess of bleached hair rose up slowly, big blue eyes smiling down as Odina refused to awaken properly. Leaning in, she lowered her face closer. “Addie is about to go on the lamb.” She kissed Odie’s nose, causing the Hawaiian girl to sit bolt upright; headbutting the pint sized drug dealer and sending her crashing into a nearby desk. A photo came crashing down on top of her head.

Adelaide Davies-Jones was anything but normal but what was normal anyway? To look at her, the tiny girl was obviously very pretty, model-esque she had been told but her grunge aesthetic of torn tights, bomber jackets and baggy t-shirts vastly contrasted her almost valley-girl physical form. Then a further juxtaposition was her temperament. Even those who had never met Addie knew that she was absolutely crazy, hopped up on who knows what and completely non-stop. Yet she was absolutely utterly charming and intoxicating. It was hard not to love her.

As Odina leapt out of the bed to check on the blonde who was simply staring at the photo that had landed on her. “Shit me, is this your Dad? I thought this was like fucking Dwayne Johnson, holy fuck!” As the girl wrapped her arms around her to check she was ok, Addie couldn’t help but inhale. ”Wow, you smell really fucking good.”

Odie giggled, this girl truly was something else. It was hard to tell if she was even real. “Thanks honey and I’m glad you’re ok but you'll have to get out of here soon, my Dad no doubt just heard that clatter and he..erm…”

”He doesn’t know you're gay does he?” This was not Adelaide’s first rodeo. Over the years she had been many women’s first dip of the toe in the waters of sapphic glory. She didn’t mind it, in all honesty. Addie had known since she was very young who she was, what she liked and loved. Being sure of herself, some would call it delusional or overconfidence but she just was happy in her own skin and she knew not everyone felt the same. That’s why being used didn’t bother her, everyone had their own path to follow. ”I guess Addie’s work here is done. If ever you feel the need to hop on the good foot and do the bad thing, call me!” Pulling herself to her feet, she placed her the picture frame back on the desk and made her way to the window. She cracked it open and turned to sit on the ledge, gazing at Odina one more time. ”God your boobs are fan-fucking-tastic. Please call, I wanna smush em again. Catch ya later sexy.” With that, Addie flung herself backwards out of the window and down into the bushes below.

Emerging from the shrubbery, Adelaide dusted off her jacket as she looked around the unfamiliar neighbourhood she found herself in. It was still early and she needed to get to school before the bell. Her phone was dead, of course, so there was no way to call for help. There was no Uber or Lyft in her future. Dallas was a no go, her other sisters DJ, PJ and JJ had all probably left anyway. The PLC was likely already high. Addie could miss school but she really didn’t want to. She had learned prior to the summer that she was a few credits short for her college applications. The problem was, Addie was a genius. She really was. Much of school came so easy that she just didn’t try and now she was suffering for it. The goal was simple, this year she was going to be better and she was going to make all the strides possible so she could graduate and get the doctorate she so desired.

Now the bigger problem was finding a way to Beverly Hills in time for the first bell. Addie scanned the area for a bus stop or a taxi rink but this place was way to white picket suburban hell for that. Across the street, a young boy was wheeling his bicycle out of his garage, probably about to start his early morning paper round. There it was, Addiezms exit from the river Styx. She hurried across the street and waved to the youngster. “Hey can I borrow your bike? I promise it’s for nothing weird I just need to get to school.”

The little boy looked at the girl who was barely taller than him with a tilted head. There was something about the look on her face that felt incredibly innocent and genuine. He did not say a word as he pushed the bike forward into her waiting hands. Would he regret this? Probably. But she seemed sweet and gosh she sure was pretty…

“You are fucking amazeballs and Addie appreciates you little person to little person. Go buy yourself a biscuit!” Sticking her hand into her jacket pocket, Addie rummaged around trying to find any money that she might have, ”Aaah, here we go. Take this.” She handed the child a hundred dollar bill and saluted him as she spun the bike on its back end to wheel it down the driveway. The life of a drug baron wasn't a bad life. Then again Addie didn’t outright sell it, she grew it for the PLC, who then sold it. The pixie just got a cut of the profits.

Addie took a blunt from behind her ear and placed it delicately between her lips before lighting it and jumping onto the bike. The sad thing was she became an expert bike rider since her Mom took her moped away. All she did was take it to Vegas for a weekend, it’s really not that big a deal but noooooo, the Doctor just had to stick her stupid face into it and take Addie’s licence away. Her Mom sucked, she missed her Gamma. She understood Addie better than anyone. It was actually her Grandmother, the best psychologist in Massachusetts, who diagnosed Addie with ADHD and Hypersexuality. Her mother Wednesday was just happy to now have a label to explain her daughter's behaviour. Adelaide just thought it made her sound cooler than the voice of Matt Berry.

It took her a while but after what felt like an age, Addie managed to find herself on the right track towards school. However before she got there, she needed food, ya girl had the munchies. Stopping off at a breakfast joint about two minutes away from BHHS. She hopped off the still in motion bike and sauntered into the dinner, joint still hanging from her mouth. “Who does Addie have to screw to get some pancakes to go around here?…” Immediately as she said that a new waitress walked by and the big blue eyes of the suicide blonde widened intensely. “Oooh please let it be you.”

After being kicked out of the diner, with her pancakes of course, Addie knew the manager, she made the brisk walk towards the school, abandoning the bike she had borrowed. Arriving at the window outside of room 105, the rugby blondes wrapped her fists on the glass, awaiting one of her peers to open it up. Adelaide did not like doors. Doors let the monsters in. She was aware of how silly her fear was and she could and did use doors a lot but if a window was nearby, she’d much rather go through that. As for why she hated those room blockers? Well she wasn’t high enough to talk through that shit.

When the window above her opened ever so slightly, Addie took it as a sign. Grasping her last pancake between her teeth, she jumped up and grasped onto the ledge before pulling herself through the now fully open window. She dragged herself across her classmates desk before dropping onto the floor. She looked up at her disapproving peer and flashed the bird. ”YOU ARE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!”

[smarty0114]

_{@smarty0114 & @Hey Im Jordan
TIMESTAMP: 7:25 AM
BHHS Parking Lot
Introducing: Katie Callaghan & Scott Lyon}

Scott had parked his car near the back of the parking lot, near the G Spot (she hated the name, for the record, but AJ had denied all her formal requests to change it and she wasn’t sure it was worth it anymore) partly because he didn’t want anybody to ding his darling, but probably mostly because Katie didn’t like to make out at the front where the whole school could watch. She did have some class, after all.

Music poured from Scott’s speakers, but Katie wasn’t especially concerned with it. She was more focused on Scott’s lips on hers, and the nagging realization that her hair was going to be completely fucked. She didn’t care. When Katie had first gotten dropped off here, nearly four years ago, she hadn’t really envisioned herself becoming known for her (somewhat surprisingly) stable relationship with one Scott Lyon. And yet, here she was, making out with this beautiful boy while they listened to music her parents had loved. She wouldn’t have called it perfect, but it was pretty damn close.

You should probably tell him about the Juilliard interview, or else you’ll wait another two months, you big fat liar.

Okay, so it was maybe farther from perfect than she would like, but she didn’t want to focus on that. She shut her eyes tighter, leaned harder into the kiss, and pretended that highschool would never end.

Once upon a time, Scott had made a point of making sure his car was parked at the front of the row, near AJ’s. The first time he and Katie got a little hot and heavy in the car before school, AJ had only had to knock on the fogged up window once before Katie insisted that if he was going to get touchy-feely then they were going to park in the back where no eyes would pry. It was almost the very next day that Scott started making a habit out of parking in a dark corner where no one could see them.

Sure, no one could see his darling - but no one could see his queen either, which meant getting hot and heavy before school quickly became a habit. Scott was a young man, he was never going to say no. Even thinking it in his head, it sounded ridiculous. What? No, honey. I want to go into the school instead of seeing what your cherry lip gloss tastes like.

Still, they’d kissed enough times that Scott could tell when things weren’t quite right. Sometimes, kissing was a distraction; Scott had used it as a distraction many times over the course of their relationship, especially back when he was fighting with his father more often. He pulled away from the kiss, breaking it prematurely (which was a landmark moment for Scott). “Babe, are you okay?” Before Katie could protest, Scott hooked a finger in his own mouth and fished something out, eventually holding out a piece of gum on his index finger. “I wasn’t chewing gum.” He said, unable to hide the grin that crept on his lips as he teased her.

“Scott, what the fuck?” Katie said in between laughs. She’d gotten better than she should have been, at brushing off her boyfriend’s concern. She had her excuses, of course; her interview was hardly an acceptance, she didn’t want to tell him anything that wasn’t a certainty, she didn’t want to get her own hopes up. The list went on and on, but they were all just lies she told herself to feel better about her continued secrecy. The truth was that they had plans, plans that involved the Peace Corps and gap years and an apartment of their own. She didn’t want to be another person who abandoned him. She didn’t know if she even wanted to go to Juiliard, if she even wanted this life her mother had begun to lay out for her, but she knew that she didn’t want to hurt Scott. So she smiled and threw her brother under the bus.

“Jamie and AJ are back together. Well, not back together, I guess, but…y’know,” Katie said, gesturing into the air at the anomalous relationship that her brother and Scott’s best friend had developed. Jamie would be annoyed with her, but he would get over it. He was chained to her, whether he liked it or not. “It’s very hush hush right now, so don’t go telling the whole fucking garage. I’m just worried about them. Not everybody can be as perfect as us,” It worried her a bit, how easy lying had become. It really wasn’t much different than acting, she thought it was easier even. She looked down at the radio, saw that they had five minutes till the first bell, and leaned back in towards Scott, close enough that he could smell the lavender perfume she’d put on. “Are we going to keep talking about my brother, or are you gonna kiss me?”

Katie had a good point. It was hard to be as perfect as their relationship was, especially for two people who were very un-perfect in their own unique ways. Even so, Scott couldn’t help but think something was wrong with his girlfriend; losing your gum was a rookie mistake, and there was no way Katie was so invested in the relationship of her brother and his bestie that it would impact her kissing skills. She was a good actor - hell, Scott would even say she was one of the best. A future Oscar winner for sure, but that made it harder for him to take her at face value, when there were signs.

Internally, he took a breath and reminded himself that the last time Katie had done something hurtful toward him was in the 8th grade. They were a team now, and that meant he had to trust her. Which was a whole lot easier to do when she was telling him to kiss her, but Scott held out for a second longer. He had to choose his next words carefully, and there was a noticeable pause. He’d just have to trust her.

“Wait, wait, wait. Again?! Katie, we’re not babying them this time. When they break up AGAIN, which they will, I don’t wanna go on some wild goose chase across Los Angeles county to make sure AJ is fine. And don’t get me started on Jamie interrupting us because he’s petty that we’re happy.” Scott’s mood had soured a bit, a combination of thinking about the last time he had to deal with Jamie and AJ’s catastrophic breakup and that lingering thought in the back of his mind that there was something wrong.

Katie rolled her eyes and smirked, all too happy to believe that her tracks were covered. “When they break up, Jamie’s gonna owe me dinner at Nobu. Half because he’ll need it, and half because I like dinner when I do emotional labour.” She tilted her head, clearly proud of herself and leaning into it. “You don’t need to baby AJ, you’ll just have to like, take his phone for a day or two. Maybe introduce him to some new dick. Preferably one that comes with less baggage than Jamie.” She kissed him again, quickly this time, before pulling back and holding up a finger, a stern but playful warning. “Don’t tell either of them I told you, or I’ll hear about it and I’ll have to start carpooling with Jamie again until he’s not pissed.”

“Actually, babe, I do have to baby him. He’s very unstable,” Scott protested, but couldn’t fight the smile on his lips. One quick kiss and a teasing tone, and Scott very quickly remembered how wildly in love with this woman he was. She didn’t have to tell him then, but he wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it - trust was the most important part of any relationship, and theirs had plenty. “I won’t tell a soul. Come on, Katie. You can trust me! I earned it when I jumped into the ice cold fucking ocean to pull you out.”

He leaned forward and gave her a kiss. “You can literally trust me with your life. And if you don’t agree? Next time you’re drowning in the ocean. Call Free Willy. Let Willy set you free.” Scott stole another kiss from his girlfriend without another word and then threw open the car door to step out into the outside world. Unfortunately, this was where they split off, unless Scott could convince her to meet him in the janitor’s closet for a quickie. He had about a forty percent success rate which… wasn’t that bad, all things considered!

“I can’t believe they split us up for homeroom. It’s targeted right? It has to be targeted.” Scott glumly pouted, unable to help himself. He and Katie had been together so long now that even the hours apart in the morning were agonizing. What was the point of coming to school if he didn’t get to hang out with Katie for the entire day?

“Babe, I’ve told you this, I can swim,” Katie said, while she checked her makeup and smoothed her hair using the reflection on her phone. “They’re just looking out for your academic future. Would you really pay attention to anything if I was there to distract you?” Katie teased, before stepping out of the car. She gripped her bag tighter, swallowing any anxiety that threatened to rear its ugly head. Confidence was just a mask, and it was one she wore well. She tucked her blonde curls behind her ear, and met Scott at the front of his car, squeezing his hand tight. “I’m running lines at lunch today, but I’ll see you for the rally?”

“You are so pretty, I literally didn’t hear a word you said. Was it something about me being distracted if you’re around?” He smiled and squeezed her hand, kissing her on the cheek before he nodded. “If AJ and Jamie are back together — again — you’d better be sitting with us at the rally. I can’t handle it alone.”

Katie smiled. How could she ever even think about doing anything other than kissing this beautiful, lovestruck boy? How could she ever even think about being anyone other than the beautiful, lovestruck girl who kissed him? “Of course. I wouldn’t be the best girlfriend ever if I didn’t, would I?” She smiled harder, even as the lie sank its teeth into her gut. She ignored the pain, and told herself she had it under control. This year was going to be everything she wanted it to be, because she was Katie Callaghan and she got what she wanted. “Let’s go kill this shit.”