[IC] BHHS: Limitless

[Hey Im Jordan]

_{@Hey Im Jordan & @Fabricant451
TIMESTAMP: 4:30 PM
LOCATION: The Mermaid's Closet
Introducing: Juliet Park
Featuring: Shauna Flynn}

___________________________________________________________________

“But can you tell me why I need a job?”

Juliet thought it was a fair question. There was no point in her having a job she didn’t want! Her last job had essentially been perfect, and after she’d lost it, she basically considered her contribution to society over. Even working at Disneyland as a ‘cast member’ (she’d been a Jungle Cruise operator) had been… less than ideal. Juliet had accomplished most of her goals, but a lot of the magic of Disneyland was gone now - and she wasn’t sure it would ever come back. Why would she want to work anywhere else?

Especially a place called ‘The Mermaid’s Closet.’ Juliet knew the store, she’d shopped there once. Only once. Sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle, she turned her attention to her mother, and pleaded in her native tongue with the hopes that it might convince her mother to let this one lie. “왜 여기에? 끈적끈적해요.” _{(Why here? It’s tacky.)} She demanded, though it fell on deaf ears.

Juliet groaned when her mother just ignored her. So what if she’d gotten fired!? It wasn’t her fault. She checked her Apple Watch, then put her hand on the door handle. “Fine. But if I don’t like it, I will complain.” She pulled the door handle, and pushed the door open. Her decision was already made. How hard could it be to bomb an interview? She thought about more things to throw over her shoulder at her mother, but in the end she opted to not poke the bear. She felt lucky to get away with just the expectation that she’d at least ‘try’ to get a job. Of course, she hadn’t expected her parents to arrange an interview for her.

Hopefully a full review wouldn’t be sent to them after she got rejected. Her brow furrowed as she watched her mother drive away, wondering how she was even supposed to get home, before she turned her attention to the doorway of The Mermaid’s Closet. As she grabbed the handle and pulled it open, she found herself wishing she’d just done what her father had suggested, and moved to Korea when she was eight to be a trainee. At least then she wouldn’t be here.

She pulled open the door and looked around the store, eventually making eye contact with the person behind the counter. She quickly closed the gap between herself and the counter, and looked at the woman on the other side. She checked her watch again, “I have an interview in two minutes.” She explained, already thinking of things she’d say to make sure the deal wasn’t cinched. Unless her parents had pulled strings without telling her, this was going to go just right.

Most people who graduated with her expected Shauna Flynn to either be behind bars or faded to obscurity but the ultimate twist of expectations found Shauna evolved into a respectable business owner. The Mermaid’s Closet was a boutique that offered a wide selection for women of all walks of life at affordable prices. Of course, she stocked higher end items as well thanks to a working relationship with Min-Seo Thomas and other designers. One year, The Mermaid’s Closet was a sponsor for BHHS’ Homecoming Game which led to the yearly tradition of there being a discount for all BHHS students during Homecoming Week so long as they provided a valid student I.D. That sale wasn’t why the Closet did good business, but it was why the Closet was doing more business. Plenty of students who needed last minute Homecoming outfits and the Closet was happy to oblige.

As the owner and manager, Shauna rarely worked behind the counter, but she could often be found on the floor, helping young women find their style and confidence and providing tips for accessories and the like, but she was covering for an employee who had taken a late lunch break when Juliet walked in and approached the counter. Shauna looked at the girl then over her own shoulder at the clock on the wall behind the register. “Ya kno’, there’s no brownie points fer gettin’in early.” Shauna’s silken Irish brogue still had an effect on those susceptible to accents, but Shauna’s days as the Shark were behind her. Now, her talents of seduction were reduced to swiping on pictures of lonely, bored, and not always single women on various apps.

Fuck what a downgrade adult life turned out to be.

“Ya got a resume? I know yer ma an’ Kitty’s Missy put in a word for ya, but one’o them lives in a constant state of inebriation. So hand it over, yeah?”

There was at least one positive of working here: the lady behind the counter was at least attractive. It took every ounce of self control that Juliet had within her to not drum her fingers on the counter as the woman talked in an accent she could hardly even understand, and then she frowned. Had the other woman said she’d gotten a word from her mother? That was not a good sign, it might end up ruining her plan. As Shauna asked her about a resume, Juliet shook her head.

“I don’t have a copy of my resume. Is that going to be an insta-fail? I’m sorry.” She explained with a smile on her lips. The smile couldn’t have been a more fake, almost mocking smile if Juliet had read the words off of a script. She hadn’t ever made a resume, but could pretend like she’d just ‘forgotten’ one. “I worked at Disneyland before this. Does that count?” She looked back at the clock, and pointed with a dainty finger. “It’s time now. Is there like an office, or…?” She asked, as she peered around the building, a look of clear judgment on her face - she was sizing the place up and thinking about how much time she would be willing to spend there.

“I’m pretty excited about the interview!” She was not. But did the manager realize that?

“Sure ya’are.” Shauna was familiar with the smile on Juliet’s lips. She’d seen it on classmates years ago who suffered her presence during cheerleader tryouts. She’d given the same smile when freshmen girls tried to stretch a one night stand to a relationship before Shauna shot them down with that same expression. In no world would someone like Juliet be good for business, but Shauna was willing to humor the girl even if only because she was asked by two different mothers. “Come on back.” The Irish owner gestured with her head to a door near the back with ‘MANAGER’ on label made tiles.

The office was fairly standard. Shauna had a desk with a computer and monitor and a second screen was mounted on one of the walls. There were binders open on her desk and pictures of various cast photos from stage shows hung on her wall in place of motivational quotes or family photos. Instead of chairs, there was a black couch on the other side of the desk, and a smaller chaise lounge on the right wall. “Take a seat.” Shauna crossed over to her desk chair and sat down, pushing her binders to the side and keeping her eyes on Juliet like she was thinking the girl was going to shoplift.

“Cut the shite.” Any pretense of Shauna being a friendly manager was lost in the gruff brogue. “Who’s makin’ ya take this interview?”

She looked around the room, and there was a visible grimace as she saw the couch. She knew the kind of videos that were made on couches like that, which was why Juliet was wise enough to not take a seat. Instead, she stood across from Shauna and peered down at her as she finally spoke. Juliet had responses prepared for more than a few possible interview questions. But when Shauna asked her first question, the smile dissipated.

Juliet hadn’t seen that coming. Was she really that easy to read? No, she knew she wasn’t that easy to read. This other woman just had a little more experience at reading people than Juliet had expected. In fact, ever since she’d stepped into the room, the manager of the closet was proving to be different than what she’d expected. “What do you mean?” She stuck to her guns at first, forcing the smile back onto her face. “I applied for the job. I want the interview.”

She knew she was being read like a book though, that Shauna saw straight through the smile and knew that Juliet would have rather been wearing an annoyed frown. “Ugh. My parents. They’re mad I got fired.” She no longer attempted to hold the smile on her lips, and for the first time since meeting Shauna was honest. She knew perfectly well there was a chance this got back to her mother and stabbed her in the back, but this was almost cathartic. She watched carefully, trying to see if she could pick out Shauna’s own feelings as she waited for the response. With any other person? Juliet expected she would have already been dismissed from the interview.

“Why’d ya get fired?” This sort of thing was typically found on a resume and Shauna could have someone else make a call with the previous employer and get the information needed, but there was a curiosity about this girl, and a strange sort of familiarity. In Shauna’s estimation, this Juliet girl was used to getting what she wanted with a smile and a suggestion. That was a dangerous combination, but from this side of the desk, Juliet wasn’t ready to go pro.

In any other situation, Juliet would have given a dishonest answer. However, this person seemed like the first person in the entire world that Juliet felt she could proudly announce the truth to. Maybe it was the accent? This was dangerous. “I got caught getting to second base with Belle in the spare Jungle Cruise boat.” he couldn’t stop the bright, proud smile that spread on her lips as she said it. “I’m really upset about it because only Merida and Tiana were left, and I really wanted to complete the set.” She sighed wistfully, sounding more like someone reminiscing about coming close to a long term goal and coming just short. “Did you know they fire immediately for that? Not even her! Apparently, it’s harder to find actresses who can be princesses the way Disney wants princesses.”

“I wish I never had! It really ruins the mysticism, working there. Don’t work there if you like Disneyland.”

“Rule 4.” Shauna spoke softly, but audibly, shook her head and smirked. Keeping her eyes towards Juliet, Shauna opened a drawer on her desk and handed an old school notebook with a visible crease and wear and tear on the cover to the interviewee. The cover of the notebook was black and had no other identifiable features, but on the inside was a list of rules and beyond that was a list of names, dates, numbers between one and ten, and acronyms like ‘FFNC’, ‘FFC’, ‘SONC’ ‘SOC’, ‘SNNC’ ‘SNC’ and more. As the notebook went on, though, the list of names got smaller and smaller.

“Rule 4. Never in a spot where authority can walk in.” That time she spoke much clearer, her accent vanishing but the husky, silken smooth tone lingered. “What’s your count?”

Juliet raised an eyebrow as she heard Shauna speak up again. She looked down at the book and idly flipped through it, only glancing over the names and notations. “This is your little black book.” It was obvious just from a single glance, but it shook Juliet so hard she couldn’t help but say it aloud. “Cool. I just have a Google sheet myself, but I guess your options were kinda limited, huh?” Just from turning the pages in the book, she could tell that it was likely from when the woman across the desk had been her age.

She hadn’t yet answered the question about her ‘count,’ nor had she been able to wipe off the smirk that crawled across her lips when Shauna asked. She lifted her eyes from the page she was looking at to make eye contact with the older woman, “ten, but I would be willing to make it an eleven.”

“I wouldn’t be able to hire you if you wanted eleven.”

“That’s a shame.”

Shauna had never regretted maturing into someone decently responsible, but even she could admit that moments like this were incredibly tempting. Her romantic life was just so…boring. App hookups had no passion, no thrill, no climax, and they always wanted to talk and cuddle after. Exhausting. Even the friends with benefits who knew that their relationship started and stopped when clothes were put back on had a tendency to bore. It was like eating a good steak dinner every night; eventually it started tasting of nothing and wasn’t even all that satisfying anymore.

Yes, Shauna missed being ‘The Shark’, but even if she matched solely with nineteen and twenty year olds, she’d still be seen in a negative light just because there was a three in front of her ones column. She didn’t even hit on the mothers who shopped here or the single women looking for something to spice up their drab life. Sure, she bantered with them and laughed when they made a comment about a pot of gold or how lucky they were to find the shop, but it was as fake a laugh and smile as Juliet had given on her arrival.

“You’re good at getting girls to do what you want, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. The Shark knew the type. Sharks could smell their own. “But I don’t think you know as much as you think you do.” They weren’t talking about fashion. They really never had been. “Say I offered you a floor position. You could tell your mom you’re in sales. But really I’d offer you an internship. I thought Kitty would follow in my footsteps but she had to go and fall in love. Rule 10. Give me until your graduation and your own black book would put mine to shame. What do you think?”

Juliet thought about it. She was beginning to pick up what the other woman was putting down. It at least got her a job so her parents would get off of her back, though she had to admit, she’d never considered a mentor. At least not in this aspect of her life. She tapped her finger on the cover of the closed notebook; her pride would be wounded if she just admitted she had a lot to learn, and that stung. “How many names are in your book?” She asked as she opened it to a random page and glanced down, and then froze as she saw one of the many names. “Hey. My mom’s name is in this book.”

“You’d be surprised at some of the other names in there. Let’s just say it wasn’t Kit Thomas’ talking that landed her Min-Seo.”

For her entire life, Juliet had thought her parents had met in high school, introduced by her churchgoing grandparents and that had been that. There had never been another person in their lives, or at least that’s what Juliet had been told her entire life. She snapped the notebook shut, and for the briefest of seconds it seemed like there was a chance Shauna had lost her potential successor.

“Teach me.” She said as she placed the book back down on the desk. “Oh, I’m Juliet.” She’d intentionally not introduced herself before, not seeing the point since she’d originally had no intention of seeing this woman again. “I want to know the rest of the rules.”

“We’ll go over the rules at your orientation.” Shauna leaned back in her chair, a look of genuine satisfaction on her lips. Was this how parents felt? Pride? She’d never know. But she would be true to her word and teach her apprentice everything she needed to know to carry on the legacy. Of that she was certain. “But you’re going to have to accept that most of your names will be hard sixes or below and that’s being generous. Work the ones with body issues long enough and you’ll spring to eights and nines in no time. Trust me. I’ve fucked Oscar winners.” Shauna could’ve been lying but she had a way of making every word she said sound as believable as it was rude.

But she was an actress above all.

“Shauna. Tell your mom she owes me one for taking you in.” The wink she gave Juliet was full of such ill intent that a blind person could’ve picked up what she was putting down. “Oh, one freebie. The lock on the dressing room closest to the window has trouble catching.”

“When can I start?”

[NeoAJ]

_{TIMESTAMP: 8:30AM / 4:30PM
LOCATION: Hallway/Mr. Phoenix's Room/BHHS Field}

The few students that roamed the hallways of the cacophonous building might have been surprised by the blonde slowly making her way toward Mr. Phoenix’s homeroom class alone. The blonde could probably tell whoever was asking the names of 80% of them. After all, Emilia Seger knew so many people in Beverly Hills High that surely someone would be talking to her about their latest club that they wanted to set up, or a project that needed an extra little bit of a push. It was something she was happy to do, sampling all of the various pleasures that life in her later teenage years had to offer. It did mean that she had very little free time for herself, but she could rest when she was dead! Ariana wouldn’t stop for a second and neither would Emilia! Right now, however, it was all taken care of.

That meant, for once, all that floated around the young woman’s head at the moment was the cold sensations hitting her brain and the sweet fixation hitting her tongue. All the jumbled things that bounced her brain, trying to figure out how to help who and what club needed what, were quiet. They were held down for the moment by the rush of cold sugar, cream and caffeine that went some way to explaining how the blonde managed all that energy she seemed to have for her many endeavors.

The iced white chocolate mocha and croissant breakfast sandwich would serve as her fuel today, against her Gramma's best wishes. Too many preservatives, she would exclaim. A growing girl needed a strong start in the morning, and that meant oats, berries and a black cup of coffee. It was a meal that sustained generations through the winters in Sweden and Minnesota. But there was usually no time for Emilia to make her own breakfast, not only because of her many duties around the school, but because she was often at the whims at whichever member of her primary friend group was giving her a ride to school. Emilia could drive herself, but she made a commitment to the Green Group to cut down on the amount of times she drove her Mazda. For some reason, today’s ride needed to be at school early today. And he craved Starbucks, so deciding to take advantage of that stop and grab a quick meal was an easy call to make. People might think the weirder decision was who she accepted the ride from today.

Some people would never understand why Emilia would still be friends with her ex-boyfriend even after he moved on from her for some guy, but AJ Tyler had qualities that weren’t quantified by mere relationship details. Emi had been through a lot with the boy who dare not be called by his first name. He was one of the first people to be kind to her when she moved to California at the age of 8, without the knowledge of why she had just arrived in the Golden State, and that friendship continued throughout the rise in grades. While AJ’s interest in cars was growing, Emilia did her best to go full speed with him, even as her interests drifted like a dandelion seed on the wind. Emilia is nothing if not loyal. To a fault, people would argue at times.

The second AJ arrived at the school, he said he had to run off to do something else. Emilia asked what it was, but she was given the usual “Don’t worry about it” in response. Then AJ was gone, speeding off to somewhere else. There was no chance of Emilia keeping up with him, so she took him at face value. If he said it was fine, it was probably fine. The value of that earned loyalty AJ received left her walking the hallway by herself, mocha in hand, but it would be fine. Surely he would be fine.

However, when she finally arrived in the homeroom to make sure her perfect attendance mark was still intact, she did not spot AJ. Clearly even after making her rounds, it wasn’t enough time to deal with whatever it was he needed to deal with. That was fine. Although the absence of another boy did leave her with something to worry about.

She hoped nothing was wrong with Ethan. Despite what a lot of people said when Emilia told them the Green boy had started making moves towards her a couple months after her and AJ broke up, she was glad she eventually relented and gave him a chance to show her he wasn’t the person all those rumors said he was. The people who still whispered in the hall about what Ethan and his buddies got up to weren’t getting to her. She was used to others doubting her taste in boyfriends. After all, AJ didn’t have the best reputation either.

They didn’t know the Ethan that she got to know. The guy who hid such a sensitive soul underneath all that money-family bravado. All those sweet texts he would send while she was doing homework at night. Sure they didn’t go on dates EVERY weekend, but a guy does need his space from time to time.

Emilia wondered if that was why AJ eventually pulled away from her in that regard. Maybe it was too much time together, familiarity breeding boredom. Was that why he wanted Jamie instead? No. People can’t help the way they are. She knew that. They had a talk about that after AJ confirmed his feelings. It wasn’t what Emilia wanted, but she couldn’t argue it.

This is what happens when my mind is left to wander. I’ve got too many things in here.

A final sip of her drink before it hit the trash can steadied her mind for the moment. Emilia did pick up a new thought though. The work she had did for the Earth by hitching a ride with AJ today was probably undone by the non-reusable cup that she used. “Shoot,” she cursed under her breath as she moved to take her seat. At least she was somewhat prepared for the chaos of the day.

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Emilia managed the day pretty well. At least she believed it enough to be true. She did get an answer to where Ethan was at the very least, the text still present on her screen:

Hey sweetheart, I’m shopping for my party. Let me know if you want anything. I hope you have someone to keep you company during the game. Kisses. See you tomorrow.”

Nothing new had popped up since, not that Emi noticed. She was too busy helping with the setup for the game. As a senior, she didn’t have to man concession booths anymore, but she still liked to check in before the game to make sure the juniors were up to the task. The Cooking Club could use a new Dutch Oven, and the sales from homecoming would give them that and then some. Countless groups benefited from the sales of merch to the alumni coming back to BHHS for a refresh of their wardrobe, a size up or down depending how the respective binge-eating or surgeries went. Everything appeared to be in order.

So all that was left was for Emilia to find someone to sit down with and actually watch the game...

Easier said than done.

[Fabricant451]

As Vazira followed the path of destruction, fallen log by fallen log, and drew closer to the city, her nose twitched like she was holding in a sneeze. The air around Marindor was foul with smoke, salt, and secrets, none of which made for an appealing aperitif. The young girl had heard stories of this place, but none of them ever mentioned the smell. From a distance, the sight of Marindor could inspire awe. In the center of the city stood a tall, spired building that towered above every other structure, even the lighthouse at the far northeastern tip. This building, from which the rest of the city spiraled outward like the shell of a nautilus, had its front facing the east, its windows overlooking the docks from which the city earned the majority of its coin. Even at this early hour, with the sun only barely breaking through the horizon, blue and white merchant sails could be seen in the docks and more were soon to be arriving. Curiously, the piers furthest away from the docks, towards the west, looked thrown together with twine and twigs and stood in stark contrast to the sturdy, immaculate piers closer in.

But Marindor was a city of contrasts. Behind the central spire were houses and buildings whose white stone construction shone with the morning sunlight and were built in ascending rows, spiraling towards the top of a hill where an impressively garish manor house stood as if overlooking the port city; the contrast came with the buildings elsewhere in the city, their dull greystones were ravaged by the sea air, several windows were broken, and the outwardly spiraled construction made for confusing alleys and densely packed footpaths that made unsuspecting or unprepared sorts easy pickings for salty-faced cutpurses.

Vazira was not so easily swayed by appearances. The city smelled of lies and blood, a faint redolence of sin lingered on the nostrils and pickled the lips more sour than any mug of swill that flowed from the ale houses populated by sailors and nebbish merchants both looking for a good pricking. But somewhere in this city was the man responsible for killing her betrothed, and so Vazira entered Marindor in search of the trail that had led her here.

Rare was the time when Vazira was glad for the uniqueness of her birth. Though it was not uncommon to see the short and stout figures of the mountain dwelling dwarves in a human settlement such as this, the only elves this far south were ones who abandoned their homelands and grew plump and complacent right alongside their human compatriots. But someone like Vazira was an anomaly all her own, for orcs were savage, uncivilized brutes and the child of an orc mother and a human father was akin to laying with a beast in the eyes of those who made the laws of the land. An offspring of an orc and human was an impossibility, and yet here she was.

While Vazira’s ears were more rounded like those of a human (albeit with a pointed lobe), her skin was a harder sell. Among orcs, her pale complexion earned her ridicule and ire; among the civilized, she would no doubt appear to be sallow and thus unnatural and so Vazira drew her hood taut over her head.

The sound of fishmongers shouting at passersby held her attention as she stepped through the docks, already finding herself lost from the entrance. Her eyes poured over a pinkish fish displayed on a tray of ice, the seller holding a larger fish with gray skin out in front of him as he joined in the chorus of voices broadcasting their stock and their affordable prices. She’d never seen such a colorful fish. She’d never seen any fish before it was burnt brown with a stick stabbed through it, which was about as appealing to the mouth as it was to the eyes.

“You’ve nae geld, d’ye?” a voice aroused Vazira from her piscine reverie. The voice was thick of brogue and husky of tone and Vazira didn’t know quite how to respond, mostly because she didn’t quite understand what was being asked of her. “Jus’ ye’ve been’ starin’ awful lot at tha’ fish, gel. Ye nae go’ geld’ta buy it, have ye?”

The voice clarified, though it took Vazira a moment to put together that geld meant gold and from there it was easy enough to parse. Her response found itself hanging in her throat as she turned to look at the speaker. Standing next to her but not looking at her was a tall figure with hair the color of burnt strawberry and tightened into a braided tail. They wore a shirt of gray linen and black trousers tucked into leather boots. Around the waist Vazira could see a coin purse and, more importantly, a flintlock of which she was certain its twin was attached to the other leg. The one eye the half-orc could see was an emerald green that lit up as the figure smiled and the lack of three teeth in the back of the mouth was as enticing an imperfection as Vazira had ever known.


_{A Shot in the Arm}

During the Pep Rally

The letter arrived four days ago but Penny Amato still hadn’t opened it.

It was such a simple thing, opening a letter, Penny had done it so many times over the years, from birthdays and holidays to pay stubs and report cards, there was nothing to it. And yet the first day they got the letter, all Penny could do was put it on their desk and look at it from the safety of their bed. Periodically their eyes would drift from the show they were watching to the desk and at the damned letter, head swirling with the ringing belief that the contents inside the envelope were judging Penny in a silent chorus. More than once Penny worked up the courage to go a step beyond hovering their hand over it and actually held it in both hands - but every single time that happened, Penny looked at the sender’s address, looked at the logo in the corner, looked at their name smack in the center, and back to the desk it went. If it had been a college acceptance letter it would’ve been done and dusted, but college was whatever; inside this letter was Penny’s future.

Up until the letter arrived, Penny’s room was a place of comfort, a sanctuary where Penny could rest, recover, and revive. It was a shrine to Penny’s personal interests, posters for Game of Thrones were placed next to signed posters of the Lord of the Rings trilogy hung across from wall scrolls depicting anime robots which draped next to a cork board containing commissions of Penny’s various table top characters and on her desk, along with that damned letter, were notebook pages and notebooks proper, above which stood a shelf lined with miniatures and sets of dice. But the letter took the comfort away. Even when Penny put it inside a drawer or inside a book, its presence still loomed like that creepy feeling when you enter a house and just know someone died inside it. That feeling was one of the many reasons Penny never visited their mom at work at the hospital.

The longer Penny took to open the letter, the more it had a hold on their life; it hadn’t gotten to the point where it was keeping Penny awake at night but were they really about to let it get to that point? By the third day it almost became a comical routine. Penny would wake up, do their morning routine, and as they were putting on a shirt a size too big, the letter would flash in the periphery and Penny would pause, look towards the envelope, and for a brief moment it seemed like they were going to open it. But the moment passed, Penny sighed, and closed the door on the letter. Why was it so difficult? Penny already knew the contents, no letter that small and thin contained good news and of course they were prepared for that outcome but it was that preparation that made it such a difficult task. It wasn’t as if Penny had never faced rejection before, hell Penny had rejected people who thought that the best time to ask them out, in so many words, was when Penny was working at Plouf all because putting a heart in a latte sent people mixed signals.

Rejection was nothing new, but rejection via an impersonal, probably from a damn form letter, was painful.

But there was also the other possibility, that it wasn’t a rejection letter. That it was a letter of congratulations and that brought its own anxieties with it. It wasn’t even a complete work that Penny submitted but what if a full, finished sample was requested? No one even knew Penny was working on something so…well they hesitated to call it cliche but…uninspired? Even at school, Penny’s association with the literary magazine was more as an editor who read through submissions rather than someone whose work was featured. Penny was a theater kid, a stage performer, they didn’t write scripts. Could they even handle the responsibility if their sample was accepted? That was pressure that Penny didn’t need.

That damn letter was going to give them a panic attack.

On the Friday before Homecoming, Penny took the next best step to just opening the thing and getting it over with like a bandaid: they put it into their backpack and were determined to open it at lunch, because nothing soothed bad news quite like cafeteria tater tots. Lunch came and went and the letter remained unopened. And Penny didn’t even have tater tots. Friends could tell something was bothering Penny, but any time someone asked, Penny simply shook their head and said they were fine before changing the subject or finally contributing to the conversation.

What Penny needed was something to take their mind off the letter, or, better, someone to just open the damn thing instead. Or, as Penny spotted a familiar face as they deposited their garbage in a can and heard the sound of wheels on asphalt; the face in question quickly met the ground after she collided with another student, but by that point Penny was already formulating a plan.

While students were shuffling towards the pep rally, Penny told some people to save them a seat as they left the building, mentioning having forgotten something in their car. In the back of their mind Penny wondered if the resident skate punk would be at the pep rally thus making this entire endeavor even more pointless than it seemed, but those concerns were squashed as Penny crossed the parking lot desert towards the figure sitting on a bench, her skateboard leaning against the open spots on the bench next to her, fingers digging inside a small bag of chips.

“Bit on the nose, isn’t it?” Penny asked as they stood in front of the bench, backpack around their shoulder, hand rubbing their forehead and looking around as if what they were doing was some illegal act. To an outsider, Penny looked like someone who was worried that a cop would pop out of a bush and slap the cuffs on them, which they were willing to blame purely on the fucking letter. Why were they so nervous? Penny had bought weed before! They hadn’t been this nervous since the first time they went to a dispensary.

“What? My nose?” Everly Rigby looked up at the shadow standing in her sunlight, squinting until her eyes came into focus. Penny Amato. Not one of the regular customers, but with the way they were frantically looking around, Everly had to wonder if they’d even done this before. Which of course they had, Everly had been there. It was at a party after a school play - Everly wasn’t involved nor was she invited to the party but that hadn’t ever stopped her, and she distinctly remembered Penny hitting the bong like a real fiend.

“Oh. You’re eating baked chips. I thought, because you’re, you know…baked.” Penny shook her head. Was this what it felt like to cringe? How did people ever think they were cool? Everly looked at her bag of chips. Baked Lay’s, barbeque flavor, and gave Penny the world’s most obvious pity chuckle which only made Penny feel even more embarrassed. This was a stupid idea. It wasn’t too late to abort.

“Oh. Yeah. They taste better than the regular ones. And you get bigger chips.” Everly proved her work by pulling out a flat chip that resembled the shape of burnt cheese in a pan but in cracker form and took a crunch-filled bite. “You want one?” Everly held the bag to Penny, who held up a palm and shook her head.

“Can I ask you something, Everly?” The nod of agreement and the continued crunch of approval had Penny taking a deep breath. “Do…do you think you could…open a letter for me?” Just saying that out loud only deepened the skin crawling feeling of embarrassment that Penny was not used to feeling.

“Do your fingers not work, dude? You just lift the edge and pull, it’s real easy.” Everly began to mime the act of opening a letter and in the process spilled a chip onto the ground. “Shit.”

“No..I know how to…look, it’s a long story and I’m kinda embarrassed and you’re gonna laugh at me and I know it’s stupid but…I don’t have anyone else I can turn to, my friends would make fun of me, my mom would-”

“Your mom’s like James Bond, right?”

“What? Everly, what, what the fuck are you?”

“I got a bet going. No one really knows anything about your parents and my money is on them being, like, spies.”

“That…look, can you focus?”

“Can you?” Everly’s comment came from nowhere but it succeeded in getting Penny to pause and take a breath. Once again Everly offered Penny a chip, and once again it was turned down. Everly took the last chip in the bag and crunched down while crinkling the bag into a neat, compact square. “You’re bein’ really weird, dude, which is super weird cuz you’re, like, cool enough that I hear people say they’ve never seen you shaken up. I’m not a therapist or nothin’, but I think you need to step into my office.”

“You have an office?”

“Hell yeah, dude. It’s metal four ick hole.” Everly stood up and before Penny could piece together what the hell that meant, she was skating away at a pace meant for Penny to follow. It was only after a sigh that Penny did follow.

Vazira was getting distracted. She wasn’t here in Marindor to socialize or join in the chorus as mugs of ale were clinked together and spilled onto tables and fingers pinched at dress bottoms of a bonnie dwarven lass who, more than anything, wanted to bash the mugs over the heads of people whose hands wandered. And yet here she was, an untouched mug in front of her, hands balled into clumps in her lap while all around her the sounds of drunken revelry pricked her ears. Cooling on the plate in front of her was the salivating scent of crimfish, though her eyes weren’t drawn to the fish as they had been when she spied it in the market; no, the half-orc’s eyes were drawn to the emerald eyed woman at the head of the table. As they had been since the first honeyed words slithered into her ears.

Of one thing Vazira was certain. The men she was sharing a table with were pirates and they were captained by Kherington, the emerald eyed and strawberry haired, but the why of it all escaped her. Why was she here, amongst the rowdy crew, why had a pirate seen fit to buy a fish for her, and why was Vazira so…enraptured. Every second here was a second kept away from her goal and though Kherington’s words were true, truer still now that Vazira’s stomach rumbled as if a cannonball was fired upon an enemy vessel, that didn’t change the fact that if she didn’t excuse herself after the piscine dinner, the already lukewarm trail would grow frigid.

“Oi, Cap’n, s’with the cloaked weirdo?” A thumb with a red splotch akin to strawberry jelly in place of a thumb poked towards Vazira’s direction and the sickly stench emanating from the pus around the edges was enough to overpower and ruin the appetite.

“She’s a guest’o’mine.” Kherington snapped back, wiping frothed foam from her upper lip, a gesture so normal and ordinary that only Vazira watched it with a quiet intensity. Every action the pirate captain took was curious to the half-orc. “And she’s part’a’the plan.”

For the first time since being set at the table, Vazira appeared to blink and move. “I’m…I’m what?” Her voice was lost amidst the howl of the alehouse and even speaking up seemed to do nothing. “I’M WHAT?” She shouted. More, she roared. Silence filled the alehouse as one by one every head and eyeball in the establishment turned towards her. Vazira was still cloaked, but in that moment it felt as if everyone could see beneath the linen.

“Found yer voice, didja?” Kherington cackled, leering towards Vazira, an intensity in the singular eye that bespoke interest beyond simple curiosity. “Now where’d that come from, gel?” The heavy way in which the captain called Vazira ‘girl’ took a different connotation here. Back in the fish market it sounded playful, almost flirty; here it almost seemed threatening. Vazira began calculating her chances of getting out of here unscathed, even if she could set some of the ale-soaked beards on fire with a twist of the wrist, the door might as well have been kilometers away, and just escaping the alehouse didn’t mean safety. They would pursue her, especially if they decloaked her.

“Surely ye didnae think the fish was outta the goodness of m’heart?” Another cackle from Kherington which had the voices of her crew joining the chorus. “Silly gel. I got no heart at all.” The laughter roared louder and Vazira knew any chance of escape was a childish notion. The damning part was there was a side of her that didn’t want to escape. There was a part of her that wanted to follow Kherington to hell.

“So, let me see if I understand.” Everly took a drag from the blunt and held it out to Penny as she exhaled a pluff of smoke. The two were seated beneath a cottonwood tree on a small hill just barely within the BHHS grounds. From here they could see the parking lot, the quad, and the school building itself; it was a good place to hold an office, Everly explained on the way, because if anyone tried to interrupt then they’d be spotted well enough to hide any evidence of wrongdoing. Between the pair of them, music played from a phone - they couldn’t smoke without music - and Everly took her shoes off to enjoy the grass. “You submitted parts of a story to a publisher and you can’t handle the rejection? And that’s why you needed to relax? I didn’t even know you wrote stuff. What’s it about?”

“I don’t know.” Penny shook their head and began to puff the joint. “That’s part of the problem. Because there’s a small chance they liked it, but I don’t really have any idea of where to take the story. But…it’s meant to be like…a fantasy romance thing. Like an orc falls in love with this pirate captain while she’s on the trail of the man who killed her betrothed. It’s…it’s stupid.” Penny passed the blunt to a nodding Everly.

“Yeah, it sounds boring.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean, I don’t really care about shit like that. Fantasy and orcs and warriors and stuff. I got bored with Game of Thrones once Daenerys’ actress decided she was above getting railed by Jason Momoa.”

“Kind of a gross misunderstanding of the story but…sure.” The blunt continued to be passed between the two of them, and now that Penny had her mind occupied by a simple conversation, they didn’t realize how much they needed it. They weren’t even thinking about the letter right now even though it was still lingering in the recesses of the mind. “It’s just…I don’t know.”

“The view is nice here, isn’t it?” Everly seemed to change the topic but Penny turned her gaze towards where Everly was looking. As far as views went…it was probably fine. You could get a similar one from one of the windows on the third floor of the school, but from this vantage point the field of view was wider. Right now on the quad there were students ditching the pep rally and in the parking lot they could see Ellie Walters strumming her bass while sitting in her car’s open trunk with a melting blue slushie next to her. Behind them was a tree that had initials of couples of BHHS past carved into it.

“Sure? It’s…passable.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice view. You know, I wanted to bring Stella here but then I realized that taking her to basically look at the school we go to is a terrible idea.”

“Stella…Manning. That Stella?” If Penny had the blunt they would’ve coughed. “You’ve got it hot for Stella? Get in line, man, you and like every straight dude and bisexual person walking the halls.”

“Dude, what? No, I’ve got, like, a crush on her.”

“That’s…that’s what I…never mind. Stella…I mean, yeah, she’s nice.”

“Beautiful.”

“Sure, beautiful.”

“A goddess among mortals.”

“Okay, reign it in, Ev.”

“Gorgeous.”

“Yeah, sure, can I finish?” Penny took a look at Everly, who was looking down at the quad, her expression weirdly wistful, which was not an expression she thought Everly, she of eternal good vibes, could make. “Yeah, Stella’s nice and I’ve never disliked sharing the stage with her, I mean I prefer Katie but don’t tell Stella that, but I don’t think she’s capable of, like…I mean..isn’t she dating Ethan Green or something?”

“Yeah, I think so. And, like, I get it. Henry Green is a Green and I’m a drug dealer. He can open a lot of doors for her, career wise, and all I can do is open actual doors for her. But like…our Freshman year I saw her do the fall play and she just…became the character. People always talk about her appearance but it’s not about that for me. I believe she could actually be famous and I want to support that, and she’s not just her physical beauty, you know?” Everly had the blunt in her hand but didn’t take a hit. She just held it while keeping her gaze forward. “I know we walk in different circles and I know that I have no shot with her, but if I let that take over my thoughts then I’d be..well…I’d be a wreck.”

Penny listened to Everly’s words and wrestled with the idea of putting a hand on Everly’s back. The way Everly spoke, it was like listening to someone talk about the one that got away but Penny believed they were seeing a side of the school’s resident skateboarding drug dealer that not many people ever saw. If they weren’t getting high and here under unique circumstances they’d be a bit flattered to be trusted enough to see such vulnerabilities. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were, like, into her into her. But…what does this have to do with, well, anything?”

“And people call me a dumbass.” Everly smirked and took her last hit from the blunt, handing it off to Penny, who was damn near offended by the implication. “If I asked you to, would you put in a good word about me to Stella?”

“I mean…yeah, but-”

“But it wouldn’t be the same as if I just talked to her.”

“Well…well yeah.”

“Your letter is like Stella Manning.”

“It’s a decent actress with nice tits?” Everly looked towards Penny like Penny had just kicked a puppy. “Sorry.” Their apology came with the punctuation mark of the final hit on the joint.

“I could open the letter for you. And I could read you the contents. But it wouldn’t be the same as doing it yourself. I know when I do tell Stella my feelings that she’s gonna reject me. But I don’t let that stop me from having those feelings. I’m not afraid of rejection, Penny. And you shouldn’t be either.” Everly stood on the spot and stretched her arms over her head. The school day was going to be over very soon and customers would be arriving. Everly would be there for them. She always was. The sad part was that she might always be even when everyone else was gone to bigger and better things.

“We’re kids, Penny. We don’t have to have it all figured out,”

“Everly..” Penny paused and Everly, who had grabbed her shoes and was starting the descent down the hill back to the quad, looked over her shoulder. “You’d make a pretty good cleric with that wisdom.”

“I don’t know what that means, dude.”

With a shared moment of laughter and a departing wave from Everly, Penny was left on her own again, with their backpack slumped against the tree. Penny waited until they saw Everly’s baseball cap wearing head reach the parking lot before grabbing their backpack and taking out the letter. There wasn’t any hesitation. No nervous, shaking fingers as she turned the envelope over and opened it with a tear. Inside was a folded letter and Penny’s fingers began to shake as they removed the letter and began the process of unfolding it.

As their eyes scanned the words and the truth she expected was confirmed, all they could do was smile.

[Aces Away]

Timestamp: Immediately after the Pep Rally and school
Location: BHHS Parking lot
Samyan and Leila
@Aces Away and @Fabricant451

____________________________________________________________________

Samyan stared at the files on their phone, scrolling up and down repeatedly through the songs they’d created while thinking about the muse currently on her way to Yani’s very spot. They leaned back on the grill of their van to avoid pacing and wound up tapping the fingers of their free hand together instead. That traitorous hand was shoved into their jacket pocket in punishment and the smaller of the Fujimori siblings scanned the lot for Leila Webb, who had earlier agreed to Samyan’s offer of experiencing a song in their van after school. Which one should Yani show her? They had been inspired to create both entire songs and short tracks almost every time that they had the pleasure of encountering the soft girl, from first realization of her to last week after talking about her tik tok account, Melodic Moments, of which Yani was an enthusiastic supporter and follower. There were so many different tunes they could show her to set the tone for their question, but even as Yani stared at their phone screen they felt like there was really only one option. The first option. After all, aren’t you supposed to start at the beginning?

It was a wonderful song that kept the memory of that day alive and crisp within Samyan’s recollection. The slow indie build of walking oblivious through the hallway while talking to Kisho that crescendos until suddenly, as their shoulders collided while walking in opposite directions, the beat drops as Samyan’s heart did while apologizing and looking into wistful dark brown eyes that sung of untold stories and a soul scrabbling to be seen in a world that only believes what it hears. The yearning pull on violin strings puts a warm and smooth tone into an otherwise adventurous deep bass that takes up the foreground. It was a song that poured directly from their heart in a way they couldn’t contain, and perhaps to others it would sound messy, but Samyan was hoping that what they’ve learned and observed of Leila was true, and the dark haired beauty would be able to discern the meaning and feeling within the notes. Samyan was not subtle, but in the case of their flirting Leila was not perceptive, so the DJ and producer hoped that their shared love of music could help bridge the gap in notice just enough that Yani could finally step over it and ask the question they’ve wanted to since partway through junior year.

When Yani greeted her in homeroom, Leila initially thought it was just simple courtesy; that was, of course, before the question of free time was brought up and ever since the morning, Leila had found it increasingly difficult to focus on the school day. Her head was drowning in the ocean of hypotheticals and thoughts and the more she swam in that maelstrom the more the little voice in her head became clearer and clearer. Samyan Fujimori wants to talk to me. It wasn’t the talking part that had Leila wondering what about, why it couldn’t be done in the classroom or at lunch, she talked to people daily, often without even wanting to; no, it was the fact that Samyan Fujimori went out of their way to initiate further conversation. Leila had once spotted Yani doing what Leila assumed to be humming in the back of class one day, totally by accident. At the time, Leila was handing in a test she finished early and on the way back to her desk, there was Yani, in the back, moving in such a subtle way that most probably wouldn’t notice. But Leila did. Because Leila moved that way every day, to the unwritten notes of music singing in her head.

That hadn’t even been the first time Leila had seen Yani, just one of the times that Leila remembered vividly. The first time Leila learned who Yani was, other than ‘that person in class with the cool shaved part of their head’, she admired that confidence from afar. Never in her wildest thoughts did Leila ever think the admiration might be mutual. Throughout the day, Leila shook her head when that particular thought of mutual admiration breached the surface. She was assuming. Reading too much into an innocent invitation. This was probably some music club business, to get Leila to attend more often and of course she would…but Webb-Heads needed her…

And yet when the final bell rang, Leila walked with a briskness that she never did when she went from school to work. Was she smiling? Probably. Maybe. She couldn’t tell. Was that nervousness or excitement that made every step she took seem equal parts heavy and weightless? Yani had asked for five minutes and Leila would have given them fifty. In the parking lot, Leila spotted Yani leaning against their van and fuck, how could someone be so effortlessly cool while leaning? With a deep breath to keep navigating the turbulent waters of her mind in an effort to still them, Leila approached Yani and waved to get their attention, her own expression doing its best to remain collected even as the corners of her lips were twitching just enough for someone to know that internally she was giddy. ”Hey…hi!” The same words Yani had opened with this morning, only reversed.

Yani grinned excitedly when Leila appeared before them, taking in the girl's own happy twitch of her lips with great hope. She looked just as gorgeous as she had this morning, but the small smile that threatened to break across her honey almond skin had her shining, eyes glowing bright like light through fresh violin rosin. This girl was sunlight and song, rainbows and rhythm, vitality and verse. Yani could feel their heart in their throat just staring at the golden cast the sun sent over her earthen eyes, getting lost in the depth with hardly any will to escape. Leila was all those things and more, and Yani was hoping they could be the introduction to the ‘love’ part of the lyrics that Leila already has down herself.

They'd settle for just being allowed to keep being a part of her life after this.

“Leila! I am so excited you came,” Yani exclaimed once they'd managed to come up for air out of the intoxicating pools of warmth that were Leila Webb’s brown eyes. Their hand went out to touch the girl's elbow, ever the tactile being, but left the girl's hands free so she didn't feel like Samyan was suddenly grabbing her. Hitting the remote start on the key in their pocket, the violinist guided her to the side of the van where the door had been left open to reveal the setup within. It would have been much harder to get in through the back door, given the raised bed and storage area that had been built into the space for when Yani was traveling for shows. Above that bed, however, was the control system for the speakers and subwoofer that they'd had fitted throughout the vehicle. Yani spent many nights with their legs dangling off the side of the mattress, listening to their latest mix while fucking with the different settings to try and find out what was missing. It was their creative space, a piece of them that was only shared with those who have encouraged Yani's affinities and traveled with them for gigs, but they were opening it up to Leila in the hopes that the girl would soon become one of those people as well.

Yani was used to taking the first step before they'd even realized they lifted their foot, used to blazing trails before they even knew one was needed, it was Kisho that stopped and thought of consequences and attempted- though often in vain- to be the voice of calm and reason. Their brother was a man of calm and restraint but only as a cover for the impulsive hothead that used to tackle and beat bullies back when they still lived in Japan. As the one that will be inheriting the bulk of the company and who will become its face, that attitude couldn't slide, and their brother had gotten another type of tutor added to his weekly schedule just to reign in his temper. He'd had to learn to be calm and still like a secluded pond while Samyan had coursed through life like a raging river, unburdened by anything more than the knowledge that they would be helping their brother but not beholden to the business in the same way as he.

Now though, as they stepped up into the living space of their van and held their hand out to Leila to help give her a boost up and further into their life, they wondered if maybe slowing down to think about things was good even outside of business, despite how much their brother had despised his early lessons. Because going slow with Leila has led to this moment. Because slowing down right now gave them more time to admire the gifted sight in front of them as Leila looked up to catch their gaze once more, and Samyan would do anything to keep that picture forever in their mind, even calming the torrents of energy that made them them just so they could absorb the current moment with a higher level of awareness. If Samyan’s mind was a coursing river, Leila gave them enough peace and calm for it to settle into a babbling brook, and they found themselves in love with the new melodies they could find there.

“Please, come in, make yourself at home.” In my van, in my life, in my heart where you've already carved out a place for yourself without even knowing. Please, come in and stay.

In any other instance Leila would have been in awe of the van’s interior; the subwoofers alone looked as if they would produce a bass so heavy that it would rattle the bones and that was before getting into the other audio enhancing devices found throughout just the initial glimpse from outside. But Yani touched Leila’s elbow and that was all Leila could focus on. It was brief and it was probably just out of reflex - some people were touchers, but that brief interaction was like a lifesaver on the rough waters of Leila’s mind. It kept her from getting washed away in the addicting verbal demons of doubt and uncertainty, kept her afloat with the lingering thought that she wouldn’t have been invited here, to this audio playground of a van, if it was under some sinister pretense.

Without thinking, Leila took the offered hand and it was only after taking the first step to the interior that a crimson tint was forming on her cheeks as she realized her hand was having difficulty removing itself from Yani’s palm. Was that the first time Leila had held hands, even if it was for a radically different context than most people would assume? Yes. Did she want to do it again? Yes. Did she sheepishly look away from Yani’s eyes when their eyes met, thus adding to the blush? Yes. Would she do it over if she had the chance? Absolutely not. In her mind, this would be the kind of scenario a music video to a tween song would feature and that thought made Leila crack a smile; that the smile came immediately after a handhold was a wonderful turn of fate. “Whoa…this…is yours?” Leila slowly spun, eyes looking at the speakers, the subwoofers, the mattress; when Yani said to make herself at home…she didn’t know it was meant so literally. “You should invite me here more often. This…it’s amazing.” Her proclamation coincided with her returning her gaze and attention to Yani, with a smile in her eyes and a little open mouthed wonder.

”Should I…sit there?” She pointed to the mattress, unsure of what proper protocol was in a van like this. If she needed to, she’d sit on the floor and be happy to do it.

Invite you more often? I don't even want you to leave. Leila Webb truly had no idea the power she had over Samyan Fujimori, nor the world that that opened up for her. The Fujimori family was not one for trivial interests, they either found passions that they dominated the field in or they didn't call them passions at all. They were hardworking, dedicated, determined, and of a bloodline that built the foundation of their company itself with torn hands leaking life into the concrete long before it ever saw a pressed business suit or a walk in closet. A Fujimori knew what they wanted, and what was wanted was never worth simply taking. No, if you wanted something, you worked hard for it, and just like many things in their life so far, Yani was putting in the work in order to show Leila that she was worth it, not just expecting her to return the affection because of their Family name and status.

“Yes, ah, please!” Yani offered as they came out of their enamored haze, fingers twitching uselessly at their leg with nothing to hold now. Leila’s hand had been soft, gentle, and warm, sending the same blush that reached her cheeks thrumming all the way into Yani’s own as heat spread from their point of contact. They'd almost been knocked over when the other looked away and smiled, turning in a circle to take in all that she could of Yani’s life before settling again and asking her question. The producer hoped that they weren't too slack jawed by the time the girl had landed her eyes on them again. They pointed to the control box in the cabinet while grabbing their phone out with their other hand, finding the song with the knowledge that the Bluetooth was already connected.

“Best place to be for sound and editing, and super comfortable, man!” they closed the door of the van but quickly passed Leila before she could sit down and kneeled on the bed themselves in order to reach the two custom windows on the van’s back doors. Stretching across the mattress with one hand down for balance, they threw the lock levers at the bottom off and pushed the windows out until the rod’s joints engaged and held them up on their own, giving the two inside both airflow and privacy. They turned back to Leila with a grin while sitting on the foot of the bed, leaving the head to her so she was closest to the controls.

“Please,” They said a second time, tapping the mattress in invitation while unzipping and kicking off their boots in order to sit on crossed legs. “Change the settings however you wish. Loud, quiet, heavy on the bass, all is fine! This is all meant to be for you to experience, I can even play a sample of something just so you can get the settings to how you like.”

The last time anyone had done something that was meant for Leila was…well, never. Her parents opened Webb-Heads for them, it just happened that Leila took to the place well as an employee but other than that it often felt that life was taking away from Leila above anything else. She wondered how many people other than their brother were given entry into Yani’s sanctum of a van and Leila promptly shook her head to prevent that thought from getting its hooks into her brain. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Yani invited her here and Leila was not going to take that for granted. The music lover never really got to hang out with people in a one on one instance like this; most of the time she was with her group of friends or co-workers or otherwise by herself, which wasn’t such a bad arrangement considering the first months after her hearing issues she was convinced she’d never have a regular social life again. Right now, Leila just hoped she wasn’t going to do anything wrong or, worse, embarrassing, but this was uncharted territory for Leila.

She’d never been alone with a person that she wanted to steal glances at before.

“It would be a shame not to try those woofers.” Leila looked at the control box, careful not to mindlessly adjust knobs and settings lest the music about to be played take her back to the dark place of her youth. “I think bass is the most important part of a song. It’s like…the foundation, the bridge that links melody and harmony and rhythm, and it’s also so…underappreciated, you know?” Leila had a buoyant curl to her smile as she spoke and slightly adjusted the knob marked with bass. “Sometimes I have to turn it up so it shakes the bones. But it’s a balance, too much and it overpowers the rest.Sorry.” Leila could’ve gone on. At work, she had a bad habit of going off on tangents about music, bands, artists, and it took someone like Dani Jones to speak up and cut her off. Yani probably already knew stuff like this, they had a killer sound set up in their van, the last thing they needed was for some audibly impaired music nerd to bore them. “I didn’t mean to ramble. Go ahead and play something, I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

As she sat on the mattress, Leila noticed Yani’s boots being removed and she had the briefest question. Was she supposed to take her shoes off too? “Do I need to..with the shoes? I will if you need me to or want me to. Whatever the rules are, this is your space, I wanna respect it”

“If you do not mind, yes, please remove them,” Yani answered warmly, thankful the other audiophile had asked. They were well enough used to the fact that people didn’t often think about their shoes coming off in other people’s spaces, and had simply decided not to say anything and switch out the sheets once they got home. They were on this mattress far too often to want to risk letting it get too dirty anyway, but it seemed Leila was even more conscientious than Yani had already known. Getting lost in Leila’s actions was quickly becoming a problem in the small space, because Yani couldn’t keep their eyes off of the girl and the way she restrained her own enthusiasm, as though it needed to be hidden instead of celebrated and praised. Who cared if Yani knew everything Leila was saying? They’d never heard it from her lips, and it was being listened to like a devout to gospel. “And please, do not apologize to me for your passion, I enjoy it.”

They looked down at their phone then, clicking play on the song and doing their best not to openly stare at Leila in hopes of seeing every little reaction. “I started this after we ran into each other in the halls,” they explained before anything truly began. “By the time I saw you next, I had completed this one, but another popped into my head from that meeting that I had to work on. And so on, and so on, but this was the first,” As the audio began to pour into the van around them, the vibration coming in slow and building, they stopped talking so that Leila could focus on their creation, but they let the girl see a moment of the nervous smile that only seemed to cross their face when thinking of the beauty before them.

Her passion. She’d never heard her love of music referred to as such before and she liked the way it sounded, especially from Yani’s lips. They just had a way of making things sound…wonderful, to put it lightly. Leila offered only a brief apologetic nod before her shoes joined the boots in being removed from her person just in time for the music to begin. The slow intro that sounded familiar in the best ways, like a comforting meal from your favorite restaurant, which had Leila smiling - it was like one of the songs she often danced her way into school with. Did they say this was because we ran into each other? Her mind reflecting on the words Yani said, dismissing them as a trick of the ear, but secretly wondering how true it was and how badly she wished it to be.

“The crescendo…the way it leads to the drop and bows in tandem with the violin…it’s super layered. There are artists with albums out there that don’t have this depth of sound.” Leila tried not to speak over the music. To do so would disrespect the artist, who was seated next to her, and the music itself. As the song went on, Leila allowed Yani into the world only Leila knew - the world that Leila entered when she listened to music tickling over every synapse of the brain. She began to move. First her head, then her shoulders, arms, torso; if she were standing she would have twirled, taken a step back, skipped forward, all in time with the beat and signatures. Her enjoyment was anything but subtle, the groove of her body, the way her lips were following along to the beat as if she were creating lyrics from the soundscape, the look of genuine amazement sparkling in her eyes. As the song reached its climax and headed towards the outro, Leila had a single thought. I bet Yani could describe the color red to me.

When the song ended and Leila fell back down to earth, she turned her head towards Yani and half smiled, half laughed at her the way someone did when words couldn’t describe the excitement of what they just felt. “That song felt…personal, in like a raw, passionate way. What…” Leila hesitated a moment as the high of the song was mellowing, this question could well turn the conversation down a road leading to an awkward collision…but she had to know. “What did you mean…that it was when we ran into each other? Do you mean…” Leila pointed to Yani and then to herself.

Yani was left staring like they’d tried not to the entire way through the song as Leila enchanted them with the way she moved and flowed to the music, experiencing the song in a way that sent pride and joy soaring through Yani’s nerves like an electric current. No matter how many times they thought it, the fact continued to remain: the celestial being of signals and songs before them was beautiful. When she’d settled and the song had ended, when she’d asked her question, Yani couldn’t help the emphatic nod that answered her almost immediately, leaning forward with their arms supporting them between their space. She’d felt it. She’d understood.

“Yes! I don’t know what it was exactly,” Yani began, hoping that this being a private space meant their father would forgive them for letting their speech relax. “I saw you that day and it put a song in my heart, every time we speak another’s added and I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve been flirting with you since last year though and you didn’t seem receptive, but with the dance tomorrow I didn’t want to miss my chance to-” Yani stopped themselves mid ramble, realizing that somewhere during their speech they’d put a hand on Leila’s knee and they retracted it with a shamed blush. They weren’t even trying to be forward, it was just in their nature to be in contact with someone as they spoke, be it a light tough to the arm or a grazing of knees or legs. It just made sense to be touching someone when you were engaged. They cleared their throat, looking away for only a moment before returning their gaze to the girl across from them. “Sorry, that wasn’t me trying to- anyway, I wanted to ask you and this seemed the best way,” Yani ran a hand through their hair and smiled at Leila, a bit of nerves showing through as they asked. “Would you like to go to the dance with me? And, if that works out well, perhaps be willing to be my girlfriend after?”

In the moment, Leila hadn’t even realized there was a brief encounter between hand and knee but even if she had been aware there would not have been any part of her that would have minded. Not when hearing that Yani wrote a song about her or that Leila inspired artistic thoughts. Leila’s mind tried to think back on the past year to conversations with Yani, brief or otherwise, of saying “hey” in the halls or trading laughter at little jokes or comments. Had she been oblivious to flirting? Or had she just assumed there was no way someone like Samyan Fujimori could be interested in any form of relationship with Leila other than a friendly one? For as much as she had a normal social life, part of her still believed that the little devices on and in her ears would be a barrier to entry in the dating world.

There had been times during the previous year where Leila had given a glance after exchanging pleasantries with Yani; she just never assumed the same could be true. That she could inspire glances, songs, flirting. Leila knew what she wanted to say but wondered how best to say it. She always preferred when people spoke to her face to face - much easier to read lips when words were too muted to detect but looking at Yani was suddenly difficult because their eyes were doing more than just being pretty, especially when they were smiling. How had Leila never noticed Yani’s eyes before? Or their eyebrows? In the belief that they were just effortlessly cool, only now did she realize they were just as vulnerable to nerves and awkwardness as everyone else. And that only made Leila think even more highly of them.

“I would…I would love to go to the dance with you.” That hadn’t even been on the list of possibilities in her mind. Her fingers found a small part of her jeans and gave the denim a tiny pinch. Internally, she was remembering the brief moment where the two of them held hands. It was minutes ago but that might as well have been another lifetime now. “And…” Leila wasn’t one to make the first move, but she wanted nothing more than to have Yani’s hand on her knee again; she’d settle for the mirrored smile the both of them no doubt had. “I’d really like to be your girlfriend even if it turns out we can’t dance at all.”

“Really?” Yani asked, an excited grin overtaking their features and causing their nose and eyes to scrunch up. “Fantastic!” Their hand, once done with an enthusiastic clap, fell once more to Leila’s leg but this time stayed there with the knowledge that the other was receptive to the affection. “I’ll pick you up and bring flowers, I promise, and we can listen to whatever you want to listen to on the way to the dance,” They reached out and gently pushed a strand of hair away from Leila’s face, not wanting anything to block those eyes or that smile now that they could take it all in unrestrained. Their hand fell to a rest at the girl's jaw and Samyan couldn’t help the small glance down at her lips, so inviting stretched out into her own smile. Maybe this was too much, maybe it was too forward because Leila literally just said yes but Samyan has been waiting for this moment for months. Biting their own lip, Samyan leaned forward a bit and asked, “I’m sorry if this is too much, but can I kiss you?”

She didn’t say it, but Leila would have been just as happy listening to nothing on the way to the dance simply because the excitement of both having a date and who said date was was more harmonious than even her favorite songs. The flowers were definitely nice, though; she was looking forward to those but even if all they had to offer was sitting on a bench and listening to something on a phone speaker in lieu of a dancing date, Leila would still be over the moon. Yani’s second question was answered with a nod, but Leila knew she could do better. “It’s not too much. It’s perfect.” The volume of Leila’s voice went low, just above a whisper, and her hand found Yani’s on her own leg, a silent reminder to the both of them that this wasn’t a shared dream no matter how it seemed like one coming true. Her jaw was quivering under Yani’s touch, an excited, nervous, heart-pumping-overtime quiver as Leila leaned forward, awaiting Yani to take the reins from there.

Not needing any more allowance, Yani surged forward and captured Leila’s lips in their own, gentle despite the excitement and passion boiling just beneath the surface. This didn’t need to be crazy, this was their hello kiss, this was for them to get to know each other past the level they were already at and Yani didn’t want Leila to only know them as passion, they wanted her to know them as gentle comfort as well. They brushed their thumb over her cheek and jaw while tilting their head just so in order to deepen the kiss the slightest bit before finally pulling away for breath, hand dropping to the girl’s shoulder. Euphoria swam across their senses as they realized that what they’d wanted all this time had finally come true, that their worries had been unfounded, and Yani licked their lips while staring at Leila with a heavy gaze.

“You, you are going to be so good for me and so bad for me at the same time,” They kissed her again, slower this time, savoring her lips as they savored her presence and soaking it all in. Their voice was equally low as Leila’s when they said, “I thought I had focus problems before, but now I really don’t think I’ll be able to stop thinking of you.”

One thing was abundantly clear for Leila when the kiss broke: she wanted to do that again. When their lips met each other in a sweet embrace, for Leila the van ceased to be grounded on Earth. There was a weightlessness she felt like gravity had been reduced and the only thing keeping her from floating off into the unknown was Yani’s lips. If it had been Leila’s first kiss, she hid it well even while letting Yani take the lead; Leila found her thumb tracing a pattern on the top of Yani’s leg-touching hand while her other hand found its stability and comfort on Yani’s leg, those fingers giving a gentle squeeze simply to keep from shaking back and forth while the electric jolt surged through her body. Her earlier notion of Yani’s touch keeping her from getting swept away felt so backwards now.

Leila wanted to drown in the ocean that was Samyan Fujimori.

“I’m sorry in advance to your friends, because I think I wanna spend a lot of time with you.”

“My friends will get over it,” Yani assured as they thought of their lunch table full of gremlins, a thrill coursing through them as Leila’s fingers flexed on their leg. Who knew starting slow could be so beneficial in the end. “They may be relieved, actually, as they’ve had to hear me speak of you often.”

”Then I guess they’ll be hearing you speak of me even more.” The thought made Leila give a bright little laugh; no doubt the stories told to each others’ friends would come now with the appearance of one another. “I know I’m here to listen to music…but I think I want to kiss you again.”

Though the laughter faded, Leila’s smile didn’t. She didn’t think it would for a while.

[Melissa]

^{TIMESTAMP: Flashback, before homeroom, 7:00AM
INTRODUCING: Ivy and Isla Leung
@Melissa and @Bee}

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Leung household was quiet and still as Ivy stood in front of the stovetop, cooking herself breakfast. Her mom was working an overnight shift and her dad was already at the office, which left her and Isla to their own devices that morning, well, like most mornings. It wasn’t often that all four members of the Leung family were at home all at once; either Ivy was at cheer practice, or her mom had a big surgery, or her dad was out of town at some conference. Isla was always home though, locked in her room (much to her sister’s chagrin), but still, schedules seemed to rotate and never align.

The dark haired girl removed her eggs from the skillet and slid them onto her plate, turning off the burner, simply unbothered by the fact she was running behind. It was Friday after all, nothing could get her down or ruin her mood! Well, maybe her sister, but that was a normal occurrence. She ate quickly, answering a few texts as she went, before rinsing her dish and putting it in the dishwasher. If there was anything her father hated, it was a sink full of dirty plates and cups.

“Isla! Let’s go!” She called her twin, awaiting a response that never came. The girl waited a few moments, hoping for a reply, but when only silence answered, Ivy rolled her eyes. Her sister was in her own little world, as always.

She marched up the stairs, clearly unhappy with the extra effort it required, and pounded on her twin’s bedroom door. “HELLO! Earth to Isla!” Ivy tapped her foot impatiently, checking the time on her phone, and banging on the door once more, “If you’re not out here in 30 seconds, nerd, I am leaving without you.”

Hearing the pounding of a rather irate Ivy on her door, Isla plucked her airpods out of her ear and sighed. She knew that Ivy was up and around eating her breakfast -- that wasn’t something that Isla really partook in. Heavier breakfasts that Ivy had a tendency to eat simply made her feel more lethargic than anything.

She’d rather use the time that would be spent preparing breakfast to stay in her room and be in her little bubble. It didn’t take very long for her to get ready, so she would chill on her bed, tapping around on the drier-than-the-sahara piece of technology known as her phone.

Opening the door, Isla poked her head out, “Calm down, Ivy…” Isla murmured, as she left her room, “You don’t have to be so pressed.”

It was hard to believe that Ivy was the younger of the two sisters, only because she called the shots and Isla always listened. “I’m not pressed. Can’t you just, I don’t know, turn down your music? Or only put one airpod in? Like, how do you even expect to hold a conversation if you're just tuned out…” Ivy inquired, pivoting and making her way back down the stairs. She pulled her backpack over her right shoulder and picked up her cheer bag with her left hand before grabbing her car keys from the hook next to the door. Not bothering to turn around to face Isla, she continued to talk, “Not that you care, but the homecoming game is tonight. I can drop you off after my last class or you can find a different way home, I’m assuming you’re not coming?”

“You sound pressed.” Isla sneered, following behind her (slightly) younger sister, “See, that beats the point of having Airpods. The point of them is so that I can’t hear anyone.” Isla valued her bubble very much, and the most you’d get from her with her Airpods in is a blank stare.

As Ivy grabbed her stuff in front of her, Isla only continued to walk behind her, before being reminded about the football game tonight. “I’ll figure out a way home. I’ll call an Uber if I have to.” Isla then had a little brainwave, “Orr… you could just let me take the car and drive and you can hitch a ride with one of your cheerleader friends.”

“And why would I do that?” Ivy scoffed, looking over her shoulder as she unlocked the front door, the house alarm chiming once to indicate their departure. “No way in hell, I want to get back quickly after the game so I can have enough time to change for the after party.” She walked outside, strutting towards the car and opening the driver's side. The girl slid effortlessly into the seat, throwing her belongings into the back and checking her reflection in the rear view mirror.

“You could always come to the game, y’know. Support me or something? Doesn’t your little bubble travel? Glinda travels by bubble, so could you.”

“Ugh. Fine.” Isla slid into the passenger seat and also chucked her bag in the back, sliding down her seat in defeat. She wanted the car so she wouldn’t be stuck on campus, but alas. Her own car was in the shop because certain pieces kept falling off.

“I don’t really want to go to the game, maybe I’ll walk off somewhere else and call an Uber.”

“Your loss.” Ivy barely waited for Isla to get situated before starting the ignition and reversing out of the driveway. It frustrated her to no end that her sister was well, a hermit. At one point in time she made the effort to invite her everywhere, encouraging her to break out of her shell, but it was always met with a lousy excuse or a flat out no. So, she simply stopped asking. It wasn’t worth her breath these days.

To say the dark haired girl was a subpar driver was an understatement. She consistently drove over the speed limit, rolled through stop signs, and turned right on red even when she wasn’t supposed to. But, she’d never gotten them into an accident… at least up until this point. She navigated the car through the busy Beverly Hills streets towards the High School, turning up the volume on her mainstream pop playlist. Ivy sang along to the song absentmindedly, her sister decidedly not a chatty companion. “Like a feather, like a feather, like a featherrrrr,” She glanced over to the passenger’s seat at Isla, goofily trying to get her attention as they drove. “Come on, lighten up. It’s Friday! And no one can be annoyed on a Friday.”

Accompanying the rollercoaster that was Ivy’s driving, she was basically gripping for dear life as she drove like the average Tesla driver. Thank goodness these Teslas had features in them, otherwise her and Ivy would’ve been wrapped around a telephone pole about now. Isla had a bit of a scowl on her face, peeved that she had to take an Uber and sit in a stranger’s car for god knows how long to get home. She just wanted to get home!

“It’s certainly one of the days today.” Isla muttered, “Why is it so special when the football players come home? Aren’t they always home?”

“Ha ha ha, very funny.” Ivy mocked, before continuing. “It’s an important game, Isles. We’re playing our rivals, and if we win, we get to hold that over their heads for the rest of the season! Not to mention we’re so close to the playoffs and state championships.” The dark haired girl looked over to her sister in the passenger seat. “I would try and put it into music terms for you to understand, but I don’t speak nerd.”

The cheerleader accelerated down the road, turning right onto the side streets that led to the High School. Senior year was upon them and it was important for her to have as much fun as possible. As soon as the fall hit, she’d be a college student, where more revelry would await her. It was an exciting time, in her eyes. For her sister? Not so much. “Are you at least coming to the dance tomorrow night?”

Isla rolled her eyes, “Such a big deal… for a game that won’t matter in two years.” The musician scoffed, staring out the window as Ivy somehow maneuvered the streets of Beverly Hills.

“I don’t know. I don’t have anyone to go with. They’re never fun alone.”Isla pouted. Despite her apathy toward school, Isla was well aware of how much having someone to go to a dance with would enhance the experience.

“What’s the point of going alone?”

Ivy sighed, “Who cares,” She rolled to a stop at a red light before turning to look at her twin. “I don’t have a date, and I’m still going. Plenty of people are going alone! You’ll find others there to hang out with.” The light turned green and she hit the gas pedal, cutting off a car who angrily honked at her as she haphazardly changed lanes to make the left turn. Even though it irked her, and she had “given up”, she still took opportunities to help her sister out. “If you go tomorrow, I’ll let you take the car after school. On the one condition that you ACTUALLY try to talk to people.” Ivy gave her sister an earnest expression, “You’re going to need to be extroverted enough to land a record deal, might as well start on people who don’t matter to you.”

Isla scowled as Ivy presented a deal that was extremely difficult to turn down. The musician was practically backed into a corner that she couldn’t get out of. Yeah, she hated the idea of going to the dance, but she did really want the car.

“I hate that you get all the leverage here.” Isla pouted, “Fine. I’ll go, but you better give me the car.”

The dark haired girl smirked as they pulled into the BHHS parking lot, finding their usual spot in the corner closest to the football field. It was a small win, but a win nonetheless. She turned off the ignition and hopped out of the car, grabbing her bags from the backseat. She tossed her sister the keys, nearly smacking her in the face. “All yours, nerd.” Ivy pulled a lip gloss out of her backpack and applied it as she stared at her reflection in the driver’s side window. “If I can’t get a ride after the game I’m calling you to pick me up. It’s only fair.”

Catching the keys, Isla narrowly avoiding poking her eye out as she finally got the car she’d been wanting for the whole drive.

“Ugh. Fine.” Isla rolled her eyes, sliding her backpack onto her back. “Don’t make me pick you up at 3 AM again.”

“I’ll call you at whatever time I want, after all, I’m being kind enough to let you use my car.” Ivy guilted before blowing her sister a kiss. “Have a great day sweetie. Make some friends! Or don’t!” She chimed in a sickeningly sweet voice, before turning on her heel and walking towards the school, swinging her hips from side to side confidently.

Isla, once again, rolled her eyes so far back into her head she could practically see her brain. Guess she had to pick her sister up at some ungodly hour now.

Not that she had any choice.

[smarty0114]

_{TIMESTAMP: During the game
LOCATION: The Callaghan Home
Featuring: Jamie “It’s Been A Shitty Day, Alright?” Callaghan & Katie “Communication Is So Last Season” Callaghan}

---

---

When Malcolm Callaghan met with architects to design his house, he had asked them to make it feel “unique.” He had come from nothing, and he wanted his home to scream his success out to the world. He wanted a house that his wife could tour for Vanity Fair, a house that would remain on tours of Hollywood long after he’d died. The result was a sprawling complex, all glass and concrete walls. Boxy and minimalistic, it peered down at the city, an austere eye in the heart of Beverly Hills. It was cold and sharp, a house but hardly a home.

The interior was all white and black marble, smooth and sanitized. The house, despite being occupied and well furnished, hardly felt lived in. It was simply too big, too empty. It was the kind of home built for a family of seven, but tonight, it held two. It was rare to have every Callaghan under this expansive roof; the twins’ parents flitted around the country with abandon, for work and for parties (which their parents insisted were for work) or for whatever camera called to them next. The twins themselves had gotten used to it a long time ago. They made do.

Jamie spent most of the time he was home, in his room. Bigger than any teenager needed, the walls were decorated with photographs purchased from art shows, and a collage of his own, pictures of himself and friends and family. A bookshelf loomed large against one wall, filled with every book he’d collected in his seventeen years. There were a lot. Some nights, he could be found curled up in a large chair in the corner, digging into whatever novel had caught his attention, and others he was seated at his desk, ruthlessly killing his darlings. Tonight, he was crying on his bed, and listening to Olivia Rodrigo blare from a bedside speaker.

_{♫♫ I told my friends you were the one
After I'd known you, like, a month
And then, you kissed some girl from high school
And I stayed in bed for, like, a week
When you said space was what you need
Waited by my phone like a goddamn fool ♫♫}

He was lying still, on his back, eyes trained on the ceiling. He had managed to get through the rest of the school day intact, through the afterschool Newsroom meetings and the quick drive back to his house, only to fall apart at the sight of AJ’s hoodie hanging in his closet. The sudden reminder had landed him face down on the bed, and the boy who hadn’t cried in two years finally shed a tear.

The eldest Callaghan twin might have given off the impression to the rest of the school that he was cold, calculating, and unfeeling. It was not a difficult impression to give off. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. He felt things deeply, too deeply. When he was angry, it was a raging fire, lapping at the walls of his mind. When he was happy, it was the death of sadness, the dawning of a new day where bad moods were not allowed. And when he was sad, it was a flood of Biblical proportions, wiping joy away for what felt like 40 days and nights. All this to say: Jamie Callaghan loved to wallow.

So, he cried until he couldn’t anymore, and then he put on music he hoped would soothe his troubled soul, turned it up loud enough to drown out his thoughts, and finally rolled over to face the world. And then he cried a bit more. He did all of this without getting up. That would’ve been too much work.

_{♫♫ And now, it don't mean a thing
God, love's fuckin' embarrassing
Just watch as I crucify myself
For some weird second string
Loser who's not worth mentioning
My God, love's embarrassing as hell ♫♫}

So much of his day was spent managing himself and his emotions, regulating his reactions and focusing them into something worthwhile. He hadn’t felt this unbalanced, this insane, in years. He wanted to text AJ until he couldn’t ignore him, but that felt desperate. He wanted to go by his house and bang on the door until someone answered, but that felt embarrassing, not to mention a bit insane. Mostly, he just wanted AJ again, but that felt stupid and selfish and like the exact thing he had been taught not to want. As he stared up at the oscillating blades of his ceiling fan, guilt and shame and heartbreak beat their somber rhythm against his heart, and he wondered if it would always be like this.

“Hey, is this cut–Oh. Yikes.” Katie Callaghan disturbed her brother’s peace the same way she always did: without knocking. Jamie lifted his head up slightly to look at her, but could only muster up a defeated groan.

“Go away.”

Katie looked down at him, lips pursed in concern. She had been through enough of his and AJ’s breakups to recognize the fallout, and despite what Scott had said, there was nobody else in the world who understood her quite like Jamie did. They had come into this world together, had survived the same parental failures and endured the same well meaning parental guidance. Her and Scott were forever, but she and Jamie were infinity, even on the days when she hated him. Luckily for him, it wasn’t one of those days.

“Move over,” Katie said, shoving her brother's legs out of the way so that she could take the spot next to him on the bed, joining him in his staring contest with the ceiling. “So. AJ?”

“Shut up.” Jamie rolled his eyes. He did not want to hear his sister gloat over the ashes of his ill-advised entanglement. Still, he turned the music down.

“I didn’t even say anything!” Katie fired back, immediately raising her voice as Jamie went on the attack. “It’s just very obvious.”

Jamie sighed. “You’re thinking it, I can tell.”

“That’s not fair, okay, of course I’m thinking it, I love Nobu.” Her attempt to lighten the heavy mood that hung over his room was in vain. He didn’t even crack a smile. “Tough crowd.”

“I hate you,” Jamie said, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff.

“No you don’t. If you hated me too you’d be down to Mom and Dad and Trixie, and that’s a depressingly small list.” Katie rolled over, to stare at the side of her brother’s head, waiting for him to turn and meet her eyes. This was how they’d always had these talks, since they’re problems began to outgrow their youth. “Where the fuck did this hickey come from?”

Jamie put his hands over his eyes, pushing down as though the pressure might make it all go away. It did not. “Jesus fuck, Katie, I don’t want to talk about it!” The words exploded out from him, sharp and unforgiving. If he couldn’t have AJ, if he had fucked that up so irreparably, then he wanted to be alone, replaying the supercut of his failures.

Katie smacked him on the shoulder, confusion and a flash of anger etched onto her face. It had not taken long for her to grow tired of her brother’s self-pity. There was something exhausting about watching him self-flagellate like this, when their entire lives had been the story of how fucking wonderful he was. He was the smart twin, the less abrasive twin, the one that nobody but her bothered to worry about, because he was Jamie and of course he was okay. Their proximity meant that she couldn’t make the slap sting, but she’d gotten her point across all the same: "We don't lie. Not to eachother.” “I wanted to talk about my outfit, you’re the one wallowing, and now you’re being weird.”

“We broke up. It sucks. What else is there to say?”

“Uhhh, a lot?” she said, “Start at the beginning. Scott’s not gonna be here for a bit.” Jamie finally rolled over to meet her gaze. She clocked the red, puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks with ease. Okay, so they were in this part of it all. Slowly but surely, he began to recount what felt to him like the end of all things, AJ’s words and the text that came later. He attempted to skip over the harsher parts of the story, the origin of the mark on his neck and the crazed energy that had swirled around the Gearhead in the moments before homeroom. Katie did not fall for the ruse. “You’re leaving shit out, I can tell.” She was the master of lies of omission, after all.

Jamie sighed, turning back to face the ceiling. He couldn’t face Katie for this. “He just…out at the shed while we were talking…he just got so fucking angry. It was like…I don’t know how to even describe it. He was just…unhinged. Which is when that happened,” Jamie gestured to the mark on his neck, as though it were an unwanted zit.

Any good humor Katie had still possessed fled in the wake of Jamie’s confession. She sat up abruptly, staring down at him, lips pursed into a tight line. “Did he hurt you?” She wasn’t sure what would happen if the answer was yes, but she feared it would involve a lot of yelling. Still, that was a small price to pay for Jamie. “Cause I can go over there and handle a twink if I need to.”

Jamie sighed. “Jesus, you sound like Trixie. He didn’t hurt me, I’m fine. He was…high and upset. Which was probably fair, if I’m being completely honest. Why does everybody assume I can’t look out for myself?” he said, long arms flailing with exasperation. He wasn’t sure why he was so insistent on denying what had happened back at the shed. Maybe it was the pain of admitting to it, or maybe it was his own guilt, over seeing what he’d turned AJ into. He did know that he didn’t want to be pitied. He had never wanted pity.

“I’m gonna kill him.” Katie said the words calmly, void of emotion. It was a simple fact, as indisputable as the color of the sky and the curvature of the earth. She was a force of nature, a storm in the form of a blonde with an affinity for cherry chapstick and combat boots. By this point, Jamie should’ve known that you didn’t stop storms, you endured them. Still, he gave it his best shot.

“Did you listen to a single thing I just said? Besides, you can’t kill him. You’d go to prison and then who would be around to make sure Scott didn’t drive his car into oncoming traffic? Me?” Jamie’s words barely chipped Katie’s stoney exterior, but they kept her from getting up immediately. He’d count that as a win.

“Fine. I won’t kill him. I’m just gonna make him wish that I had,” she said, shrugging. There was no swaying her from this course of action. She still wasn’t sure exactly what AJ had done, but she’d heard enough to draw a solid picture in her mind. Breaking up with her brother was one thing; he probably deserved that, if she was being honest. He’d crossed a line though, in the process. It wasn’t just a betrayal of Jamie, it was a betrayal of her. When she’d set them up last year, she hadn’t realized she’d needed to explicitly tell AJ to keep his hands to himself. “Scott wouldn’t kill himself if I went to prison. He’d help me break out.”

“Even if you’re there because you murdered his best friend?” Jamie said, sighing and sitting up.

“I have faith he’d see my side of things eventually.” She grinned and placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “You deserve a lot better than that, Jay. You know that, right?”

Jamie groaned and fell back onto the bed, out of her grip. “Stop being sappy, I’m going to combust.” Katie laughed, and then he joined her, and for a moment, they were children again and the world was still years away from barging through their door. He was glad he had her, even if she did consistently threaten to drive him off a cliff and into the depths of insanity. “So. Have you told Scott yet?”

Katie scowled. “Shut up, we’re talking about you right now,” she said, turning away from Jamie’s prying gaze. She had done a very good job of forgetting that particular wrinkle, until just now.

“That’s a ‘no,’ then?” Jamie replied, smirking. At least he wasn’t alone in this troubled paradise. “That boy pretty much worships the ground you walk on, you know? He’s gonna be excited for you.”

His sister shook her head. “I know that. I do. It’s just…” She paused to take her bottom lip between her teeth. There was no lying to Jamie, a concept that had grown more perturbing as they approached young adulthood. “What if he isn’t? Or what if he just pretends to be excited, but really, it’s eating him up inside? People break up over this shit, Jamie.” Her words fell onto the room, and silence fell with them. “I love him and I just…I don’t want to hurt him. I mean, what if I totally blindside him for no reason. I might not even get in, it’s fucking Juilliard!”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “And blindsiding him for a laughably mid reason is better?” He shook his head. “You’re definitely gonna get in. If talent doesn’t do it, I’m sure nepotism will. Then, it’ll just be a bigger, different kind of problem.” He took a beat before adding, “People break up over this shit because they don’t talk about it.”

It was Katie’s turn to groan. “Shut up. We were literally just talking about your failed relationship.”

Jamie put up his hands, smirking. “Hey, I’m great at managing other people’s relationships. It’s mine I have a problem with. Also it wasn’t a relationship. Technically.” Katie smiled.

She thought hard about what she said next, lips pursed until she could parse her feelings into words.“He loves me so fucking much. What do you do with all of that?” The question hung in the air for a moment before she tilted her head and followed with another. “Did our parents do this to us?”

Laughter overtook the pair, leaving them breathless and at least a little bit less dejected. “Almost certainly. They make up for it with the money though. Some kids have absentee parents, and they’re still poor.”

“Well then, remind me to thank them for the Black Card.”

Jamie grinned. “We’ve got Black Cards and issues with intimacy. Watch out world, the Callaghans are coming, and they’re unstoppable.”

The conversation drifted from their respective troubles in paradise, to matters of more fun. They caught eachother up on everybody else’s gossip, traded opinions on the latest celebrity scandal, and broke down the recent developments on their favourite show, Blackfyre.

When the tell-tale hum of Scott’s car alerted them to his arrival, their anxieties had been soothed, at least for the evening. Katie leapt up, smoothed out her skirt, and checked her reflection in the mirror. “Tell Trixie I said hi,” she said once she was satisfied with her appearance.

“Tell Scott I said his best friend’s a dick,” Jamie called out, holding his position on the bed.

“I will, but a lot nicer.”

“You are the twin that everyone likes for a reason.”

Malcolm and Alison Callaghan hadn’t built much of a home, but their children had still managed to make one for eachother, in spite of them.

[LovelyComplex]

_{@LovelyComplex & @Aces Away
TIMESTAMP: Afterschool, a couple hours before the game
Small FT: Hirsch "Hershey" Goldstein (Jonah's older brother, Decky's uncle)
Texts to Stella @Melissa, Emilia @NeoAJ, & Piper}

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

When Ethan Green found out that both Sully and Decky were not heading to his house but instead at Dom’s Garage, one working and one doing homework, probably, the leader of the Elite adjusted his plans, once again, to get things moving for his party. There wouldn’t be any party if there was no vineyard and the only one who would be allowed to use it was not the Green driving but the one home likely laying on his bed staring up at his ceiling, thinking about a Tigress. “Text Agent Coffee: Hey, I’m heading there now. Prepare Decky for me. Send.”

Pulling the turn signal lever, Ethan shifted to the right lane and prepared to get off the next exit. “Text Babe: not going to the game. Busy night but I can’t wait to see you in your sexy dress tomorrow. Sorry about today. Just… been a day. Thinking of you.” He wasn’t completely lying. Today had been a day and his brother needed him. Still he knew it didn’t excuse his behavior of ignoring his three girlfriends. “Send.” The text had gone to the ether and straight to Stella.

He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard, knowing time was of the essence. The last thing he needed was his brother sleeping for the rest of the day because he just wanted to dream of a girl climbing on top of him. “Text Baby: hey sweetheart, I’m shopping for my party. Let me know if you want anything. I hope you have someone to keep you company during the game. Kisses. See you tomorrow.” When he reached a stoplight, Ethan quickly glanced at his speech to text before saying, “Send.” He only talked that sweet to one person and that was Emilia.

One last girl and then he would have done his duty of the day and could focus on making sure his party was guaranteed one of the best, scenic spots his family owned at a reasonable driving distance. “Text Bae: Okay, please don’t kill me but my brother has not been doing okay. I know I should’ve told you but I’ve been busy keeping him afloat and planning an epic party. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, promise. Talk when we can.” Having already left the stoplight, Ethan was going down one last street when he finally began approaching the Garage. “Send.” Piper would be receiving a text soon enough and now he felt accomplished, finally able to relax and worry about his boyfriend duties another day. He was free and had party planning to focus on. He pulled into the garage and parked his Mercedes-Maybach in the spot right by the entrance. He honked fast to make his presence known but not be too obnoxious. He was here and he was ready to get two boys into gear.

Decky slammed his head into the bottom of the car he was working under at the sudden honk, cursing vividly as he pushed himself out from beneath and sat up on his creeper, a hand to his throbbing skull. Hirsch didn’t even look up from his spot in the chair sat just a bit away from the car, having spent the time during Decky’s shift handing the boy the necessary objects with one hand and rifling through shop files with the other. Honestly, despite the few years spent with him in the shop now, Decky still wasn’t quite sure what his second youngest uncle did here. Hirsch raised a judgmental eyebrow Decky’s way but said nothing as the younger grumbled his expletives and stood up, wiping his hands with a greasy rag that barely helped clean them. Decky tossed the dirty cloth at his uncle and, much to his chagrin, the man who looked younger than both Decky and Jonah caught it before it hit his face. The look he got once the rag was lowered was enough to light a fire under his ass and send him quickly trudging towards the entrance of the shop.

From the break room came Sully, who left behind little Danny to continue his own studies, and the Boaz brothers’ anxious uncle Zo, who was tearing through the box of donuts as a way to cope with his nerves over his wife Pepper, who would be having their baby any day now. Sully even left behind some lollipops for Danny, who already had one in his mouth. Before the door swung closed behind the internet eye-catcher, Decky saw Danny hesitantly reach out and pat their uncle’s arm in comfort, not looking up from his textbooks, journal, and paperwork. He couldn’t help but smile for a brief moment before it dropped back into his usual scowl as Sully reached his side.

“Ethan is here. I was supposed to tell you he was comin’,” The boy in the baseball cap said simply.

“No shit. Ya didn’t fuckin’ tell me though.”

“I was studyin’ with Danny.”

“You’r-” Decky stopped himself with a sigh, knowing that anything he said to the other boy would go in one ear and right out the other. To Sully it was really that simple, he was studying and didn’t want to break concentration, maybe even couldn’t without losing it completely. He’d probably barely even glanced at Ethan’s text and, given his poor short term memory, it had likely immediately left his mind until the rich boy had rolled up. Plus, Danny liked his study buddy, and he’d be upset if Decky scolded him for focusing over telling him what a text said. “It’s fine.”

They walked up to the car and Decky glared into the driver’s seat at the brunette that sat there. “What?”

“I will pay you double your shift if you take today off to hang with my bro,” Ethan casually commanded, cutting to the chase. Taking out his wallet and pulling out hard cash, he asked, “How much do you get paid an hour? 20?” It was obvious that Ethan Green didn’t want to waste time. He had shit to do and if it meant throwing cash in his boy’s face, he would. For his party, he would. “Tell me your price because my party won’t be a thing without Andy asking my dad permission and Andy already said he’d tell dad that: he has friends. My bro does not have friends, my guy,” the Green explained, exasperated at how complicated his older twin brother made this for him. “No joke. Name your price and I’ll give you the money. You and Sully need to get in the car before my brother falls the fuck to sleep. Without you, my party won’t happen and I need it to happen. It’s supposed to set the tone for the rest of the year. Seriously. If your boss needs me to explain why I need you, I will. Now what’s it going to be?”

“That was…a lot of words really fast,” Sully said with a frown to mirror the one on Decky’s face.

“I got the gist,” the mechanic grumbled with an irritated roll of his eyes. “The fuck is with ya rich people and thinkin’ ya can throw money at everythin’? This is my fuckin’ job-”

“Just go.”

“Fuck!” Decky flinched violently, almost cartoonishly, away from his uncle's sudden presence next to him, the shorter man's shoes surprisingly silent on the typically squeaky floor. Hirsch gave him an unimpressed look that covered the concern to those that weren't family and didn't know what to look for. The baby faced man took the wad of money from Ethan's grasp and shoved it in the front pocket of Decky's greasy work shirt. “Uncle Hirsch I got-”

“Compensated for a day's work,” he cut in, easily taking off the suit jacket he tended to walk around in and leaving him in a basic white tee. Without the slimming design and with his arms and muscles exposed, Hirsch was a little closer to actually looking the 21 he was instead of the teenager people often mistook him for. He held his jacket loosely at his side and cracked his neck before staring blandly at Decky. “I'll finish your workload here today, just get him out of here,” he glanced at the Green boy and his disheveled state. “Your brother is comforting your uncle in the break room, but I can only handle so many unhinged energies in this place without Jonah or Eiran around. Please get out.”

“Uncle Eir-”

“I can handle my brother. Go.”

Decky stood there for another moment, staring at his uncle's unyielding gaze while trying to contain the major bitchface that wanted to take over his normal scowl. Decky didn't want to go, but Hirsch was making it very clear that he didn't have a choice. He looked over to Sully for support, but was left to sigh dejectedly at the glazed over look in the other's eyes as he stared at nothing against the far wall. Looks like studying had taken a lot out of him today, and Sully.exe would not be functional until he got some rest.

“Fine,” Decky spat, knowing he'd lost on all sides already. “But drive safe and keep the fuckin’ music down so Sully can sleep on the way,” said boy didn't respond beyond tilting his head when he heard his own name, and his fellow gearhead released a desperate sigh as his uncle turned away and disappeared to go work on the car that had previously been Decky’s job. He grabbed Sully roughly by the back of the collar and directed the lost boy towards the backseat. “This is gonna be a fuckin’ shitshow, Green, I hope ya know that.”

“That’s what makes this exciting, Boaz, don’t you think?” Ethan grinned at the two boys, primarily addressing the mechanic. He was ready to book it the moment their asses touched the car seats. “Now, this is what you need to know about my dad…”

This was going to be lit.

[Hey Im Jordan]

_{TIMESTAMP: Throughout the day... just read.}

_{@Hey Im Jordan@Melissa@LovelyComplex@smarty0114@Aces Away@Festive}

____________________________________________________________________



____________________________________________________________________

Some people used their time in homeroom to catch up on homework. Other’s, like Jamie and Decky, used it to catch up on old grudges. Before, Benji would’ve been one of the boys asking Ms. Belmonte about her plans for the weekend, in the vain hope that she might realize her life and career weren’t worth missing out on the charms of a seventeen year old. Now, he used it to listen to music, and text Athena Helmsley. Somehow, that felt like an even less realistic use of his time.

He’d known of Athena for years now, it was difficult not to. For the majority of their relationship however, their text thread had mostly consisted of Benji asking if she knew where Calli was. The switch happened in the early weeks of summer, while he wallowed in a miasma of self-pity, anger, and embarrassment. He was mad at his father for ruining his life. He was mad at his mother for retreating into herself, and he was mad at Aunt Gina for seeming completely unaffected by the whole thing. His phone was full of ignored texts from the Elite groupchat (affectionately named The Bois) and individual messages from Ethan and Mikey and Jack and everyone else in the world who wanted to make sure he hadn’t driven his car into the Pacific Ocean.

He still wasn’t sure why he’d responded to her more than her sister or any of his other friends. Maybe it was adolescent hormones or maybe it was just easier to talk to somebody who hadn’t really known him. Strangers were a lot harder to disappoint.

Whatever his reasons, he and the heiress had gotten close. Despite what people might’ve thought, they definitely weren’t sleeping together. He had assured Calli as much after he received an icy text, shortly before the school year started.“Scout’s honor, I will not bone your sister,” was the exact phrasing. He’d made a promise, and he was trying to keep those. They were friends, which is why he had edited the text he was drafting harder than Trixie peer reviewed English papers.

Finally, after an embarrassing amount of time spent staring at his phone, he pressed send.

To:Athena 👑
you coming to the game?

Benji tapped his fingers against his desk, staring down at the blue bubble on his screen. Was that stupid? Of course she was coming to the game. He should’ve just said he’d see her there. Opted for confidence. Or he could’ve said nothing, like someone who had promised not to fuck his friends sister might do.

“Big weekend ahead, Benj. You ready?”

Jack’s voice cut through his music, startling him. He turned his phone over, hiding the screen, and looked over at Jack, his free hand coming up for the customary Elite handshake. “As I’ll ever be,” he said, dry and tired.“You know Ethan’s parents are gonna murder him if we fuck that place up tomorrow? They like, love that vineyard dude.”

Jack dapped up his bro before resting his feet on the back of the chair in front of him, receiving a dirty look from the person sitting there. “Pshh it’ll be fine. They know how high schoolers rage,” He interlocked his fingers and rested them on the back of his neck, leaning into his seat casually. “They’re practically inviting chaos by letting us use it. Besides, I haven’t seen Ethan ever get anything more than a slap on the wrist, he’ll be fiiiine.” The blonde reassured his friend. He was about to say something else, but the sound of Benji’s phone buzzing became audible. Jack raised a brow, “Oh, so your phone does work.” He sarcastically commented, still giving Benji a hard time from when he went AWOL this summer.

“Shut up,” Benji said, struggling to suppress a grin conjured up by the phone’s vibration. He flipped the phone back over and scanned the new message.

From:Athena 👑
yesss I’ll be there !!
a little birdy told me you were in the starting line up! you’ll be great :)
and it definitely wasn’t george michael, just so we’re clear lol

To: Athena 👑
I hope not
If the birds start talking too, i might have to call it quits

Benji looked back up, mind clearly down the hall. “Sorry what?” He blinked. “Oh, yeah. Party.” He shrugged, as though whatever consequences the party might bring were beyond his purview. After months of Aunt Gina’s birds, honestly, it felt like they would be. “I mean, I’ll take free booze. I just want my concerns noted, y’know, for the record.”

The blonde gave his friend a knowing look, “A bit distracted there, Benj?” He probed, hoping to get something out of him, anything really. Benji had been, well, different since everything had gone down with his family. Jack wanted his buddy back, the guy who was always up for anything, his partner-in-crime who would always be willing to make crazy mistakes with him. Maybe this weekend would be the return of some normalcy. “Consider them registered. But I’m telling you man, it’ll be smooth sailing.”

It most certainly would not be, but neither of them had any way of knowing that.

---

They got through homeroom thanks to discussions of hockey plays, and a lively debate about whether one great white could win against a troop of fifty bears. Benji argued for the shark. “Bro, the shark would never even come onto the bears’ turf, I don’t care how many of them there are–YO MIKEY!” Their conversation had pulled Benji from his shell, so much so that he didn’t even think twice about projecting his voice down the hall as Michael O’Connor turned a corner.

Mikey was in the zone. In his opinion, he had made what was essentially the deal of the century. And part of it was already done! Mikey even reckoned finding Nicky a date was going to be the hard part of the whole deal, so he was really chilling with that out of the way. Sara was perfect, they were going to be the cutest couple ever and MIkey was going to be sure they had a most excellent time at the party. Probably. He wasn’t like, one hundred percent positive they could hang with him and the lads, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Benji yelling quickly snapped him out of the zone. There was confusion on his face; he hadn’t spent time with Benji in a while, since Benji had opted to go the way of Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises and disappear into the sunset. “Dude, Benny what’s up! Man, I would have thought you were dead if it weren’t for you leaving me on read.” He quickly closed the gap between himself and his two friends, and couldn’t help himself. Once he was close enough, he wrapped Benji up in a tight bear hug. “I knew you’d come if I lit the beacon!” He beamed widely as he broke away from the embrace and looked over at Jack.

“There’s not a single other motherfucker in the whole student body who I could see being the distraction other than Benji here. We are locked the fuck in.” This was like the Beatles getting back together, or when Iron Man decided he would break the law of time. Michael, of course, was just assuming that Benji had read the text message he’d sent The Bois earlier, detailing his ‘plan.’ The plan basically consisted of Benji distracting the administration while Mikey, Jack, and Ethan broke into the principal’s office and acquired a long-since confiscated megaphone. Easy money.

Jack extended his arm, fist bumping his buddy, “Let’s fucking gooo,” He responded excitedly, looking from Mikey to Benji with a mischievous grin. When Mikey had texted the group his idea, Jack was immediately invested, ready to bend the rules to get shit done for his friend. Although the boy had been reminded excessively by his coaches to stay out of trouble for the next few months, this was harmless fun. Plus, with such an elaborate scheme, there was no way they’d get caught! “This is gonna be great, Benj you’ve got this bro.”

The football player screwed up his face, confused. He’d just been trying to say hi. “Bro what the fu–” his voice trailed off as he read the text from Mikey, requesting their help. Damn, he really needed to pay better attention to messages not from Athena. “Why the hell do we need to steal a megaphone anyways?” Benji asked, suddenly skeptical. “And why do I have to be the distraction?”

“Well, the thing is… I told this kid if he got me a win in Fortnite, I’d get him a date and let him and the date chill with us at the party. I did that already, but I also told him we’d steal his buddy’s megaphone back. Apparently, it’s a pretty big deal that they don’t have it. It’s important, dude.” Michael shrugged, not thinking he needed to explain his reasoning much further than that. He needed the megaphone, and his best bros were honor bound to help him get it. The distraction part? Oh, that was easy. He beamed a wide toothy grin as he boasted his explanation, “Dude you may have been a lil quiet lately, but that doesn’t change nothing. Nobody is more distracting than Big fuckin’ Ben! We just need you to be like, Benji our loudest friend again and not Benjamin the guy who mopes in the fuckin’ corner. Think you can handle that, for like 20 minutes?”

Benji sighed, but the smile creeping up his face betrayed some genuine amusement. It was surprisingly easy to fall back into the Benji of yesteryear when he was surrounded by his friends. Perhaps that’s why he’d avoided them for so long. “Okay, fine, but we’re gonna need some walkie talkies. They set the tone.” He furrowed his brow as he began churning through possible ways to divert attention from the principal’s office, and her assortment of confiscated materials. “How big of a distraction are we talking here? Great Food Fight of 2021? Also, where are you gonna get a key?”

“Oh, he’s back alright. This is going to be epic.”

---

Kisho worked his jaw repeatedly on the near silent walk from math class to the baseball shed, teeth grinding harshly as he drowned anything other than Álvaro’s presence out with the music blasting from his headphones. His fellow soccer player was not one of his favorite people, and while that was normally fine outside of the soccer field, they didn’t often have to be completely alone together. Yet, here the two were, making their way from class to rendezvous point with the rest of the Elite, and it’s taking everything in him not to race ahead in the small hope that he and the other accented Elite weren’t the first to make it. Unfortunately for the slighter boy, he could see the shed in the distance and there was no one there waving enthusiastically towards them, no other friends in their group as punctual as the oil and royal heirs. Kisho’s already short patience wavered at the empty sight, and his blank face finally fell into a frown as his disappointment showed.

“Damn it all,” He grumbled, not as quiet as he believed it to be because of how loud his music was in his ears. He checked his phone impatiently as they pulled up to the shed and sighed at the lack of activity in the groupchat. It must mean everyone’s on their way, at least. I’m not alone with Theo, at least, he thought in a vain attempt to boost his spirits. Small mercies, lesser evils.

“Ay Dios mío _{(Oh my God)}, quit it with the teeth grinding.” Hate. There were no bounds to the level of hate Álvaro held within his morsel of a heart. Across the three languages he spoke, none of the words could quite describe the hate he felt towards Kisho. Around the group, he could keep it contained, like a shaken soda bottle, sealed but ready to blow. But now, alone? He didn’t need to pull his punches.

It was as if the little common boy knew exactly how to make him tick; there was yet another offensive to Álvaro, he couldn’t respect the tranquility of silence. Álvaro leaned his back against the shed, softly tapping his boots onto the dirt below. Álvaro wasn’t one unfamiliar with patience, although he held none for the black hair prole that lay before him. He must have been too caught up in whatever abomination of sounds Álvaro could hear spilling out from the oddly constructed headphones he wore, the only thing that could explain such a blatant display of disrespect to some as regal as himself. As Álvaro approached the boy from the side the size difference between the two became apparent. Álvaro stood about a foot taller than the boy built with a more stocky frame, while on the soccer field, they serve as two sides of the same coin, but off they couldn’t be more different. He gripped the band of Kisho’s headphones and pulled them from his ears, “You aren’t the only one here, cabrón. Quit grinding your teeth, and turn down the fuckin’ noise.”

“Do not touch my shit,” Kisho snapped before he even registered what Álvaro had said to him, unwilling to snatch the item back lest the taller boy hold them too tightly and they break. He couldn’t handle that and being stuck with the prince of pissing him off. Álvaro thought so highly of his standing, but Kisho just saw someone who couldn’t handle being second place in anything. Someone who didn’t know the meaning of being a step below anyone and thus couldn’t put themself in someone else’s shoes. The type of person that would do anything he could to stay on top. A liar, and a bully. Kisho hated bullies. Fists clenched at his sides, he glared at the taller boy, Álvaro’s words finally filtering past the irritation clouding his mind. “You ask too much, ass, I will stop grinding my teeth when I am no longer stuck with you. I will turn my volume down when I no longer have to hear you breathing near me.”

“And I’ll stop ‘touching your shit’ when I no longer have to deal with un desperdicio de espacio _{(a waste of space)} such as yourself.” Álvaro tightened his grip around the band of Kisho’s dear old headphones, almost amused at his riled-up frustration; the best way to get to someone is through something they hold dear. “I ask of you one simple thing even a child can comply with and you are over here throwing a hissy fit like a little ass girl, you really must not want your headphones back.” It was a stand-off between a chihuahua and a pitbull, both unrelenting in their resolve. Álvaro would never back down from a fight, especially one he’s been resisting since the start of the soccer season.

Kisho recoiled immediately at Álvaro’s words, the offhand comment hitting him like a slap to the face. He made an aborted motion to cross his arms over his bound chest before thinking better of the tell. Because Álvaro may be a part of the Elite now, he may have infiltrated Kisho’s friends, but, He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. Calm down, deep breaths. Don’t back down. Kisho’s mantra ran over and over in his head as he squared his shoulders and looked up, and up and up, to where Álvaro held his headphones well out of his grasp. He could hear the expensive material creaking under the boy’s vindictive grip, over the beats still pouring from the speakers, and his heart leapt into his throat. If he came home with broken headphones, his family would know something was going on more than Samyan’s knowledge on the matter. If these headphones broke, in particular the outer casing of them that’s really the only remaining original part of the device, then he’d lose the last thing his mother ever gave him before she died. He’s had everything inside the casing updated over the years for the best sound quality and noise canceling that money could buy, but he refused to change the outside at all, the parts that she had held as she handed them over to him from her hospital bed.

“Relax your grip,” Kisho demanded, voice low to avoid any tremor that was threatening to surface. His nails were close to cutting into his palms with how tightly his fists were held at his sides. He stepped up to Álvaro and stared directly into his eyes from his spot so far beneath him, letting the boy know he was serious. “And hand me my headphones, or I will kick you in the balls so hard that there will be no chance for you to create someone worse than yourself.”

“Aww, that one really got you riled up huh? I’m sure you can replace this cheap discount tech section dollar store pair of headphones in no time.” Álvaro stifled his laughter, God, there were few things that brought him more joy than this. “You are going to have to get more creative with your threats, pendejo. I’ve heard the same thing from men way bigger than yourself, women too.” Álvaro eyes glared into Kisho’s, a grin spreading across his face. “I’ll give you one last chance to just turn down the music, or who knows maybe I’ll have to mess around with whatever buttons are on the side, and I don’t think you would like that alternative.” Álvaro squeezed his hand applying pressure to the plastic shell of the headphones. Creaks from the hard plastic begging to be released could be heard from within his hand, anyone could tell that it was on the verge of cracking if not already there. He wasn’t going to surrender to a no-good tryhard whom he held less respect for than a rabies-infected street mongrel. Álvaro lamented the fact that their practice was canceled today because of the game as he wanted more time to mess with the black-haired boy.

“Stop!!” Kisho panicked, voice coming out in an uncharacteristically high shriek as he heard the telltale signs of hard plastic giving way. His eyes were desperately latched onto his precious headphones and his heart was in his throat, cutting off all surface thoughts of propriety and appearance. He could yell and complain as much as he wanted, act like a child in a way unbecoming of him, but he couldn’t do much more. Where the Fujimori name is synonymous with Oil, as is the Borbón name with Coal, and those were two businesses too close together not to breed a deal between the two patriarchs. Anything that happens between the heirs of the two companies could become front page news, and even if their parents covered it up, it would affect inter-business relations. It was just another reason that Kisho had to put up with the royal remnants bullshit and entitlement most times, because the boy was a vindictive fuck and would do anything to mess with Kisho’s life, just typically more behind the scenes than the blatant goading and tormenting he’s doing now.

He also couldn’t jump for it, for completely unrelated reasons. First of all, it was completely undignified and would only make the taller boy laugh and sneer at him more, but that was also not the reason. The real reason was that he was not wearing his sports binder or compressive bra, it wasn’t even a racerback for better movement, just a basic, everyday type. And because of the hot day, it was one of his half tanks instead of the full ones with fabric all the way down his torso. If he were to go jumping and flailing for his headphones, it would only serve to entertain the sneering boy even more, and risk exposing Kisho’s one big secret to the second to last person he ever wanted to know. Unfortunately, the last person he wanted to know already did, and that was a major part of his problem and his distrust and hate.

It was different on the field, especially during practice when they were actually playing against each other. They rammed into each other, tumbled to grass in a flail of limbs and harsh words- both English and their native tongues- before they got back up and went at it again, desperately hoping the other would break a limb or make a mistake they could take advantage of. Álvaro has hit or grazed his chest plenty of times during these spats, but in the heat of the moment on the field with a pissed off rival, no one is thinking about a little extra cushion when they fall on top of you after you sweep their leg trying to get the ball. Whether either of them wanted to admit it or not, the two of them were fairly equal on the field, and given the other boy’s royal superiority complex and need to call Kisho as many degrading terms as he can when they were forced to interact, he was sure that Álvaro would not take the news of Kisho not even being born as male lightly. He could already hear the disparaging ‘like a girl’ comments taking on a whole new meaning if he found out, and it made him sick.

“Kutabare_{(Fuck you)}!” The smaller boy cursed harshly at the taller when another creaking from his headphone broke his restraint, rearing his foot back with every intention of delivering his striker’s kick to his fellow striker’s groin. He hadn’t even had a chance to put any forward swing on his leg when he heard the telltale raucous noise of an Elite conversation. He froze in his position for a moment as he calculated the amount of time they had before the boys rounded the corner of the shed and he and Álvaro glared at each other in contempt when they both came to the same conclusion.

Not enough time.

Kisho lowered his foot back to the ground and calmly fixed his oversized black and red tshirt like he hadn’t been reared back to assault the boy in front of him. Emotionless resting face now back in place with the assurance that his boys would be there in moments, the now recollected Kisho held an expectant hand out to Álvaro, well aware that the manipulative bastard had far more appearance to maintain with the people rounding the corner than he himself did.

“Headphones.” It was a monotone prompt, one the bully likely didn’t even need. Álvaro had no time to break them and make it look like an accident, so both boys knew that it was time to bury the hostility and make face for the friend group.

“Here comes your fucking cavalry brigade.” Álvaro reluctantly dropped the pair of shabby-looking headphones back into the hands of the disparaging sight of the boy before him, sighing at the lack of damage that adorned the glossy surface. “Count your blessings, boy. Lord knows the rest won’t be around to save you next time.” Their eyes held in a standstill, Álvaro could read the boy like a picture book. His shrill outcries of terror and his almost impulsive mistake gave away all he needed to know; the boy was scared. Over a pair of poverty headphones? No, there was more to it. And to Álvaro? He basking in the thrill of making this boy tick more than he usually would be able to. He just needed to know why, and for that he knew the exact person to ask.

As the volume of the typical Elite frivolity increased, Álvaro broke the silence one more time before the group fully arrived, “Oh yeah, one last thing.” Álvaro placed his hand on Kisho’s shoulder and leaned into his ear so that only he would hear. “I promise you, if you ever raise that weak little shooting leg at me again I will make sure that the only thing both legs will be useful for is sitting in a wheelchair.” His tone was harsh, and his grip was harsher. If you knew Álvaro, you knew that he kept his fucking promises. And he wasn’t one usually to get his own hands dirty, there were lesser, more expendable types to handle such activities, although at a worse quality than if he would simply undertake it himself. Álvaro only ever fought to prove a point, and goddamn did he believe Kisho need to learn a few despite his father’s direct orders to spare the boy. It was one of the few things that kept Álvaro limited in his actions toward the boy, his aggressive playing style wasn’t the only reason he held the unofficial record for red cards in the school’s history. On the field Álvaro was unstoppable, and he would be damned to let Kisho stand in the way of his god-given glory, I mean the man was baptized by the pope himself. The tension between the two often has the rest of their teammates ready to jump in at a moment’s notice, but Álvaro restrains himself as a good son must.

Álvaro released the black haired boy from his grasp, taking a step to expand the distance between them. He took a breath, plastering the same fake smile he wore undetected (for the most part) for these four he’s run with the Elite; if this school was a movie, he would win the Academy Award for best actor.

He shot a quick wave over to the rest of the boys as they rounded closer, “It took you all long enough!”

“Sorry for the delay, Your Highness,” Benji called back, oblivious to whatever tension remained in the air. He waved his newly acquired set of walkie talkies (courtesy of Dash Day, thank God for kids with ADHD) over his head like some sort of trophy, before explaining, “We had to stock up.” While he had spent the morning securing communications, Mikey and Jack had secured their entry: the master key. “I just hope everyone knows that if they get detention today, it’s because Mikey sucks at Fortnite.”

“Dude, I’m not even that bad! It’s hard! I can’t crank 90s like those goddamn Fortnite zoomers.” As the saying went, Benji spoke of the devil and Michael appeared on the scene, shaking his head. He wasn’t even present and he was getting dunked on by his friends over the video games! Mikey chose to believe it was becuase there was simply nothing else to make fun of him for. And besides, Mikey had to let Benji get his licks in. The dude went ghost for like an entire summer, which was practically a lifetime. Easing him back into society was the right thing to do, even if that meant taking the hits on the chin.

Mikey held up his hand, a golden brass key glinting in the light. “And just like that, O’Connor seals the deal again. One master key, locked, loaded, and ready to get down to business.” He beamed around at the group, pausing only briefly on Kisho to furrow his brow at the uncharacteristically disheveled look the other boy held. Michael made a mental note about that, reminding himself that he would have to check on it later. That was the older brother in him. But the Elite in him couldn’t help but brag, “until they re-key the school, we’re the kings, boys.”

Jack materialized beside Mikey, a dumb and goofy grin plastered onto his face. He patted his friend reassuringly on the shoulder, leaning in towards Álvaro and Kisho with his other hand cupping the side of his mouth, like he was telling a secret. “Duuuude, Mikey is that bad. I’m not even a decent Fortnite player and I can beat him. He needs all the help he can get.” He laughed, moving back and sniping the keys from his friend’s grasp. The blonde pulled a rolled up piece of paper from his back pocket and unfurled it, revealing a diagram. Blueprints to the administration wing of the building, which included the Principal’s Office. “That Janitor came in clutch, we’re not even going in blind. Feast your eyes, boys, because this is how we’re getting the job done.”

“This is about…Fortnite,” Kisho reiterated blandly to his far more energetic friends, unsure if he'd heard correctly as he had been returning his headphones to their resting place around his neck after a subtle check for damages. Coming out of this, his shoulder is likely to show more injury from the royal pain’s grip than his headphone’s sturdy plastic. He'd noticed Mikey's glance though, and did his best to fix both the wrinkled fabric near his shoulder and his face, and counted his blessings once more that Álvaro was more interested in fucking with him than actually paying attention to him, because the boy almost had another clue to Kisho's life via his grip on the smaller's binder strap. Props to blind anger. As Jack pulled out the blueprints, Kisho also registered Benji's walkie talkies and Mikey’s key, then did his best not to openly stare at the large paper in resignation. “I am risking getting punished by my father for Fortnite? Boys, how did you even get all of this?”

Jack exhaled audibly, feigning fatigue. “Bro, it was not fucking easy, let me tell you.”

Hours Earlier...

Mikey squinted at the janitor he and Jack had managed to find. “Come on, dude. What if…” He ruffled around in his pockets and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. He held it up between two fingers in front of the staff member, “...my good friend Andrew Jackson was here to persuade you? Just tell them Levi bullied you into giving him the key. They’ll believe you and just give ya a new one, seriously.”

The janitor gave the two boys an incredulous look. These kids thought he could be bribed? He didn’t get paid enough for this shit. “For 20 dollars? Are you two stupid?” He shook his head. “No shot.”

Jack leaned over Mikey’s shoulder, snapping another bill in front of the man, “Well, what if the esteemed President Lincoln joined the party?”

The blonde blew a raspberry. “That guy drove a hard bargain.” He nudged Mikey giddily, “But the dream team made it happen.”

“Dude, seriously. We’d better get some use out of this thing. Where’s El Capitan?”

As if a choir of angels were singing his name, Ethan Green, with his arm over his brother’s shoulders, strolled down the gravel, high as a kite. He could see his brothers-in-arms at a distance, minus Theo who didn’t want to partake in such tomfoolery (lame excuse, but whatever). He locked eyes with Jack and gave a nod, before continuing his spiel with his older brother. “Now if you want to win Amy over, you need to get out of your comfort zone, my dude. What better way than stealing something from the principal’s office?” Ethan pressed on, wanting Andy to join in on the fun. The younger Green twin could smell success in the air with his brother at his side. This gave them a higher chance of succeeding in their heist, and aiding Mikey at his horrible gameplay in Fortnite. Success was all that Ethan wanted (and to watch good films). A new era for his twin and he was going to be part of the ride, from start to finish. Till death do they part. Green brothers FOR LIFE. “Like check it, what if we find something that belongs to dad’s in there? Do you know how happy dad would be if we found his old phone or game boy or whatever? Bruh, this could guarantee the vineyard, I’m sure of it.”

Out of his comfort zone. Easier said than done, but Andy was pretty confident he could do it. He was also pretty confident he needed a nap, and some Cheetos. As Ethan mentioned finding something of their father’s to guarantee the vineyard for their personal use, Andy looked over at him and tilted his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard dad say no. To anything. Have you?” Andy asked the question genuinely, but as he thought about it… he shrugged. While he had never heard his dad say no… Ethan probably had. “Yeah, I mean he’d probably be more up for it if we find a GameBoy! Maybe he’s missing a beloved Pokémon or something.” Andy beamed at his older brother and gave him a thumbs up. He’d have to figure this out, since it was clearly a pretty big deal to his older brother that they secure the deal for the vineyard party. Andy didn’t get it, but high school politics were more complex than they seemed! Besides. He had a girl… friend now?

Yes he was ignoring her texts, but he’d get there eventually. “Do you guys actually have a plan?”

While Henry Green did not say no often, if at all, the vineyard was a different story. For some reason or another, Eden Springs was a forbidden jewel in their family. Off limits to outsiders. Strictly family. No one told him why. Not even his dad and his dad told him everything! Ethan was flabbergasted that not even his father threw a party there which only made him want to throw a party there even more. This is why the golden boy absolutely needed this mission to go off without a hitch. “Of course we have a plan!” If they did have a plan, Ethan did not know of it, he was only assuming, out of the faith he had in his band of brothers. “Starting with our crew. As Reuben Tishkoff said in Ocean’s Eleven: ‘Ya gotta be NUTS. And you’re gonna need a crew as nuts as you are!’ I think we’re off to a fiiiiine start, right boys?”

[Festive]

_{TIMESTAMP: Start of the Game
Introducing: Celeste Green}

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_{@Festive & @LovelyComplex}

My name is Celeste Green and I am the Queen of Beverly Hills and the Princess that is destined to take over the Green Company because I’m the best option there is.
A lot of nobodies talk smack about how my world, and school, is exclusive and there is a clear class system.

Guess what, losers!

LIFE is a class system.

If you can’t handle it, you’re not fit to be standing next to me. Periodt. Now move along and play pretend. You’ll never know how it feels to be amazing and true royalty like me. It’s like mommy always says, if you want something done right, pay someone to do it for you. Money is no object to me. I understand it better than anyone. I am gross-rich, pretty, and better than you. That’s all that matters and you can’t really challenge me if you don’t put your money where your mouth is. And you know what? I always get what I want.

Welcome to my world, bitches, you’re lucky to even step foot on it.

With her legs crossed, her lithe form upright, and her electric orange eyes covered by her Balmain sunglasses, Celeste sat rather impatiently on a towel that her Butler laid out for her, on the bleachers in her own reserved section. Her peers knew better than to sit right next to her. It was common courtesy to keep all seats around her open so that a square was created around her and no one’s obnoxious breathing would get on her nerves. Plus, the seats right next to her were reserved for her best friends. This wasn’t the first time the only child of Cyndi and Justin Green did this and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Celeste’s entire existence commanded her wants and needs and most people either obeyed or got out of her face, not wanting to deal with her. She’d take either option so long as the end result made her happy. Her happiness mattered above everything else.

Butler stood at the end of the bleachers, keeping an eye on his charge from a distance since he knew at events like this Celeste needed her space. She hated feeling claustrophobic and she didn’t like people that she saw as dog poop sitting right next to her. She had standards, okay? And most of this school didn’t reach them. It was so hard to find anyone worth her time anymore. But that’s okay. Celeste didn’t need many people in her life. As long as she had Piper and Athena, Celeste was happy. They were all she needed.

And yet they weren’t here. Happiness was fleeting and she could feel irritation festering inside of her. What was taking them so long? She had been waiting for five minutes and she was already ready to leave. The only reason why she came to this dreadful game is because Athena wanted to but if she had it her way she would’ve done some retail therapy, because she deserved it, and ended her night with a nice bath, while watching rom-com movies. She couldn’t believe she came to this game because her friend asked. Why was she such a good person?

Looking around, still not seeing the two girls that meant the world to her, especially annoyed that Piper kept her waiting, Celeste changed positions. Uncrossing her legs and pressing her knees together, she patted down her skirt, making sure she was presentable and lady-like. Her mom didn’t raise a slob. Her heels didn’t touch the ground. Instead her toes connected to the floor. She moved them up and down, causing her legs to join the casual and leisure motion. It was something Celeste did absentmindedly when she didn’t know how to keep herself busy.

Nothing was of interest to her so she decided to focus on daydreaming. Her mind went from LA to Fiji. She closed her eyes and imagined herself sunbathing, drinking fresh sugarcane juice and listening to the waves of the ocean, the surrounding nature, and her own breathing. God, she wished she was there today. Why did she have to go to school and waste her life away surrounded by idiots? Life was rough for someone who knew what she deserved. It was okay though. Celeste Green was a survivor and would carry on. The world needed her too much for her to give up on her studies but that was neither here nor there. Fiji. All she wanted to think about was Fiji. That was where she was as she waited for her soul sisters. Beautiful Fiji.

Although, why seek the waves of the Pacific when the Mediterranean would treat you much, much better? Among the sea of scarlet and noir coated commoners he was forced to share the same oxygen with, Álvaro looked down at his watch once again hoping that the tiny metal hands within the intricate timepiece would be in a drastically different place than they were the past ten times he had checked it. To his avail, the only hand that seemed to work in the entirety of the piece was the seconds hand, which was too slow for his liking. He didn’t quite understand the concept of American football, despite the time he had spent in the States, and his friends' numerous explanations to him it was simply a bastardization of Rugby that stole the name of a better sport where you actually have to use your feet the majority of the time. And the only reason he was even cooped up in the bleachers with the boys was that he had an obligation to support his fellow members of the Elite, so that meant sitting through every dreadful second of this game.

The dullness of the game before Álvaro wasn’t the only factor of his inescapable miasma of boredom. The conversation among the boys beside him was centered around the sport at hand; a foreign cacophony of voices detailing a topic that held no interest nor use to the man, which grated away at his already short patience as he had to fain interest at times. His ears were filled with the frivolity of those lesser than himself from all angles, his foot tapped repeatedly concrete below, his mind lamenting the fact that gone were his days of using Naomi’s name as a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card to sit away from the boys or even skip the game in its entirety. His newfound bachelor life sure had its perks although the downsides reared their heads like a pack of hyenas, but his father taught him how to hunt for a fucking reason.

There wasn't much he couldn't see from the little slice of hell he occupied upon this fortress of concrete and metal. His eyes scoured the waves of students searching for something or someone who would be more worthy of his time. The poverty-stricken majority neighboring Álvaro and the rows beyond cursed his brown-eyed view, and his time would not be wasted on a charity case. His eyes finally fell upon the blond-haired girl that sat a few rows away from himself, like Moses she parted the red sea but not with the power of God but by the power of her own status. The cousin of his dear friend Ethan Green, Celeste Green wasn't unfamiliar to Álvaro’s purview. He had learned about the girl from the Greens he knew, and even interacted with her in the past, although she had never caught his attention until today. Observation is one of the most valuable skills to a hunter; you have to watch your prey, every move they make, and every breath they take has to be accounted for. As if he was scoping at a buck down range, Álvaro watched. She was away from the pack of three that usually accompanied her, separated from the general populace, and her formal stance faltered into one of less obvious impatience.

When the boys were too busy focusing on whatever they were doing, Álvaro snuck away from the group. He maneuvered through the sea of rowdy voices and school pride to Celeste’s own bubble of claimed regality. From the sidelines, he could see her idiosyncrasies more clearly than from afar. Her legs moved together in a rhythmic pattern, a possible distraction from the drag of the game and her isolation. There was no time better than now to strike; in the world of human psychology his rifle was his words, and he was a goddamn marksman. Álvaro inched his way closer to the edge of her bubble, he couldn't invade the sanctity of her space with her permission, lest her bodyguard disguised as a butler come manhandle him. “Hey, Celeste, any room for company?” Álvaro shot a warm smile across the gap to her, tilting his head slightly in the process. At this point, he was passing himself between so-called “queens” like a royal whore.

“No Naomi to stroke your ego? Or my idiot cousin to rub chests with? Or whatever you sweaty boys do,” Celeste dully asked, uninterested as ever. Truth be told, the Green who was the least informed about her classmates unless it was disclosed to her by her best friends was the princess basking in the sun, in front of the royal highness himself. She didn’t need to keep tabs on the nobodies of the Hills. She wasn’t Trixie or Jamie, who loved to stick their noses in everybody’s business, nor was everybody worth her time. If they were, she would know of them. She wasn’t Naomi and her bitchboy cousin, Levi, that pretended to care nor was she her cowardly cousin, Diana, who had her own reign over a make believe Candyland, choosing to force ‘love’ down other’s throats.

Gag me with a chainsaw, please.

Álvaro was one of the few people she did know plenty about because Ethan did not shut up about his boys and it was hard not to notice someone of Álvaro’s stature. He carried himself pompous, vainglorious, and cocksure, like most of the Elite did. They were disgusting and she would compare them to peacocks. Very unlike her other cousin, Andy, who lived in the shadow of his twin. He was more an ant, which was quite tragic for a Green. She supposed if she had to choose, her preference would lean toward peacocks over ants. Ants were easy to crush. Peacocks were pretty to look at. Some people were born to shine and others were born to be part of the backdrop. Álvaro clearly chose to be the sun since he was blocking it with his vexing, yet eye-catching smile.

Looking over her sunglasses, peering up at the prince-of-nothing-to-her, Celeste snapped her gum. She had been chewing it quietly, thinking of her dream escape, when he decided to rain on her parade. He might have descended from the old world of kings and peasants, but here, at this school, having a legacy was one thing but being able to put your money where your mouth is was an entirely different thing. All that mattered here was he was handsome, he had money, and he knew how to navigate the social scene, beyond that? She could care less. Rather than wait for a response, she simply pointed to the outskirts of her beach towel, two spots reserved next to her for Piper and Athena. “There and not an inch closer.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Álvaro shifted himself into Celeste's perimeter of purity, savoring for a moment the disconnect from himself and the lesser of the school’s ecosystem. Some say the first move a person makes is the hardest, but to Álvaro the whole process couldn’t be easier. Humans are predictable, every single one chalked full of their own uniquely eccentric mannerisms no matter how subtle or suppressed they may be. “To answer your first question, we both just outgrew each other.” Álvaro didn’t hang on the topic for too long, he could tell Celeste wasn’t the one to fain fake emotions to for sympathy. The indifference of her voice cut the air loud and clear, he was going to love to make her crack. The wall she erected around herself had already been breached, it was only a matter of time until he plundered his way to her heart.

“And I really couldn't tell you where Ethan is.” Unlike the other Greens Álvaro has fraternized with, Celeste seemed to stay solely within her own world. And from what he’s seen, sticking to the same two friends who were thankfully, but curiously absent. “Besides that, this game is utterly insufferable. It’s an undignified mess of people jumping on top of each other. If it weren’t for Theo and Benji, I would’ve never even came.” His eyes stayed locked on what he believed to be hers beneath the tinted glass of her sunglasses, he made his words flow through the air like a dove as soft as silk. Álvaro intensified the cadence of his accent ever so slightly to catch the attention of the small blonde to his side. “Truly a waste, Santa Monica Beach is always beautiful, the light from the pier, the sky, the water; everything. My father owns an island down the coast of Barcelona, it’s almost a replica; minus the pier of course. Honestly, they both remind me of you in a way.”

Celeste raised an eyebrow at his last comment. He was comparing her to a great escape. A tropical paradise. The beach. Cute. Such smooth words didn’t impress her. He needed to do better than that. Ignoring his mentions of his private island, not feeling the need to go on about her family’s assets, the pompous, petite and pretty blonde was certain he was in the same vein as her. The only difference was he had a title. Even so none of that mattered to her. That didn’t make him special. It was adorable that he thought it did. That just made him worthy enough to breathe the same air as her.

Choosing to disregard his clear attempts to make a move on her, brushing it away like she did when a waiter dared to serve her asparagus, Celeste acknowledged and agreed on his sentiments on the sport at hand, “Tell me about it. My father, Justin Quentin, or well Green since he took my mother’s name,” Celeste casually disclosed, pausing for a moment to relax her shoulders. Enjoying the temporary distraction as she waited for her friends, she snapped her gum once more and mused, “When he was in his prime, he was the best Quarterback the LA Rams ever had. Now he coaches at USC. It’s always been boring to me, though. No matter how much he wants me to love it, I just see idiot boys rough housing. American football in itself is focused way more on entertainment than the actual sporting contest. I hate the superbowl because of him…” She sighed to herself, taking a moment to glance over at her acquaintance as she reminisced over all the times her dad threw the biggest extravaganzas over a stupid game, “There is much more skill needed in Tennis, which is my preferred sport.”

For once, Celeste wasn’t being a merciless cunt. That was how people perceived her to be. She was being welcoming and reasonable, actually more informed in sports than most of her peers would realize. Her mother was a retired ballerina and her father was a retired football player; it came with the territory. She was a mythic bitch, don’t get her wrong, but she had no reason to grow defensive and fight her cousin’s friend. It wasn’t like Álvaro would get much out of this interaction. They were simply making idle chatter to kill time until her best friends appeared. Plus, he respected her boundaries and as a reward, she would give him some of her time.

Odd, Celeste was odd. Such sultry words spoken from a mouth as regal as his ought to be regarded with more than a simple perceptive gesture. There was vastitude of women meandering the halls of their school B.H.H.S. who would do anything to even receive a shred of Álvaro’s attention, to have it outright ignored was new, certainly unpleasant, but new. If she wanted to play hard to get, he was up to the challenge; they always capitulated in the end. “I would much rather watch a Tennis match than this any day. This is just… horrid. My mother taught me how to play a long time ago, I actually used to play for my little Spanish prep school before coming here. Ultimately, the real football was my calling.” Years of it having been forced unto him, Álvaro kept his posture straight. His hands lay idly within the pockets of the jacket he wore, in his peripheral view noticed the slight dip of her shoulders; a lowering of her guard, a growing comfortability. The cracks in her wall were growing, it was only a matter of time before they fell, crumbled into gravel at his feet. This comfortability came with news, a familial connection to the sporting industry, perhaps she will be more useful than a tool to upend his unending boredom after all, at least he wouldn't be challenged for only a few moments of fleeting entertainment. “It’s been more than a few years since I've played though, so I am destined to be out of practice.” A light laugh escaped Álvaro's lips in a pause between his speech. The little lies he spread only worked to benefit the teller, himself; there was no escape of the sport for the grandson of a former Olympian; especially for one who was still in good shape. “How about you, do you play?”

Álvaro had to pivot, his prior talk of wealth and status swayed the small girl less than a windless day swayed a wind chime. Álvaro looked solely for the sweet symphony of success, and his previous chatter led him nowhere but to lose the time he valued more than money itself. Álvaro swept his hand through his hair as he looked away from the blonde beside him for a moment. The scene of red and blue clashing in the vastness of the field was probably the only thing enjoyable about the game, a fleeting thrill of excitement that made the crowd go wild for some incoherent reason Álvaro didn't pick up on.

“I do, yes,” Celeste curtly answered, glancing past him to see if there were any familiar faces walking through the crowd and to the bleachers. Two girls, a blonde and brunette, searching for her. Alas, they were nowhere to be seen. How dreadful. “But you don’t care about that, now do you?” Taking off her sunglasses, the proud, classy and elegant Green revealed her striking, electric orange eyes and firmly grabbed his attention, with a commanding glare. Out of all the Elite boys, she knew Álvaro wasn’t an idiot, especially if he dated someone like Naomi Davis. He was educated and without a doubt, more informed than his ‘brothers’. There was no way he did not know that she was on the tennis team and that because of her, their school team was the G.O.A.T.

If it wasn’t for her parents being completely and utterly selfish, Celeste could’ve gone to a Tennis Academy but instead they bought a private coach and allowed her to join tournaments so long as it didn’t interfere with her ‘teen’ experience. She could’ve gone pro if it wasn’t for her parents being so absentminded, only caring about their own pursuits: ballet and American football. The Crown Jewel didn’t expect him to know any of that but she did expect him to know something as common as who was doing what sports in this school. She knew he was in the soccer team, or the ‘real football’ as he called it, she wasn’t that oblivious, but clearly she wasn’t interesting enough for him to know that she was in the tennis club, or there was another avenue. He was playing dumb to get her to react.

Either way, she wasn’t a fan of someone playing pretend. Silky, smooth words were nice when they weren’t so shallow. She would know; she was full of empty words. “What do you want? Aside from avoiding the general populace, why are you talking to me?” Mockingly, she leaned backward and dramatically pouted like she was some innocent, little lamb, “Is it because I’m not with my girls and you thought I could be your rebound? Or is it because you’re so lonely and desperate that you resorted to going to Ethan’s cousin for company?”

Christ, almighty. What. The. Fuck. Nobody was impossible to read, Álvaro held this true; even he begrudgingly acknowledged to himself that this applied to him as well. Álvaro kept it to a minimum, he buried his ques, managed his body language, censored his speech–he knew damn well that this woman, who didn’t even reach the height of his shoulders, was not reading him like a goddamn picture book; Celeste was either extremely lucky or a fucking telepath. Although he held the thought in the forefront of his mind it did not impede the rampant increase of his heart rate as the words were flung out of her mouth with the ferocity of a volatile hail storm. Álvaro’s heart beat out of his chest with a new invigoration. It had been a long while since Álvaro had felt the feeling of anxiety from some person other than his own father. His interest in the small blonde so obviously faking it beside him grew more in the small, fleeting moment, than it did throughout the rest of their conversation. But the problem at hand grew more precarious the longer he allowed it to simmer, Álvaro had been in more stressful situations than the one at hand. He was going to be the pied piper, leading her away with his orchestra of lies wherein only he was the wiser.

“Celeste, if I was ‘desperate and lonely’ or wanted a ‘rebound’ don’t you think I would’ve sat with any of the several other women who accost me on a daily basis? I am here, sitting with you, to get to know you better, this has nothing to do with anything else.” Álvaro’s tone remained calm, his voice never rising; the man was master at holding his composure, a stark contrast to the battlefield within his chest. His eyes fell back onto her now uncovered face, her eyes were a much better sight to look at than chaos on the field, although, it seemed the same energy had pervaded her bubble. His hands sat at his side now, body almost twisted completely to face Celeste with his full and utter glory. “And, yeah, I am sorry. I know you are on the tennis team, I’m not dumb; admittedly it wasn’t the best question to ask at all. You play amazingly. I am just trying to learn you, Celeste Green, and the best way to do that is to get you talking about yourself.” He couldn’t believe he would be as absentminded as he was when he asked her if she played, of course she fucking played, he knew this. It is in times like these where Álvaro truly thanked his father for how he has taught him; pressure makes diamonds and he shone the brightest of them all.

Diamonds were hard, but not unbreakable, and Álvaro chose the wrong person to try to understand. As he talked, Celeste didn’t hide her disgust, even adding emphasis on her eye roll so he knew exactly how she was feeling. Regardless if she was right or wrong with her blind accusations, there was a clear reaction. Hooking her glasses on her Hermès purse, his words falling on deaf ears, Celeste blew a small bubble with her gum. Sucking it in, she snapped it loudly. Chewing slowly, ever so slowly, she glowered at the pretty boy. She wasn’t buying any of his crap, not for one second. “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?”

The princess was not backing down. His voice may be modulated, like gentle waves, but the words coming out of his mouth were not worth Celeste’s time. “I’m so glad I’m finally on your radar, as if you couldn’t have gotten to know me while you were in a relationship, or just in class. You can go to hell, Álvaro. I am NOT a second choice. I am NOT a second thought. I am NOT second ANYTHING! I am Celeste-fucking-Green and until you understand that, you can leave me alone.” She shooed him away with her hands, categorizing him in the ‘ick’ section of her brain. Looks were not what Celeste was after in a friendship or relationship and it seemed like his majesty thought that could be what carries him through this interaction. Hilarious. Laughable really.

“Now, my friends should be here soon and I’m getting awfully bored with this.” She gestured to him, her and the space between them. “You can leave now.” Celeste not so kindly demanded. To add extra measure, to protect her space, the blonde terror looked over her shoulder, smiled and waved at her Butler. Her Butler returned the smile with a smirk, enjoying the show, and nodded at his charge, understanding her instructions without her having to say a word. Ignoring Álvaro, Celeste rummaged through her purse to pull out her phone. Once her text thread was open with her two best friends, she started spamming them. Snap went her gum. How dare he act like he knew nothing about her.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object; an impossibility, a paradox. Álvaro was the one who could not be stopped, enveloped in his never ending crusade for anything he wanted; Celeste was now one of the objectives of this battle. He didn't mind being hated, or disliked, or whatever Celeste thought of him in that moment as long as he was in her head. The conclusion may have not gone as he intended but he achieved his goal one way or another. And despite his efforts, the blind rage ever so reminiscent of a Chihuahua continued to spew forth, serving as Álvaro's que for a strategic retreat. “I’d gladly go to hell if you're there with me.” Álvaro stood up from the bleacher, until her eyes as beautiful as citrines gems viewed only his own he wouldn't relent. “But, you are right, I ought to make my exit. It was fun while it lasted.” If Celeste foolishly believed she had warded off the likes of Álvaro, she had another thing coming. He never accepted defeat, he never surrendered, and he never gave up. It was only a matter of time before he owned the rights to her heart alone, and there was nothing she could do to stop the impending storm about to rock her world.

“Toodles,” Celeste dismissed her unwanted companion, looking appalled at his audacity. The nerve of some people. He would take her to hell? Please. She was hell. The next time he came up to her, she wouldn’t be as nice. Álvaro had no idea who he was dealing with and she was adamant to never back down.

How dare he.

[smarty0114]

_{TIMESTAMP: After Shut Up}

_{@LovelyComplex @smarty0114 @Hey Im Jordan}
____________________________________________________________________


____________________________________________________________________

Outside the Callaghan house the rumble of Scott’s engine called Katie down the stairs. An hour ago, she was excited to see Kim, and spend time with the boyfriend she was beginning to think she didn’t deserve. The excitement hadn’t been replaced, but it had been overshadowed by an overwhelming need to scream at AJ Tyler. Jamie had swayed her away from murder, but he would not stop her from giving AJ a piece of her mind. If not for him, then for the next person unlucky enough to stumble into the Gearhead.

Katie had developed a number of coping mechanisms over the years. Meditation, overworking herself, and sex were all commonly used and abused, but her absolute favorite way to avoid her own issues, was to focus on someone else’s. It had simply been good luck that Jamie’s breakup came right in the middle of her own self-induced angst. She was more than happy to take it on, whether he wanted her to or not.

She sauntered out to Scott’s car, front door locking behind her with a mechanical whirr and click. She hadn’t given much thought to his conflict of interest, partly because she hadn’t made her way back to the land of clear thoughts. As she opened the car door and slipped inside, her mind was consumed by her own version of what had happened at the shed this morning, filled in by Jamie’s description and her own imagination. The vision made her angry. She leaned over to give Scott a kiss before pulling away. “We’ve gotta stop at AJ’s on the way.” She paused, before deciding there was no point in trying to hide her goal. “I have to scream at him.”

As Katie slid into the passenger seat, and loudly announced her goal, Scott couldn’t help but audibly sigh. “Gee honey, I’m so happy to see you too.” At least he got a kiss out of the deal before she announced she had every intention of ruining his best friend’s evening further. Scott had not yet heard from AJ, which was never a good sign. “Please don’t be harsh.” Scott made his plea, but he knew well enough that it was going to fall on deaf ears. Katie was pissed, and the righteous fury Scott had seen AJ inspire in Katie in the past was almost impressive.

He shifted the car into drive and rested a hand on his passenger princess’s thigh as he pulled away from her home. Keeping the volume on the radio low, Scott pursued the conversation. “Is there any particular reason why you want to scream at AJ? Also, ‘scream’ is pretty harsh. Can we go for a ‘yell’?” He asked, glancing at her with a pleading look in his eyes as he rolled up to a stop sign.

“No promises, but for you I’ll try,” she shot back, wry smile decorating her face. “He broke up with Jamie, which is not the issue. The issue is how he did it.” Once upon a time, Katie had tried very hard to stay out of the hurricane force winds that Jamie and AJ tended to kick up. It was only right that she and Scott remain Switzerland, especially if they wanted to avoid an argument. Those days were long gone, stamped out by one breakup too many, and she was dragging Scott with her. “Did you know he’s been getting high at school?” Her tone dropped, any traces of good humor suddenly replaced by an uncharacteristic sternness as she studied Scott’s profile. It wasn’t that she suspected he was caught up in whatever AJ was huffing, but still, years of warnings and educational videos about the dangers of drug use had suddenly made her worry, for Scott and AJ. Despite her bravado, there was a nagging voice in her head that was certain she was only at the beginning of a very long and tragic Lifetime movie.

“What, like smoking weed in the bathroom?” Scott asked, quickly attempting to bring back the light hearted mood in the car. When it didn’t work, he kept talking. “ I don’t know what AJ’s been up to. He’s been kinda distant with me ever since he got a new fuck buddy… and I don’t like to push him. He can lash out.” Scott’s voice was kind of hesitant, like he wasn’t sure if he should have been sharing that information with his girlfriend. Would Katie be more upset? Did she know about the new friend with benefits? Did Jamie? Scott was playing a dangerous game, but he had no choice. He turned the car, headed down AJ’s street. “Just don’t bite his head off. I know he broke up with Jamie, but you know as well as I do that they both hurt each other equal amounts.” It wasn’t fair that he and Katie were heading to AJ’s house to attempt to kick him while he was down, but Scott knew that if he tried to stop Katie, she’d go on her own. And then he wouldn’t be there to hold her back.

“No, Scott, like getting high enough that he freaked out and bit Jamie’s neck like some cracked out vampire,” she huffed, a storm of pent up emotions rushing out of her. “Somethings off with him. I thought it was just Jamie…but, I don’t know.” She paused and stared out the window as they turned into AJ’s neighborhood, then whipped her head back to face Scott. “Wait, what the fuck do you mean by ‘new fuck buddy’?”

He brought the car to a stop in front of AJ’s house and killed the engine. “Take it easy on him.” Scott said, but he didn’t stop Katie from approaching the door. He just followed along.

Inside, in his predictable yet impressive custom car-themed bedroom, AJ Tyler laid back in his bed, his head hanging over the edge. He stared at his tire shelves, with his toy cars displayed. Upside down, he counted them one by one and named each car out loud. He tried to focus on the one thing that made him happy, his cars, but when he stared at his toys, they all looked dull in comparison to anything else in his room. What was the point of having things to love if you didn’t have someone to share it with? Dramatic, as always, that was a trait he obtained from his broadway star mother, AJ found himself bored with his collection. Bored with his cars. Bored with life. That was not a good sign at all. What was AJ without his cars? What was AJ outside of his friends? What was AJ… in general? Dull. Boring. Unlovable. AJ Tyler was a nobody and now he was a nobody with a broken heart.

On the floor there was an open cardboard box and written on the side of it in black permanent marker was: Jamie’s shit.. He finally grabbed the courage to move the box out of his closet and out in the open. One step closer to finishing this chapter in his life. One step closer to forgetting. One step closer to moving on. Not wanting to cry, he did enough of that already, he laid there, still in his day clothes, listening to Thank You by Dido, out of his bluetooth speakers. He replayed his regretful morning and closed his eyes, remembering the final expression on his ex’s face. He replayed it over and over and over until that was all he could think about. His mistake and why Jamie clearly deserved better. He hated himself and he couldn’t believe he got in a position where he could have harmed the boy he loved. Why did he do that? All he wanted to do was ease the pain and get Jamie to see that he didn’t want to be just friends with benefits but in return, he pushed him away. For the best, he supposed.

Turning in his bed, he grabbed his pillow and buried his face in it. Instead of smelling Jamie, he could smell Gavriel’s hair products. The scent of hyacinths and sandalwood. In response, he sighed. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell but it also wasn’t what he wanted. Releasing the pillow, he turned on his back to stare at the ceiling. Chris said it would get better but right now he felt like an empty shell, with no purpose, no direction, and no love. His wallowing in sadness was disturbed by the banshee that was his younger sister and a loud knock, “AJ! KATIE IS HERE FOR SOME FUCKING REASON. SHE’S ON CAMERA.”

AJ sighed again.

“I SWEAR TO GOD IF SHE—”

“Molly. I can handle it. Go to your room, please.”

From the other side of the door came an incessant knocking, as Katie threw her closed fist against the Tyler’s door, unburdened by fear of consequences. “AJ! I swear on Meryl Fucking Streep, if you don’t open this–” her knocking and shouts were abruptly halted by the door swinging open, and the sight of AJ’s beleaguered expression. She stopped her fist just before it would’ve slammed into his chest, but resumed her shouting almost immediately. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Quickly,” she shouted, pushing a finger into his chest as she stepped across the threshold, five feet and six inches of righteous indignation.

Rather than give into the heat that was Katie Callaghan, AJ looked over her and gave his boy a salute with two fingers, acknowledging his presence. Then and only then, he allowed Katie to forcibly push him backwards and into the foyer. “The guy you really wanted to work out with your brother.” AJ scoffed, not appreciating the audacity of Katie coming into his home and sticking her nose in something she knew very little about. He sarcastically probed, already going on the defensive side, “Jokes on you, Katie. Experiment failed. Guess you need to find a new distraction for Jamie. Or are you here just to tell me how much of an asshole I am and that you hate me? News flash: I already fucking know. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Katie ground her teeth together. She was wholly unamused by AJ’s quips. “That’s exactly why I’m here you fuck, because I don’t know if you’ve heard it enough quite frankly.” Katie huffed, and took a moment to shake her head at AJ, a mixture of anger and disappointment coming off of her in waves. “Don’t stand there and set up your pity party for me, it’s beneath you. What the fuck did you do to my brother this morning? I want to hear it from you,” she said. She knew what she was doing, even if she wasn’t totally conscious of it. She was pushing, hoping to light AJ’s terribly short fuse, so she might distract herself with the explosion.

If looks could kill, AJ’s glazed eyes, mocking smile and lowered head would do just that. The more his ex’s twin spoke, the more he realized he made the right decision. Callaghans held no accountability for their actions, talked right out of their asses, and believed they could do no wrong. To think, he fell so stupidly hard for one. Katie felt entitled to his pain, just how Jamie felt entitled to his love. Neither of them deserved his time or energy. The only reason why he was giving Katie a chance to speak her mind was because she was, unfortunately, his best friend’s girlfriend. He would respect what Scott had with her but he didn’t have to be her friend. “Exactly what he wanted,” AJ retorted, crossing his arms and glaring at the unwelcome guest. “Next question.”

“God, you know, I thought you’d at least have the decency to show some fucking remorse,” Katie said, refusing to balk as AJ glared back at her. An ugly, juvenlie piece of her wanted to slap him, and she was trying very hard to keep that piece locked away. She focused her anger into her own withering stare, so similar to her brother’s, and restrained herself. Physically, at least. “No, instead you want to play the victim, to me of all people. You are fucking beyond,” Katie said, gearing up to lob another barrage of cutting words and spiteful glares. Later, she would not be particularly proud of the words that followed, but in the moment, she was past thinking. “Here’s another question for ya. Is it really Jamie you’re upset with? Or are you just mad that you were too fucking proud to have all these big feelings months ago? King of The Gearheads everybody, cockiest man alive until, God forbid, someone hurts his little feelings.” Her tone, harsh and sharp, suddenly jumped up in pitch, becoming something cruel and mocking. “Poor little AJ, can’t commit to Emilia, can’t have a single productive conversation with Jamie, tell me, what can you do, other than feel bad for yourself?”

Fuck this.

Why was he doing this to himself? Katie didn’t deserve an explanation, it was none of her business. Emilia was none of her business. He couldn’t commit to Emilia because he was falling stupid hard for her fucking brother and Emilia did not deserve that. Katie was all happy when he decided to chase Jamie and now, suddenly, she was a martyr, acting like she didn’t partake in their fall. She was the one in her brother’s ear! She could’ve told him to stop being a bitch and just love him. Just… love him. Giving himself a quiet moment to breathe, AJ cracked his knuckles before shaking his head, in disappointment. At Katie, at himself, and at the situation. “I’ll be right back.” Fuck him for being in love with a boy that was too scared to love and be vulnerable. Too scared to commit. Too scared to explore the unknown with someone that genuinely adored everything about him. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Fuck him, right? He should’ve known better. Leaving Katie with Scott, AJ walked away from the couple to retrieve the box and be done with this. Done with Katie, done with Jamie, and done with love. He was so over this Callaghan drama. He needed to move on.

Scott had had enough. He looked over at his girlfriend and took his hat off to run his fingers through his short hair. It was hard to see it any other way, Scott was glaring at her as he finally spoke and joined the conversation. “Katherine. That's enough.” He in a stern voice, before raising a hand and pointing toward the car. “Go wait in the car.”

As quickly as she had stormed into AJ’s house, Katie spun around, turning her glare onto Scott. He was supposed to be on her side. “Are you fucking kidding me? Katherine?” she hissed, unfazed by Scott’s sudden sternness. Orders in the bedroom were one thing. Orders while she was verbally eviscerating somebody were something else entirely. “I’m not a fucking dog Scott, you don’t get to muzzle me and send me outside because you don’t like what I’m saying.” She glared up at him, before shooting a look behind her at the space where AJ had been. Coward. “If you don’t like watching your boy get yelled at, why don’t you go tell him to act right? Remind him to keep his fucking hands off my brother.” She pushed past Scott, jaw clenched and eyes aflame. He’d have his own battle to fight when he got back to the car. “Go save AJ, he’s clearly in so much distress,” she said, and stormed back towards the car, petulantly kicking at AJ’s driveway as she went.

There was no time for Scott to respond back to Katie because AJ was making his way downstairs with a box he taped closed. When he only saw Scott, he gave a sigh of relief and offered the box, “Sorry… this will hopefully be the last time you ever have to deal with something like this. You don’t deserve that. My bad.” It was unfair that Scott got caught in the crossfire of his girlfriend and best friend. If AJ kept his emotions and temper checked, he wouldn’t have reacted. He shouldn’t have reacted. “Mind taking this and having her give this to her brother? When she’s in a better mood.”

When AJ returned and held out the box, Scott took it. There was a pregnant pause as his mind tried to decide what he wanted to say. There were so many things he wanted to say, he felt like he hadn’t talked to AJ in a long time. That made him a bad friend, and he knew that. Everyone had things going on in their lives, and Scott’s drama with his father, and then learning to live on his own had distracted him from his best friend. He took the box. Scott was struggling with emotions, and deciding what to say. That much was clear from the expression on his face. He sat the box down — carefully, of course.

Then, he stepped forward and wrapped AJ up into a hug that was almost too tight, and lasted longer than it should have. He released the embrace and put both of his hands on AJ’s shoulders. “People care about you. Seriously. Make good choices. I got Katie. Just… call me, okay?”

Taken aback, AJ stood there, lost and confused. He didn’t expect that. Not from Scott. They were brothers, and they hugged, but this hug was different. There was a lot of meaning behind it. He hadn’t hit him up in awhile because AJ knew what Scott was going through and he also knew that when Scott did have free time, he wanted to spend it with Katie. While Chris was the one that dropped the hard truths he needed to hear, Scott was the one that gave him the softer approach, showing he cared. That he wasn’t alone. He knew he wasn’t alone but sometimes he needed to feel he wasn’t alone and that hug caused AJ to tightly close his eyes, knowing he was about to cry like a bitch in front of his boy. He gave him a thumbs up, unable to respond with words right away.Turning away, he allowed the tears to run down his face. “Tomorrow, we’re going to have fun. That’s all I want right now. Okay? And yeah, I’ll call you. Tonight, if you’re free.”

Scott grimaced. He wasn’t free that evening, and up until that very moment he had completely forgotten. They were meant to go to movie night, weren’t they? With Katie’s best friend and… someone. Scott didn’t remember. “I can’t tonight. I have to go to a movie night with Katie, and before you suggest it, I don’t think we can cancel this one.” He kneeled down and picked up the box, adjusting it slightly against his chest. “I can call you though, when it’s over. Shouldn’t be more than a couple hours, maybe less if she’s really mad.” Scott still had the boss fight of his girlfriend to go through, something he never looked forward to. When was the last time they’d even had an actual fight? It had to have been a while ago now, maybe over something stupid, like chess. This was the real deal though.

“Does that sound good?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” AJ agreed, masking the sudden heart drop he felt. Once he gained control over his emotions, he turned back and waved at his friends, his eyes red from a long day of pain, “Enjoy your time. I’m not going anywhere today and don’t be surprised if I don’t pick up. I think I’m going to take a nap. But yeah, don’t worry about me. I’ll see you tomorrow regardless. Now go, before Katie screams your head off.”

Scott heard the hitch in AJ’s breath and knew that it was only going to get worse before it got better. That, Scott figured, couldn’t be much further from here. How much lower could it go? He knew he’d hurt AJ. Katie was waiting for him in the car, surely ready to blurt out a mouthful of angry words he didn’t deserve. He made eye contact with AJ and gave him a nod, trying to say as much with as few words as possible, and hoped the message was received loud and clear before he turned to walk away. Approaching the car, he took a big breath. What will my sentence be? He wondered.

He opened the backdoor to place the box of Jamie’s belongings safely beside his own and then closed the door carefully. He looked down at the driver’s seat, and pondered how much easier it would have been to go into the Tyler home, and watch America’s Funniest Home Videos with AJ until they fell asleep. Unfortunately, Scott had chosen the difficult road of falling in love with soon-to-be homecoming Queen Katie Callaghan.

He put his hand on the handle and the door unlocked, signaling his arrival to his girlfriend. He pulled the door open, slid into his chair and pulled the door closed behind himself. He gripped the steering wheel, and faced forward as he made his choice. “Can I talk first?” Head on into the abyss it was.

[Melissa]

_{@Melissa & @BrutalBx
LOCATION: BHHS Football Stadium/Parking Lot
TIMESTAMP: Before the Football Game
Featuring: Adelaide Jones & Ivy Leung}

Game day was always a good day.

Not that Adelaide Jones particularly cared for a sport where men ran with a ball, though her pretty blue eyes were often glued to the girls on the sideline in the short skirts holding the pom poms. God she wanted to be at the bottom of that pyramid. Although she was on the soccer team herself and was a damn good player, Ads was mostly there for the extra credit. The main reason that Addie enjoyed game days was for business. Every Bertie, Betty, Boris and Angela wanted their quick fix of something to get them through another slog of pubescent boys grunting and groaning more on a field assgrabbing than they would watching PornHub all week in their basement boy caves.

Unlike her sisters in the PLC, Savannah, Neveah and Everly, the pint sized blonde didn’t live or die on the hill of a sale; Addie just made the shit. If she didn’t sell a single blunt or bag of shrooms she would be fine, for her, the excitement was in the preparation. She doted on her garden like a mother would her child; she fed them every day, bathed them, nourished and cherished them. Then there were the days where she spliced the plants together and used experimental chemicals to make a super strain of kush. Lucky for her that usually falls around game or events day.

There was a lore surrounding Addie and she was very conscious of it despite most people’s perceptions of her. To most, she was an idiot; a ridiculous, childlike buffoon obsessed with sexual relations and whose ADHD was barely managed. She didn't mind letting people believe that, she wasn’t one for confrontation and didn’t see any benefit in correcting them or maybe she just didn’t care? The truth of the matter was that those very same people didn’t know that underneath the bleach blonde bangs and dark eye makeup, Addie possessed an intellect that was near dangerous. She always scored at the top of her exams and tests. When examined, her IQ was leaps and bounds higher than an average girl of her age. Before attending Beverly Hills High, Addie’s parents were approached with the idea of placing the girl in a special school for gifted youngsters. They would have said yes had Addie not refused to go; she didn’t want to leave her sister.

Now there she sat, wearing her fathers old service bomber jacket, on the hood of her van parked in the lot just by the stadium. Addie couldn’t drive the van of course but inside its walls adorned with a naked lady was her collection of what a normal person would call drugs; Adelaide would call them her babies. Her feet dangled over the edge, the lit blunt in her painted lips bounced as she nodded her head to the dulcet sounds of her beloved Dave Grohl playing in her left ear. The rest of PLC were odd doing their thing trying to out work the Strattons. Addie said fuck it and went off to do her own thing. She had her own “clients” that she preferred to work with.

One of them was coming towards her and she couldn’t help but smirk. Adelaide was a sucker for a pretty girl. She took her joint out of her mouth and blew a love heart into the air with the smoke illuminated by the Friday night lights. “Hey purrrrty lady.” She leaned back on one pal and waved with the white stick still between her finger tips. “I wouldn’t come any closer, I hear that girl Addie is riff raff.”

Game day was always a good day.

Cheerleading under the lights with the attention of a crowd was everything to Ivy Leung. What started as a way to channel her extra energy as a child had become so much more to the dark haired girl than her parents ever could have anticipated when they first enrolled her. She was a natural, with a bright smile and enough pep in her step to power a small army, not to mention blessed with flexible limbs, which were the gift that kept on giving. Most importantly, the pom poms brought her joy, and year after year she returned for more.

Tonight, she stood on the turf with her teammates, donning skin tight matching uniforms that left little to the imagination, stretching out before the whistle blew and the game began. Ivy was antsy, checking her phone for the fourth time to make sure she wasn’t late for her little… rendezvous. It was unlike the girl to be unprepared for the weekend’s festivities, but this morning before leaving for school she noticed she was oh so dangerously low, and thus an emergency text was sent and a meeting place was agreed upon. As the clock changed to quarter past, she exhaled and nudged Cael, “I’ll be right back, really need to pee.”

With hurried steps, she quickly made her way from the field towards the parking lot, bobbing and weaving past her classmates who were headed to the bleachers. Homecoming was a big deal, and tensions were a tad high, which made this adventure all the more crucial. As cars came into view, it didn’t take long for Ivy to spot the familiar van and the blonde lounging on top of it. As she approached, she fixed the bow in her hair and readjusted her skirt. “Addie might be riff raff, but then again, so am I.” The dark haired girl smirked devilishly, before looking around, half expecting to see the other members of the PLC on her trail. “Where’s your crew? Not much for school spirit?”

“Addie can text them and we can make this an orgy, more love is good love.” Addie replaced a roll up in her mouth before pushing herself off of the roof and dropping down relatively gracefully onto the floor below. She was no cheerleader; she was five foot nothing and had a habit of falling out of windows but like her current compatriot, Adelaide found that she had enough skill and poise to make her dramatics look good. “But something tells me that you would much rather this just be us.” She stopped to admire Ivy in her uniform, she didn’t hide it, there was no point. Addie was Addie and everybody knew Addie, even the vegetarians. With sculpted long legs, taut abs that she wanted to lick maple syrup off of and a smile that even Adelaide had to admit she fell in love with just a bit every time she saw it, Ivy Leung looked every bit the dream girl that she pretended she was.

In some strange way, Addie viewed Ivy and others just like her as reflections of the self she could have been. For all intents and purposes, the pint sized pixie should’ve been a white picket fence pom pom powerhouse but the cards she was dealt were different. Her mother Wednesday was a stunning woman, blonde hair, blue eyes, a body straight outta playboy and her youthful grandma was the same. Her father Paul, that all American army type; strong jaw line, just enough edge to make the women swoon and then there was her sister Dallas. She was so beautiful, so intelligent, she could’ve reigned supreme. They could’ve been the picturesque American nuclear family.

But they weren’t.

And that was ok. It was better this way.

Addie loved her new family, the Jones girls were all great in their own way and her new stepmom was badass. Her Mom was saving lives like she did at the hospital. Grandma was dissecting the worlds future psychopaths and Dally was training to fuck Martians? Or was she building rockets? She couldn’t remember. Adelaide missed seeing her Dad every day but he was off being Batman or some shit. She got to see him every other weekend so that was nice.

“So, what do you need? Cos baby I got it. And if you wanna take our clothes off and stare at each other, maybe touch stuff, Addie is always down for that. I’ll even pay for breakfast”

Ivy didn’t mind as Addie’s eyes roved over her body, in fact, she liked it. The girl worked damn hard to maintain her physique in order to remain in good standing with the squad, and she wanted people to appreciate it. It didn’t hurt that her dealer was one of those people; she would cut her a deal from time to time - an extra pre-roll here, a discount there - and there was never any harm in that. After all, pretty privilege had its benefits.

The dark haired girl nodded, “Two's company, three’s a crowd.” Her smile reappeared at Addie’s bold proposition, eyes fiery. It was no secret that there was chemistry there, then again, Ivy had chemistry with most people. But it was something that the girl thrived on, the validation of it all. “Maybe another time.” She purred, raising her eyebrows suggestively before her laughter followed. “What I do need though is something to get me through this game, and some party favors for this weekend. Got anything special for me, Addie?” She inquired, leaning up against the van.

“You’re a fucking tease.” Addie giggled as she threw her joint and stomped it out under the heel of her Doc Martens. “I’ll hold you to that, Ivy. My face is gonna be between your legs sooner rather than later but I digress.” The drug dealer lifted a single index finger up in eureka. “Give me two minutes and feel free to stare at my ass. Addie has been doing squats.” Opening up the back doors of the van, Adelaide revealed her nursery. Bright, shining heat lamps illuminated a variety of potted plants and vegetation. Weed, mushrooms, potatoes? All were growing inside the walls of Addie’s moving greenhouse. She climbed inside, her butt sticking out as she fumbled around to find what her client required.

The wagon was not Addie’s but she had claimed it. Many moons ago, the van where she grew her product once belonged to her father. He went off to war and it sat vacant for years in her grandparents garage. When he returned, it continued to gather dust until finally it was unearthed and sent to live with the then Davies. When Paul and Wednesday divorced, he decided to leave the van to Addie since she loved it so much. She hated driving the thing but she enjoyed the naked lady decal on the side and the fact it was easy to grow her supply on there sans prying eyes.

“Okey dokey.” Hopping back out, Adelaide sat on the edge of the van as she began to place Ivy’s wish list into a plastic baggy. “I got some good shrooms in here, some peyote which I got from the new girl and my latest product…” Addie pulled a single white stick from behind her and held it aloft. “I call it the Hawaiian. You will be a Aloha’ing yourself all the way into a coma. This is some good strong shit. Tastes like pineapples.”

“You certainly know how to make a girl feel special.” Ivy did indeed take the opportunity to check out Addie as she ducked into the van, simultaneously admiring the vast assortment of plants she had growing in the vehicle. It was impressive, to say the least, the variety she had cultivated with her green thumb, not to mention it was a genius business model. In her eyes, this was talent at the highest caliber. She simply felt fortunate she got to reap the rewards.

She watched as the blonde hand selected each item that went into the plastic bag, nodding along with her choices. As Addie introduced her creation, Ivy plucked the blunt from her fingers, examining it before dissolving into a grin. It was perfect, exactly what she was looking for. “You never miss, do you?” The dark haired girl reached into her skirt waistband, grabbing the folded up wad of cash she had stashed there. Cheekily, she extended her arm towards the seated girl, tucking it into the pocket of her jeans for her. “I think that should cover it, doll.”

“Hnnng.” Ivy was every inch a Goddess in Addie’s eyes and as she bit the air to prevent herself from saying all the uncouth things her lips wanted to scream to the heavens, she wanted to catch the cheerleader's hand and just taste her. She could smell her perfume, her shampoo and conditioner. It wasn’t fair. For much of the summer had been in therapy to try and work on her…tendencies. The tiny drug dealer had a habit of just blurting out her thoughts and feelings, especially when it came to the matter of sex and romance.

Despite her outward appearance as Kurt Cobain’s lost daughter, (fuck you Frances Bean, what kind of name is Bean anyway? It was a good job she was hot), Adelaide loved love. She truly did. Her freedom and willingness to give it to anyone was both a blessing and a curse because Addie knew how to have a good time but she also knew just how much rejection, loss and grief could tie a person in unbreakable knots. The manic pixie drug girl had felt both the highs and lows of love but that would never deter her. Hedonism aside, she did want someone to look at her, truly look at her and see beyond the cat eye make-up and deeply layered behavioural disorders and see Adelaide Philippa Davies Jones; girl waiting to be loved.

“Addie also does house calls.” She smiled tilted her head to look up at the tall beauty of Ivy. “If you need home delivery, just leave a window open and Addie will find a way….or, if you just want me to climb into bed with you and whisper sweet nothings, I do that for free. Tell that to your sister Isla too, I bet she’d love a good spoon and she’s super hot. Addie will get her out of her shell and walking on the wild side”

“Oh really…” Ivy raised a brow, a smirk slowly forming, gracing her full lips. Next thing she knew, the wheels in her head were turning. Not about herself though.

About Isla.

Sure, the dark haired girl had tried to facilitate friendships for her twin, ones that would pry her out of the box she’d locked herself in, but never had she dared to attempt a romantic pairing. She knew better than to meddle with her sister’s love life, but in this case, Addie had expressed interest. It seemed natural, organic, whereas any other attempts would be forced and awkward. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea.

“Well you know, Addie,” She purred her name, a devilish glint in her eye, “Isla is going to the dance tomorrow night...” Ivy paused, leaning a little closer to the blonde. “Alone. Maybe you could, you know, get to know her a little better.” She reached out and brushed a strand of the girl’s hair behind her ear, “She’s a little bit shy, but I have no doubt you could find some things to talk to her about.” Ivy grinned, “Or, you could do things that require no talking at all.”

Addie’s knees knocked together and quivered in sheer excitement as the cheerleader leaned in and touched her hair. For all the times the dealer had been with a girl, every time almost felt like the first. Love and lust were exciting and should always be treated as such. To grow bored was a fate worse than death in her eyes. There was so much in the world to taste, to touch, to experience and submerge one’s soul in. There was so much to take and Addie was gonna take as much as her tiny ass could carry.

“Addie can absolutely do that.” She jumped up to her feet, almost giddy. “I was planning on being there to sell some stuff and grab ass for any lonely girls dumped by their dates but actually going for a date of my own would be cool too!”

One would have to be blind not to have noticed Ivy’s sister Isla around the halls. Ivy was a model, a glow, you could see her a mile away. Isla, well you really had to pay attention and Addie always paid attention. She shared her sister's striking looks but their auras were different. Isla was a whisper in a crowded room and Addie liked that, it meant she had to lean close and really be in the moment and not just a part of it. The more she thought about it, the louder the heartbeat she always heard in her head got louder. Addie’s interest had been piqued.

“For the tip, how about I give you a freebie? I got some of last month's batch somewhere in the van if you want it?”

The younger of the Leung twins grinned. This was going to be perfect. She was actually optimistic about the odds here! It was very possible Isla would murder her later, but Addie was cute and interested and not much else mattered at the end of the day. She was doing her sister a favor, she was a saint. Ivy shook her head at the proposition of additional substance, “Nah, that’s okay. You give me freebies all the time! Consider this me giving you a freebie, Addie.” She answered, tucking the plastic bag in her skirt pocket, twirling the blunt in between nimble fingers.

She checked the time on her phone and cursed under her breath. “I’ve gotta get going if I want to have enough time to smoke this before the game starts.” Ivy looked back up at Addie, “Appreciate you always. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Not if I see you first.” Addie smiled as she brought one foot up onto the wheel of the van. “Which Addie will, cos imma be staring at your jiggles and your wiggles and those abs…mmm now you got me thinking about maple syrup again.” Attempting not to drown in her lurid thoughts of drenching Ivy in Canada’s best export, the five feet of concrete pulled herself back up onto her perch on the roof of her makeshift greenhouse. She was excited; Isla Leung, now there lay a challenge. Adelaide wondered if perhaps the other twin was the one that could make the ringing in her ears stop. She wondered if Isla was the one that could slow her heart down and could make her drink in the smell of the roses and savour the world like a sip of wine, rather than inhale it like a line.

“Enjoy the Hawaiian, my peach and warn your sister, Addie is coming and soon she will be too!” Addie stood up to her full tiny height, towering a whopping five feet over the parking lot and outstretched her arms as wide as she could. “MAMA GOT DRUUUUUUGS. COME GET SOME! ADDIE GOT THE GOOD KUSH, NEW STRAIN! HOMECOMING DISCOUNT!”

Ivy simply shook her head with a laugh as she walked away from the van, not fully realizing the can of worms she had just opened. It would definitely be a sight to see - Addie, her effervescent drug dealer, seducing her sister, the hermit. But, Isla needed some excitement in her life, and this was the perfect opportunity to bring her some much needed zest. The dark haired girl made her way over to the edge of the parking lot and reached into her pocket to pull out a lighter, but her hand came up empty.

Fuck. She forgot her lighter.

It was a rookie mistake. She groaned, realizing her stupidity. “Fucking hell.”

Rolling back into the Beverly Hills High parking lot on his skateboard just in time for the fans to invade the stadium, Adam blew the fire from his lungs and into the ebony night. The brief confrontation with Piper’s butler had left his blood boiling and his mind in chaos. He knew better than to pick fights, he always defended, always, never started. His mother was a damn lawyer for God’s sake he should have known not to get involved. But he could not abide the way the man was handling a girl a quarter his size. It just wasn’t right. Adam had to hope that Piper would convince her family not to press charges, he also hoped that she would take up his offer of spending time with him; he would really like that.

Kicking his board into his hand, the fighter dragged it tailside across the floor. He could hear several sounds in the distance and circling him like a September wind, none of which he really wanted to focus on right now. The cheers of a filling stadium, the laughs of students, Addie screaming at the top of her lungs that she’s selling illegal narcotics and then there was…

Fucking hell.

That voice cut through.

He looked up and bathed in light stood a single solitary girl, a cheerleader, a joint between her lips struggling to light it and her silhouette perfectly aligned in a frame as if painted by Michelangelo himself. Adam dropped the board and completely and swung his camera swiftly around from his waist and up to his face. He took aim and shot the image of the lonely girl, how could he not? It was a perfectly imperfect image. Picking up his board again, he made his way a few feet closer before pulling a lighter from his jean pocket and holding it up.

“Here.”

Ivy lifted her head and turned to where the voice came from, her previously frustrated expression softening as she made eye contact with the boy, spotting the item she sought in his grasp. Wordlessly, she reached out towards him, their hands brushing ever so slightly as she took the lighter he offered. She nodded once, in thanks, before rolling her thumb along the wheel and igniting the spark, bringing the flame up towards the end of the white stick. It caught and she inhaled deeply, her shoulders relaxing almost immediately as she felt the smoke curl at the back of her throat. She reached up and removed the blunt from her full lips, exhaling. Addie was right, it did taste like pineapple.

The girl extended her arm, gingerly handing him back the lighter. “Thank you,” She motioned with the blunt, “You want?”

“I’m good.”

Adam shook his head. He didn’t feel like he was in the right headspace to partake in brain altering drugs. Any other time and he would’ve likely said yes but he was nothing if not a creature of habit. When Adam deviated from his routine, even a single step out of the line, that had the potential to throw his entire day off and send him off balance. He, like any boy his age, loved to have a fun time and he knew how to let loose but doing so, without any examining the potential consequences was dangerous. Not just for Adam but for anyone around him. Unbalanced, he just wasn’t safe.

He took the lighter back and placed it back into his pocket. The martial artist knew this girl from school, if the colors of her outfit didn’t give it away. Ivy. Adam had seen her perform, in more than once sense of the word. There was a girl, a social butterfly, flapping her wings around school, attracting onlookers like a moth to her flame. Then there was the other girl, in the center of a crowded room, peacocks feathers awash in flickering embers as she danced the night, thrusting to burn out and fade away.

She was beautiful.

“Suit yourself,” The girl shrugged and took another drag, turning her head and blowing the smoke in the opposite direction. She wasn’t an asshole, after all. If he didn’t want any, she wasn’t about to give it to him secondhand. Ivy glanced at him curiously. He looked vaguely familiar, she’d definitely seen him hanging around before, but no name was coming to mind. And for someone who knew a lot of things about a lot of people, that was intriguing in it of itself.

She smirked at him, “So what’s your deal?” The dark haired girl challenged, “Do you stand here and wait for lighter-less girls to fall into your lap? Or do you actually like football.”

“Lighter-less girls, anyone who needs directions, that sort of thing.” Adam responded with a tilt of his head, his light brown bangs falling softly to the side. “I’m not some sort of animal.” Jokes were not his specialty and even he had to admit that was probably a lame one. Maybe he did need that blunt after all? He reached into his trouser pocket once again, this time pulling out a joint of his own. Placing it between his finger tips, he held it aloft, the end gently caressing the point of Ivy’s and waited for it to light.

Although he could’ve used his lighter, something was telling him not to bother. As a moment stretched into eternity, Adam looked closely at the face before him and began swimming in her eyes. He wasn’t staring, gazing maybe? Now in the light and up close, no longer shrouded by shadow like in the photo he had captured mere seconds before, he could see that beautiful did not do this girl justice. No word had been invented or was at least in his vocabulary to describe the majesty of her and what he was seeing.

“Hate football. Just here for friends.”

Ivy felt her breath catch in the back of her throat, taken by surprise as the boy moved closer. He was so mysterious… and yet, so bold? She felt the weight of his gaze and she welcomed it like an old friend, the way they stood there oddly intimate while waiting for his joint to ignite on her own. She relished in the way he looked at her with such intention and how his eyes seemed to dance over her skin. The dark haired girl dared lean in towards him, the distance between them growing even smaller.

“Friends?” She inquired, a hint of mischief in her expression as she felt a haze begin to settle over her. “We could be friends.”

“Maybe.”

Adam knew what the word “friends” meant in Ivy’s circle. Friends here meant letting go, letting loose, allowing time and tide to carry you where it may. The thought of him and the cheerleader on an island somewhere, alone and shipwrecked, with only each other and the smile of the sun and the whisper of the waves to keep them company…was by no means a repulsive thought. Yet Adam also knew that allowing himself to open up, to free himself from the chains that he had chosen for himself could possibly lead to something that terrified him.

The joint in his fingers ignited between them in sparks but Adam almost didn’t notice as he found himself near lost in the woods of her eyes. The fighter brought the blunt to his lips and let it hang there, daring not to step away in fear of losing their intimate moment, their connection. His life had been absent of those for so long. He wondered if any he found could even be truly genuine. He hoped that by the way she was looking at him, that it was.

“You want to be friends Ivy? Do you know my name?”

She let her eyes dip down to his lips as he placed the joint in between, raising an eyebrow as she heard her own name spill from them. He knew who she was, which, if she was being honest, wasn't all that surprising. But it now bothered her that she didn’t know him. A lot. Ivy brought her hand up and removed the white stick from her mouth, letting her fingers rest on the side of her cheek as she inclined her head “No. But I’d like to.”

“fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR.”

Before Adam could get another word out, the repeated sound of a high pitched swear grew louder than the chants in the stadium. Turning his head away from Ivy, he saw Adelaide Davies Jones sprinting over parked cars like a mad woman out of an action B-movie. The pint sized drug dealer ran past the two of them for only a second before jumping back and looking up at the two taller students with a cheeky smile on her face.

“Y’all bout to fuck ain’t ya?” Addie began to swivel her hips as her big blue eyes stared at the pair. She may have been nearly eighteen but the drug dealer and aspiring botanist sometimes had the mind of a child. It was somehow both annoying and endearing at the same time. “You would have some hot ass babies. With the swishy hair and the sexy porcelain Chinese face and abs of granite…and ooooh mama…”

“ADELAIDE GET BACK HERE!”

A male voice called from somewhere in the steel jungle of cars. Addie stood to attention and mockingly saluted the two beautiful people before her. “Addie’s work here is done. Peace out.” She flashed two fingers before taking off once again towards the stadium. She was soon followed by their sociology teacher Mr. Fell, complaining about how out of shape he was.

After the whirlwind had ceased, Adam released his breath as he took a step back away from Ivy. “We should probably get out of here before Mr. Fell realises that he just walked by us both with joints in our hands.” He picked up his camera once again and raised it up to his forest green eyes and began snapping away at the girl under the street light. “I’d like to get to know this girl, not the one that they’re all about to see in there.” Adam motioned to the stadium behind him before peeking out behind the lens.

Ivy took another drag of her blunt and blew the smoke towards him, seemingly obscuring his camera’s view. “That’s too bad.” She commented, “They’re the same girl.” Her eyes began to glaze over, whatever Addie had given her began to have its effect. She looked around, the last remaining people had found their way to watch the game, which left the two of them effectively alone. “Maybe you’ll get the chance tomorrow night.”

“Maybe I will.” Adam softly placed his camera back down to his side and polished off the last of his weed before throwing it down and stomping out the remaining ember with the twist of his heel. He could say the soft waters begin to fill Ivy’s eyes and the strong scent of pineapple began to waft around them. She was losing herself in the moment, as was her right to do. He was sad that he would not allow himself the same pleasure.

He wondered if maybe they would cross paths again the following night, there was a party after all. Still, Adam also knew what he would be doing at that party, the same thing he always did. He would be trying to satiate the demon inside of him, he would be seduced by the subtle glow of violence and he would fight tooth and nail to alleviate his boredom and find someone, anyone, that could challenge him. He yearned for it. He needed it. He wondered if Ivy had anything inside of her like that.

“Be seeing you, Ivy.”

The dark haired girl checked the time on her phone, she still had a few minutes to savor her smoke before heading into the stadium, so she stayed put. As the boy began to back away, though, she called out to him in an attempt to make him stop.

“Hey! You didn’t tell me your name!”

“I know!”

Adam called back and smiled as she reached out towards him, that was his second smile of the day. Once was a rarity, two times was something almost mystical. He wasn’t used to smiling; he didn’t hate it. Placing both hands in his pockets, the martial artist continued to back away from the cheerleader. As he slowly began to turn away completely, he yelled out to her once again. “You didn’t tell me yours. Weird huh?!”

Adam ushered himself into the stadium, feeling the moment slip away as his mind returned to its stable state of being. For one that seeks clarity, today had only brought him chaos and strangely….

It was the good kind.

[Fabricant451]

CONTENT WARNING: Use of a

perjorative

r-slur

All My Friends

The morning of October 18th

Tristan Rogers hated Homecoming week.

It wasn’t the school pride angle that she hated - though having pride in one’s school was something she also didn't quite get considering it wasn’t the school that was worth celebrating but the teammates and friends made; while others went all out on dressing up (there was no way some of these people actually wore those pajamas to bed especially not all the makeup), Tristan was content to simply slap a pin onto her backpack and call it a day. What difference did it make if she showed up on cowboy day in normal clothes? Cowboys ate a lot of beans, farted, and hated Mexicans and Native Americans. Why were they so glorified just because some guys looked moderately attractive in denim and an open shirt? Tristan suffered her hatred of Homecoming week in silence, but the silence grew louder and louder every year and while it wasn’t likely to erupt like a volcano, she was beyond tired and fed up with the whole affair.

Tristan Rogers hated Homecoming week because it continued the bullshit preferential treatment to men’s sports over women’s. Why was the Homecoming game relegated to a single football game even though the girl’s volleyball season overlapped with football season? Volleyball started in August and goes through December but come that one week in October the only sport that mattered was football. At the pep rally, all hype and focus was given solely to the boys who had a future of concussion protocols ahead of them while other sports got a passing mention and pity applause. Why? Did anyone who cheered for the football team come out to support volleyball? Did anyone who cheered for the football team even know the record of the volleyball team or know that for the past three years the BHHS girl’s volleyball team won state? Of course not. How could they?

People just didn’t care about women’s sports.

The anger and annoyance with Homecoming week and all its excesses and expectations had one upside and that was that it allowed Tristan to focus her aggression in an outlet that was much, much healthier than bottling it up and stewing in unserious misery. To that end, the morning of the pep rally had a fist colliding with a punching bag in the home gym of the Rogers household. It was often difficult to get time with the bag, if her brother wasn’t using it then her father was but Tristan was up early, as she often was, and delivered punch after punch after blow after blow before the sun had even risen. It was eating into her yoga time, but if she hadn’t let it out now then she’d never be able to center, calm, and have the intended yoga experience. Punching the bag was a therapy she didn’t have to pay for, where she could say the tears in her eyes were just sweat and that it wasn’t pain she was feeling but rather motivation.

In truth, she hated that it came to this, having to wake up early to deal with something that tomorrow would no longer matter, but the more she worked the bag the more her thoughts cleared in time with the almost rhythmic punches. It wasn’t just about Homecoming. It was about why she’d never be taken as seriously as an athlete unless she was somehow the second coming of Venus or Serena. It was why people knew who Shohei Otani and Luka Doncic were but assumed Kim Yeon-koung was a K-Pop idol or something. It was why, whether he knew it or not, her brother would have a much easier path ahead of him despite Tristan putting in twice the effort. It was easy for their dad to tell them to ‘Be the best’ when he didn’t know what that meant for someone like Tristan. For a woman like Tristan.

By the time Tristan stopped hitting the bag and dropped to a heap on the floor, the tears wouldn’t pass as sweat.

When her eyes were clear and the anger pushed back down to the back of her mind, Tristan leaned her head against the heavy bag and wished that Chopper was allowed in the room. With all the equipment and weights, the home gym was the only room in the house that Chopper wasn’t allowed inside, but the only thing Tristan wanted to do after a workout was collapse into a pile with Chopper and watch cartoons with a bowl of cereal, an activity her parents said she’d grow out of twelve years ago but one she still did almost every Saturday. Her brothers might have had each other, boys bonded with boys after all, but Tristan had Chopper and honestly that was a much better deal. She could hear him trotting down the hall, aroused by the sounds of movement on the floorboards upstairs, a reminder to Tristan that her alone time was over and she rose to her feet to put on her face for the day as she made her way to the kitchen for a cup of yogurt.

In the kitchen, pinned to the refrigerator, was a drawing that could’ve been a cross between a portrait and a caricature, of a long haired girl in an armored uniform - not a full suit of armor, but a volleyball uniform that had armored shoulder pauldrons and instead of socks there were sabtons and sollerets and in her left hand, arced above her head as if she was about to spike a ball over the net, was a sword whose pommel was a volleyball. When Tristan pinned the picture on the fridge, her family assumed she got it done at the pier or at some carnival because there was no way she was that artistically talented. Tristan hadn’t told them where she got it, but as she stood in the kitchen, plastic spoon in her mouth as slightly bruised fingers tried to find the right grip to open the yogurt, her eyes were drawn, as they always were, to the picture, and her mind washed the annoyances of Homecoming week away in favor of a memory that made her smile.

Flashback: Senior Year, Earlier in the School Year

The second week of school was about the time students began falling back into the rhythms or, in the case of freshmen, only barely started remembering the best route to hit your locker in between classes without being late. Nothing exciting ever tended to happen the second week of school other than a few particularly cruel teachers deciding that was the best time for a quick, pop or otherwise, which only would cement them as no one’s favorite teacher. For students with a keen eye, the second week of school was a week too late to be first discovering the girl with plastic rings on her left hand.

Two freshmen boys, one who desperately needed a comb for the dead animal that crawled on top of his head and made a home out of it and the other who would probably lose the acne if he stopped downing cans of soda before, during, and after lunch, first noticed the girl with plastic rings on her left hand after school one day, two weeks into the school year. The pair of them took the wrong exit on the way out of school and wound up on the quad when they wanted to go to the school bus pick up lot. The unkempt mop head was the first one who saw the girl; his partner in crime was too busy playing a mobile game he was skilled at thanks to two hundred dollars from a birthday card. A quick jab in the elbow got his attention, though, and for minutes the two of them were transfixed.

The girl with plastic rings on her left hand had other identifiable features. her vibrant hair that was somewhere between a dull red and a bright brown that somehow brought to mind a chocolate colored orange, the splotches of paint on her red shirt, and the stickers on her face that caught the sun like a lens flare on every twirl. The girl, naturally, was spinning, arms angled downward at her side, mouth open in a smile that no one ever had two weeks into any school year, and only stopped so she could reverse direction in the twirl. If she had a reason for doing so, it resided solely in her head. The two boys watching couldn’t help but to laugh and snicker as a wicked plan was giggled between the two of them.

They came back the second day to find the girl wasn’t spinning but she was sitting on the grass, minding her own business, paint splotch still on her shirt though both shirt and splotch were different colors. Next to her were students engaged in a conversation and the paint-splotched girl seemed to be focusing on the conversation and nodding along with points as if she was trying to chime in but never spotted the right opportunity to do so. The third day, the boys returned to their observation but she wasn’t there, the fourth day they got closer than before, sitting next to her but far enough away to where it was clear to most that she wasn’t sitting with them. On the fifth day, they made their move.

Their conversation was a little louder than it should’ve been for two people in a place with little in the way of noise pollution but that had been the point. It only took a few minutes of them talking about science fiction in the form of a video game for the nodding girl to nod and a few more minutes beyond that for her to chime in. “Do you like space? I think space is great. It’s great. Space is great. My favorite planet is Saturn but my favorite galaxy is Bode’s Galaxy - it has a supermassive black hole..” She kept talking even when the acne boy interrupted and told her they weren’t talking about real life space. The girl just blinked until the same boy took a sip from his soda can. “Do you drink a lot of that? Is that why you have so much acne?”

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say, as what followed next was the bad hair boy raising his voice and standing up, his shadow casting large over the girl who only wanted to talk about space. Both boys started probing the girl with questions, though their tone of voice made it clear they were not looking for answers. Too many questions, too loud, all she could do was shake her head, mouth slightly open; she did something wrong but didn’t know what. But even if she did do something wrong, nothing she did warranted the question from the hair boy and the follow up from acne.

“What are you, like, retarded?”
“Yeah, you must be retarded.”
“I didn’t know they let retards go to this school.”
“Shouldn’t you be on the short bus, retard?”

The pejorative continued like the worst kind of echo chamber in her head, mixed with the mocking, piercing foul laughter from the gleeful boys who had waited a full school week just to belittle and demean someone. But with a loud, dull THLAP the voices of the boys were silenced as a white spherical ball bounced off one of their heads, spilling his cola onto the grass before he joined the sugar water in becoming one with the soil.

“I think you freshies are lost.” Tristan Rogers, still dressed in her practice shorts and black and red uniform shirt, placed her gym bag on the ground as the volleyball she spiked at the little assholes rolled back towards her. She rested a foot under the ball, ready to kick it up into her hand to spike at the boy who wasn’t clambering to his feet. A second THLAP as BHHS’ star setter served the volleyball to the other boy before he could even think of a proper comeback. Both boys were on the grass and desperately wishing they were anywhere else. “Get lost, or I’ll give you something that won’t go away until you graduate.” The boys didn’t have to be told twice as they scampered off, holding a palm to their face as they did.

“Are you alright?” Tristan looked at the girl, who looked back at Tristan.

“I’m Abby.” Abby answered the question. “Actually, I’m Ashley but I like Abby. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Abby, they were making fun of you.” Tristan had never known Abby to be a nickname for Ashley but it didn’t much matter to her what someone wanted to call themselves. Abby was shaking her head to Tristan’s words while she got to her feet and brushed grass from her knees.

“No they weren’t. They were calling me something I’m not. That’s not making fun. But they weren’t very nice so thank you. What’s your name?”

“Tristan.”

“That’s a cool name. It sounds like a knight or something. Like Tristan and Isolde. Have you seen that? It’s not good, I didn’t like it much. Do you want to be friends? Sorry. Thank you. Bye.” And just as quickly as it had started, the conversation ended and Abby spun on her heels and left a still processing Tristan wondering what the hell happened and who the hell Isolde was.

That wasn’t the last time Tristan encountered Abby. The Monday after their first encounter, Abby wasn’t at the quad after school like she normally was, though she did wander. When the bell rang, Abby didn’t go the familiar path to the art club or the equally as familiar path outside, she joined the likes of the freshmen and took to the halls, every step she took seemed as if she was skipping down them, the hem of her skirt sashaying as she glided along. Where she was going she only had the vaguest of ideas, but her instinct told her the gym was the place to be, which was mildly humorous considering during school hours the gym was her least favorite building in school.

In her head, she was whistling, it helped her not overhear the overlapping conversations and sounds of excitement at the end of a school day; the noise internally was loud enough to mute the external discussions of homework, work, in-jokes she’d never be part of, and heavily embellished tales of romance. In her sophomore year, Abby made the easy mistake of listening in on a passing group of upperclassmen talking about how one of them had spent the weekend having sex with Monica Lisewski. “Were you at the art camp workshop too? I don’t remember seeing you there, but Monica Lisewski was there, she had a really nice mosaic piece that took her the whole weekend. I don’t know when she would have had the time to have sex with you, but maybe it was after dark.” It was only after the guy who made the boastful brag stomped off to the sounds of his friends laughing at him that Abby realized she said something wrong. Since then she tried not to interject into conversations she wasn’t part of. It was, like many things, easier said than done.

Tuning out the world around her was helpful. It made things easier for Abby, who was so often accused of living in her own little world. She did, but her world wasn’t one she would wish others could experience but it was a world she was so excited to share with someone, anyone, who so much as poked their head in for a visit. That was why she was on her little journey towards the gym.

The gym, as it so often was, was a zone of disappointment. It was unoccupied other than the gym teachers hanging out by their offices, and if Abby didn’t want to go to the gym for class, she definitely didn’t want to talk to the gym teachers after school. The smile she had on every step didn’t fade, it didn’t even dim all that much, but she was at a loss. All she had was a name and a vague idea of what the owner of that name did, but other than that the circles and company they kept were like repelling sides of a magnet. So once again, Abby found her way outside, though not to the quad - to the parking lot.

Abby didn’t have a car which gave her little to no reason for being in the parking lot, but the exit closest to the gym was closer to the lot than the quad. If given the choice of walking back through the halls to go to the quad exit or take the outside route through the lot, Abby would pick the outside path every time. Inside was stifling, cold, narrow, with bodies packed through the halls like sardines and people constantly touching her shoulder as they sped past without so much as a word of apology. But outside? Outside was warm and beautiful and vast. Outside there were fluffy clouds and fuzzy, buzzy bumblebees, vibrant colors ripe for the palate. Outside was where Flapjack, her pet frog, came from and where he liked to hang out. Many times, Flapjack would rest on Abby’s shoulder or at her side while she was lounging in her back garden - and then he would hop into the pond made for him until he was ready to go back inside.

There was, however, something different about being outside in the parking lot in comparison to the quad; not just the faint smell of rubber and gas or the roar of engines purring to life. Through the din of automobiles there was something different..something that sounded like music and like a rat being led by the piper, Abby followed towards it. As she wandered through the metallic maze of paintjobs and daddy’s bank accounts, the sound got louder, clearer, and words were joining in the festivities. She closed her eyes and paused her steps a moment, her head slowly trailing from left to right as the sound grew louder the more she focused on it. And through the clearing, sitting in the back of a red car, was the source.

A girl with midnight black hair, a sleeveless white crop top that had a toothy-smiling cow with x’s in its eyes, and a pleated black skirt was strumming to an audio track playing from a small device next to her. “Destination unknown…Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby Soho…” She sang along, her eyes closed, body still except for the effortless way her fingers hit the strings, the words from her lips, and the gentle sway of her combat boot clad feet. Abby stood transfixed, not on the person, but the sounds they were making. When the song ended, Abby clapped. Genuinely. Enthusiastically. And the bass player opened her eyes. Audiences were not always a common thing at the end of the day, but the presence of one warranted the bassist acknowledging Abby with a nod.

“Are you Ruby Soho? That’s a cool name, my name is Ashley Beswick but I go by Abby.”

The bass player smiled, and laughed a light laugh, the kind of laugh someone gave when they were trying to be polite but not rude, and then she shook her head while adjusting the tuning heads. “No, Ruby Soho is the name of the song. I didn’t write it either. I’m Eun-ji Walters, but I go by Ellie. Names are weird sometimes, aren’t they.” The way Ellie spoke was strangely calming. Her voice felt like the wind, a gentle breeze that soothed the soul and refreshed the body on a warm day. If singing didn’t work out for her, she could’ve made a killing reading audio books. Another laugh escaped from Ellie’s lips. “I’m not a singer, but thank you, I think.” Abby had said the audiobook part out loud without even realizing it, but Ellie didn’t seem bothered or upset by it. Not like others.

“Can you play another song?”

“Sure can, Abby.”

Ellie Walters, since the second half of sophomore year, had spent at least an hour after school sitting in the trunk of her car playing bass to an audience of passers-by and brief stoppers. It was as consistent a presence as gravity. After her little performances she would pack up and drive to EZ Park Convenience and buy one blue slushie; if they didn’t have blue for whatever reason she would click the back of her teeth with her tongue and debate if getting a purple one was acceptable or if she could mix two together to make blue. The actual flavors associated with the colors didn’t matter, it could’ve been blue raspberry, blueberry, or something called blue thunder, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was blue and blue was the best color of a slushie. She accepted no other substitutes. Life for Ellie Walters was pretty routine like that; the lack of a blue slushie was the closest life came to interrupting her routine.

Until Abby began listening to Ellie’s playing.

The first day, Abby left after hearing the second song (Spiderwebs by No Doubt) because she remembered something she was supposed to be doing. The second day, Abby stuck around a good half hour, and by the fourth day Abby was sitting next to Ellie in the back of the car. At first, Ellie didn’t know what to make of the audience member, but Abby was a surprisingly chill hang and interesting conversation partner in between songs.

“Is she a bad dancer?” Abby asked one day after Ellie had finished trying to match the bassline in Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now”, prompting a gently raised eyebrow from Ellie. “She’s telling someone to walk away so they don’t see her dancing with somebody. She must be a bad dancer.”

“I think it’s more that she's moved on from an ex and she’s saying that if he doesn’t wanna feel jealous he should keep walking away.” It hadn’t been that long since Abby started hanging out with Ellie after school, but Ellie had already learned the best way to talk with Abby was to simply engage with her rather than dismissing it as wrong.

“Do you have an ex that you don’t want to dance with? I’ve never seen you with someone, though I don’t really see you other than sometimes in passing or after school.” Of course, there were some times where Abby’s topics delved towards the…unwanted, but Ellie, as always, just let it roll down her back.

“I have exes. I’m not with anyone right now. But what about you? The way you talk about that Tristan girl…someone’s got a crush, huh?” When Ellie asked the question, even in jest as she was, Abby began shaking her head like Abby had just heard something as harsh to the ears as nails down the chalkboard.

“Oh no no no, I don’t have those kind of feelings for Tristan, I just think what she did was really nice and cool and I still haven’t managed to find where the volleyball team practices. No one seems to know when I ask.”

“Have you tried asking Tristan?”

“I haven’t seen her since. Maybe she’s not even on the team, but I don’t know why else someone would walk around with volleyballs and have a uniform.” Ellie, at that point, nudged Abby in the side and pointed towards the blue Jeep Wrangler that Tristan was putting bags into the back of. The grin on Ellie’s lips remained as Abby rushed off to speak to Tristan while Ellie just continued her bass playing as normal.

A week and a half after Abby had been joining Ellie during bass practice, Ellie was back to a solo act. Abby didn’t stop hanging out, she simply stopped hanging out every day. Abby instead spent many of her days after school sitting on the side stands while the volleyball team practiced. She went unnoticed the first day and on the third day the team’s libero made a point to let the team know that “she’s here again”. It was weird; practices weren’t known for having guests, let alone for a sport that wasn’t football, but Abby kept quiet and didn’t bother anyone so what harm was there in letting her observe?

The rest of the team had no problem ignoring her, but Tristan kept noticing her. Abby wasn’t distracting with her presence, but it wasn't a coincidence that the day after she spoke to Abby and told her when the team did practices was the same day Abby showed up the first time. Every practice Abby did the same thing from the same seat. She periodically looked up at the court when Tristan was calling spots during scrim play and she would go back to her paper during warm ups or runs. Every so often during a reset, Tristan would look to where Abby was sitting, shake her head in confusion, and go back to focusing on practice.

And just as soon as the team started considering her an unofficial mascot, Abby stopped showing up. Tristan knew why, of course. After practice near the end of September, Abby waited for Tristan outside to hand her what she had been working on. “I didn’t know how to really thank you for what you did with those two boys but because your name is Tristan like the knight I thought you might like this. I’m pretty proud of it, I tried to make you look cool.” A drawing was placed in Tristan’s hands. A drawing of Tristan in knight armor in her spiking pose, holding a sword with a volleyball pommel.

“This is…me?” Tristan looked at the drawing and words struggled to come to mind. Her first piece of fan art and she hadn’t even gone pro. Did her brother have fan art? Fuck, she hoped not. “You made me look…badass.”

“I made you look how you are.”

There was a moment of silence as Tristan kept looking at the artwork while trying to keep herself from tearing up at it while Abby was simply smiling, as she always was, and hoping Tristan liked it. Abby couldn’t quite tell, but considering it wasn’t being ripped up she assumed it was liked just fine.

“There’s a little hang-out to-”
“Do you wanna get a slushie with Ellie Walters and me?”

The two girls spoke at the same time but only Abby continued on when she realized it. “A…slushie?”

“Yes. It’s like flavored ice with different colors. Ellie likes blue, I don’t know what specific flavor, she just says blue-.”

“I know what a slushie is. I was trying to invite you to a party tonight at a team member’s house. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but I thought since the team already knows you…what’s the harm,”

“Oh. No thank you. I don’t really like parties. If you don’t want to go, why are you going? Just don’t. Get slushies and go bowling with Ellie and me instead.”

“Fuck it. Sure. Slushies and bowling.”

Tristan only went bowling with Ellie and Abby the one time, not because she disliked going, but because she lost the game and kicked the ball return station hard enough to leave a dent which got her banned for two months. But where before Ellie had one consistent audience member, now she had two - though Tristan only really came around to check up on Abby like a concerned parent or, more accurately, a protecting knight. She always stayed for at least one song.

October 18th, during the pep rally

The afternoon of the pep rally saw Ellie in the back of her car as usual, a blue slushie slowly melting its ice into a more palatable liquid form next to her, and on the other side of her was Abby, sitting cross legged, pressing her fists into her cheeks while drinking her red slushie through a straw. “I think I finally understand the lyrics of a song you listen to. I’m also bored and going blind. But that might be the sugar liquid. What’s funny?”

Ellie snickered at the statement as Longview by Green Day came to an end, with Ellie setting the bass to the side for a moment to turn her tongue blue. “He’s talking about masturbating, Abby. Doing it too much makes you go blind.”

“It does? But the health teacher last year said masturbation was healthy and fine.”

“It is. The blind thing was just superstition.”

“Do you masturbate, Ellie? I tried it once but I think I did it wrong.”

“I’m a single teenager, Abby, That’s my answer to that question. I wouldn’t worry about doing it wrong, if you didn’t like it, you didn’t like it. But you’ve got a point. It’s a bit boring. Wanna catch a movie or something?”

“Oh good, you’re here.” Tristan paced towards Ellie’s car with annoyance in every step. “I can’t handle another minute at that fucking pep rally. Rah rah bullshit for one team just because they’re boys. My stupid brother is doing shit with my idiot younger brother and stupid Mikey isn’t responding to my texts.”

“Who’s Mikey?”

“Her fuckbuddy.”

“My ex.”

“Do you want him to see you dancing with someone else?”

“What?”

“She likes Dua Lipa. But what’s the deal with you and Mikey, are you back together?”

“Ew, no. But I don’t want to show up at Homecoming dateless and he’s my best option.”

“I’ll go with you.” Abby said it without thinking, which was how she said most things. Both Ellie and Tristan turned their heads towards Abby, who was still absent mindedly drinking down her slushie. “Like as friends. I don’t really like dances but you’re my friend so I’ll help you. But I need to get an outfit.”

“I didn’t agree to-”

“Aw come on, going with a friend is way more fun than going with some guy who only calls you when he wants to fuck.” Tristan was going to regret ever telling Ellie about her situation with Michael O’Connor, but she could admit that there was a point being made. Why work so hard for a guy she didn't even like?

“Alright. Ellie, could you-”

“Yeah, to the Mermaid. You riding shotgun, Tristan?”

“Obviously.”

Ellie put her guitar in its case while Abby crawled into the backseat from the trunk. The three rather unlikely friends piled into Ellie’s car which hummed to life with an engine as smooth as Ellie’s voice. “Hey, Tristan, do you masturbate?”

The only one laughing at the question as the car pulled out of the parking lot was Ellie.

[BrutalBx]

---

---

“Drown me in the sea,
Set me on fire,
Listen to my cadence, you know I’m no liar.
Stabbed in the street, doth the same tale repeat.
Pansies at my feet, withered at the gleam,
Where are they now, the glory and the dream?

Another man ‘o’color, took down in his prime by another woulda coulda.
A badge and a gun, that don’t mean you got courage
Brother any death you can give me, is better than bondage.”

“That doesn’t rhyme.”

Isaiah almost threw himself out of his seat on the wall at the voice from behind him. It was a familiar voice, soft, almost whisper-like and just a touch gravelly. He turned, hand held against his chest to gaze upon its origins. Standing behind him, with messy blonde hair hiding most of his face, dirt and oil staining his white t-shirt and blue Levi’s and a hot dog in hand, stood Zay’s closest friend, Spencer Kesar.

Like him, Spence was another child of adoption. Though unlike him, his friend was not taken in by his forever family until he was much older. Isaiah joined the Stricklands when he was still in diapers. He didn’t know anything beyond the safety of the four walls that his fathers Richie and Tony, as well as his sister Peri had provided for him. Isaiah counted his blessings every day for the luck he had at finding a family that wanted him. Spencer had never had that luxury, having been adopted as a teenager. The Kesar’s were good people; with Spencer’s Mom working for an animal shelter and his Father a tattoo artist. They also adopted a crazy little girl called Flora alongside Spence. He would lay his life down for his little Flo.

The two boys met in freshman year, in the library of all places. Zay loved the sanctity of the bookshelves, it was a perfect reprieve from the overwhelming anxiety that came with trying to even say hello to people and it gave him protection from the likes of Theo Van Cise and Malcolm Richardson shoving him into lockers and calling him the….N word. Isaiah found Spencer alone in a corner, reading a book about aeronautics. Spence loved planes, as the boys grew closer as friends, Zay learned that his new buddy was so utterly desperate to become a pilot. First, he would serve a few years in the air force, as a test pilot for super secret aircraft’s obviously, then he’d fly commercial flights and finally he would open up his own tiny touring company out in the wilderness where he’d fly adrenaline junkies to their destinations. Spence had a plan, which was far more than Isaiah ever did.

“You scared the hell out of me! Man what you be doing creeping like that?!”

“I didn’t creep. You were rapping to yourself again.” Spencer took a savage bite from his mustard smothered treat and with a mouthful continued. “And courage and bondage still don’t rhyme.” He hopped the wall and parked himself next to Isaiah before shoving the last of the hot dog into his mouth. He held out his index finger to pause any potential conversation whilst he continued to chow down. After finally swallowing the mass produced pile of crap, Spence slid his hands into his jeans and turned to face the rapper. ”You still flying the politics route? Risky. The last crowd at Dolla ate up your last set but you don’t want to end up a one trick pony.”

Isaiah knew that his friend wasn’t wrong. Not everyone wanted to hear him wax political and speak about racism. The crowds that usually gathered at the infamous Dolla Lounge were a mixed bag; for some like him or Yani Fujimori, it was a throwback to bygone days of true music. For the rest, it was a cheap Friday night with some decent tunes ringing out where they would be able to score some drugs and try to fuck. Some appreciated his commentary but taking any kind of praise was difficult for Zay. Hell, even being on stage was difficult for him. Having any eyes on him was new, let alone all of them. Spencer was a good friend but even Isaiah was hard pressed to choose if his support alone was enough.

”But that’s by the by. I come with an ulterior motive.” Spencer placed his hand on Zay’s shoulder and through his nose released a large exhale of air. ”Peri text me. She wanted me to ask about the letter?”

God, she was a busy body. Isaiah’s adopted sister always had a tendency to put her nose in the business of others. Giving a fuck when it wasn’t her turn to give a fuck. Before she graduated a year earlier she served as a mentor to some of the aspiring journo’s at BHHS and now was taking a gap year citing burnout. Zay believed there was more to it but unlike Peri, he didn’t like to butt in. All the same, he knew that she had his best interests at heart, she always did. She may have been annoying but she was a good person. He couldn’t really ask for a better sister.

Isaiah placed his pen and paper down on the far side of the wall and reached into his inside jacket pocket. ”Here, read it.” He handed a beautifully decorated envelope to his long haired friend and sat in silence as it was read aloud.

---

“Isaiah,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and in a happy place.

By now, your fathers, Richie and Tony, will have told you that I recently reached out to them about maybe making contact with you. The last time we spoke I know you were hesitant so now, let me be transparent. I understand that asking to even see a glimpse of you and your life is a big ask, probably too much to ask really and I would completely understand if you chose not to respond to this letter at all. Yet I couldn’t in good conscience at least try to speak to you, Isaiah.

You don’t know me from a stranger on the street but perhaps shedding a little light might give you something you’ve been missing or at the very least gives you some information you may have been looking for.

Your mother and I met at the worst possible time in our lives. She was in the throes of addiction and I wasn’t far behind her. I’d like to tell you that we were in love and that circumstance and fate kept us apart but that would be a lie. We were barely a couple, we were a casual escape for two lost people to find some solace in. I was arrested and locked up pretty quickly after meeting your Mom and by the time I got out, she was already gone and I didn’t even give her a second thought. As soon as I was released I packed up my things and left Compton, I had zero inclination that you even existed. Had I shown but an ounce of humanity, I could’ve gone to your grandma then and she would’ve told me about you but I didn’t and I’ve been regretting that since I found out you existed.

Earlier this year, my daughter got really interested in our family history. Yes that’s right, you have a sister. Long story short, this is how we found you. I reached out to your Grandma Alice and she told me everything that happened to you and your mom while I was locked up. It was heartbreaking. She also told me that your Mom named you Demetrius before you were adopted; that’s my fathers name. From her, I managed to get a hold of your fathers details and I made contact.

They seem like really good people and it does warm my heart to know that you landed in a place of love considering the place you came from was anything but.

My priority is to make sure that you want to do this as much as I do. If you don’t and you want to leave the past in the past, then I can support that decision because it was yours and I’ll just say that the door is always open if you want to get to know me and mine. Selfishly I have to say, we’re all very excited now that we know you’re out there, Isaiah and we really want you to meet your family. You’ve got all my information if you want to use it.

All the best;
Montez Demetrius Bell”

---

Spencer turned his head to look at his best friend, whose face was sour and frowned, staring at the floor with dark eyes filled with tears likely held in for years. He and Isaiah shared this pain, they shared the questions that came with abandonment and a feverish childhood want to belong to something greater than themselves. Unlike Zay, Spence didn’t have an opportunity to meet his birth parents and undoubtedly there was a large part of him that was infinitely jealous. However, if there was anything that the aspiring pilot had learned over the years, it was that family was not blood, family was those you choose to surround yourself with and give your entire being to. They were the backs you’d always have and the ones that would always have yours.

”Don’t feel forced to meet this guy, Zay.” Spence began. ”Even if what he’s saying is legit and he didn’t even know you were around, you had two guys who raised you into one of the most badass people I’ve ever met. You owe him, nothing.”

Isaiah appreciated his friends candour, if anyone knew anything close to how he was feeling it was Spencer. ”I mean you know how hard it is, Spenny; the not knowing about where you come from. Not knowing who you are. I struggle at the best of times to convince the world I even exist and I pride myself on being an orator. Yet when I look in the mirror, I know my name isn’t my name and the life I have wasn’t meant to be mine. What am I supposed to do with that?” The activist raised a hand behind his head to grab hold of the back of his neck, a half hearted attempt to stop the goosebumps from creeping up on him. ”At least if I meet this guy, then I’ll at least get some answers before the questions are changed again.”

Before Spencer could respond, the lingering veil of silence was penetrated by the thumping of Doc Martens. Lifting their heads up from the sombre tide they were wading through, Isaiah and Spencer watched as a tiny ball of manic blonde energy sprinted towards them from the parking lot. With hurry in her voice and speed on her mind, Adelaide Davies Jones sprinted as quickly as a little legs would take her across the street towards the wall where the duo were sitting, ”WADDUP?!” She exclaimed as she swiftly made her way past them and darted towards the monstrous school for the definition of nepotism.

”Hi Addie.” ”Hi Addie” The boys said in unison whilst the drug dealer staid her course and never broke her stride towards the double doors.

When the manic pixie vanished into the abyss, Spencer continued his initial thoughts. ”This is some deep shit, man. No one is ever truly gonna know the right thing to do except you. It’s your life brother.” If there was one thing that he had learned about Isaiah after years of friendship, it was that he always knew what he was going to do. Zay could not be told anything, he had to learn it for himself. That wasn’t the way it was, his thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. ”I always got you, no matter what you do.”. Spencer brushed his dirty blonde bangs away from his face and slapped his thighs as he brought his hands down. ”Maybe we should actually just go to the game and desensitise ourselves watching the Neanderthals run around hitting each other and carrying a ball?”

”Or we could go to the diner and you can try and flirt with that Russian girl again?” For the first time all day, Isaiah smiled. For his lack of confidence in most other areas, Zay was pretty happy with his smile. Everyone always told him it lit up a room. It made him feel human when they said that and helped to drain away the negative thoughts of being a nothing, a footnote in someone else’s story,

Spencer raised his finger up in defiance. “Don’t be talking about my future wife like that.” It was true that the aspiring pilot had been drooling over the waitress with the thick accent since the moment he had laid eyes on her. Then again he could say that about half the school, he was surrounded by pretty people and unlike Zay. He had the foolhardiness to chase after what he wanted. Come on dipshit, let me get you a shake?”

Isaiah shook his head. “Nah man, I’m good. I wanna get a few more lyrics down.” He motioned to the paper in his hand. Soon he would be surrounded by quiet again when the game started and the crowd that he would hear would act like white noise, tuning out the thoughts of finding love, finding friends and finding a lost father.

Spencer shrugged his shoulders before he leapt from the wall. He had done all that he could for Isaiah. He knew now that even with the seeds now planted, the rest was truly up to his friend. “All good brother.” He straightened himself out, brushing away the creases and left her hot dog on his shirt before turning himself before slapping five with Zay. ” I’mma see you?”

“Most def. Catch you later, Spenny.” As he watched his brother from another mother deeper for brighter skies, Isaiah returned his hazelnut gaze to the papers in his now trembling hands. This was meant to be his year, this was meant to be his time.

Could that be true if he didn’t even know who he really was?

[Festive]

_{TIMESTAMP: After school around 4PM
FT: Luce & Helen
Small FT: The Sinclair Twins
@Festive & @LovelyComplex}

____________________________________________________________________

How is she gonna ask me to hang out, and be late?

The unfortunate sound of air passing through his straw in a vain attempt to get the rest of the milkshake he had paid an ungodly amount of money for rang through the boy's ears. Helen wasn’t late, it was more of the fact that Lucian was early. Another habit he had picked up during his younger years, the boy couldn’t stand to be late. He watched the clock tick past the meeting time she had thrust upon the boy without leaving him another moment to respond or even register within his thoughts. Lucian didn’t even know what the girl had invited him for, their brief interaction earlier in the day had culminated in Lucian sitting alone in a bougie ice cream parlor where he had felt like a fish out of water, but what was new in Beverly Hills for the rag-tag boy from Harlem?

Lucian’s mind hung on the unusuality of the hangout spot she chose, it was a far cry from the usual setting of his uncle’s shed, which was outfitted with everything one would need to rock out, but here he was sitting in a place for serving ice cream of all possible locations. Lucian tossed the remnants of a drink he would never buy again into the pastel-colored trashcan that neighbored his waiting spot. If Helen had prefaced what she had wanted from Lucian his life would have been nirvana instead of drowning in the stress of anticipation. Whatever it was Lucian knew it had to be something too special to tell him within the confines of his own home or school, he’d just have to wait and see.

The worn-looking pair of black headphones laid upon Lucian’s ears as a result of his boredom with the noise that poured from the parlor’s speakers, if he was going to continue to wait alone he might as well get the most out of it. Music had always been one of Lucian’s passions, he listened, he played, but he never created music; it lay just beyond his purview. Lucian never had the need to, music-wise, for the majority of his life it had always been him and his sticks against the world–Helen had changed that, she was the first person he had played with in a long while since even before he had left Harlem; she had an amazing voice, and he shredded any piece of sheet music presented to him on the drums.

As the jazz drumline reverberated throughout his brain it took his mind off the waiting, he could feel the soul poured into a rhythm, it melded with its fellow instruments like a lake flowing into a larger body of water, the syncopations in the beat were a pleasant disruption in his mind as they were throughout the rhythm which played; he would have to learn to play this rhythm himself, yet another song he would have to add to the backburner.

As the drummer boy waited in anticipation, Helen was taking her sweet time. She marched to the beat of her own drum. She wasn’t one for predictability and if there was anyone that chased a feeling, a whim, and did literally what they wanted, it was Helen Wells. Strange and unusual was Helen’s whole vibe. There was a big difference between those who got what they wanted and those who did what they wanted. Sure, Helen had aspirations and dreams. That just meant she wasn’t stagnant, always thinking about optimizing her potential, but that didn’t mean she was limited to wanting singular things. Materialistic things, like her cosplays and makeup, weren't needed. If she had to wear rags she would be okay. She knew how to be a person beyond her privileges. If she was stripped of everything, including her voice, which was her gift, she would be okay. Her fathers taught her how to overcome adversities, and that meant if she had to give up on her dreams, to walk a path less taken, she would be okay.

Yes, she wanted a band. She was young, energetic and hot. She knew she’d be a fucking phenomanal, heartstopping face for a band, just how her grandpa was for Deciduous Dreams. If it didn’t happen though? She’d be okay and try something new. That was just how Helen was. She didn’t want something so badly it completely consumed her. She never did. This made her dangerous to deal with because she was one of the people who didn’t have anything to lose, which made her fucks to give at ground zero. She had her family but she was at the age where she could rebel and test her parents’ patience. She was going to ride it until it became a problem. She had her friends, who she was passionate about, loving them for who they were as people and not liking the bad they had to face, especially what happened to Amy last year. Just another whim she was chasing. She knew Amy wouldn’t care if she chased leads or not to find out who ruined her. At this point? Amy ran with the story and gave the people what they wanted. If Amy told Helen to stop, she would, but she didn’t. So of course, Helen was going to do what she could to find out who was the little bitch that decided to be a coward and cause a fire with information they knew nothing about.

As much as Helen Wells wanted to believe she was invincible, no fucks to give, and full of rage, those who were in her inner circle knew she wasn’t bulletproof and this bad bitch vibe was a persona she picked up herself. A persona entangled with the little girl inside of her. The bitch she became was necessary. Her sword and shield. She couldn’t say that it wasn’t who she was, since now it’s simply second nature to act the way she does. There was a time she was less guarded and that was before the Winter formal freshmen year. The only person who knows what happened to Helen, who she found herself trusting and being vulnerable with, was Gavriel. Her little twink. Not even the cheerleaders and her best friends know what happened to her freshman year, and she’d like to keep it that way. She was a slut, just like Amy and just like Toury. Her story was hers to tell, when she was ready. For now? People can believe what they want to believe. They were going to, anyway.

Setting up a date at Creamistry was not as complicated as Luce was thinking it to be. This arrangement was a childish whim where Helen wanted the Halloween/October special. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. Ask Luce to join her band AND eat good ice cream. When Helen arrived, there was no way she’d go unseen. She was still in her Katerine cosplay from The Vampire Diaries. The bell rang, announcing her arrival, and with her almost supernatural entrance, as if she glided on the smooth, colorful tiled floor, Helen clocked Luce, who was surrounded by the symphony of his soul. She smiled, taking notice.

A smile only meant she acknowledged his presence. There was a matter of business she needed to attend to and that was to: buy ice cream. With no one in line holding her up, she went to the counter, only for the two girls there to gawk at her. Or well one was animatedly goggling at her and the other was looking at her with more subtle admiration and curiosity. She knew these girls. They were junior cheerleaders. Niles Sinclair’s little sisters, Autumn and Summer.

The bubbly one began first, “Oh my goooooodness! You look so good. You’re Katherine right? I love Vampires! You know I’m trying to convince my boyfriend to binge watch all the vampire stuff ever, including the Twilight series.” Summer was bouncing around in place, completely marking out at the appearance of her goth senior.

Autumn, the more down to earth one, even if a bit bitchy and sassy, rolled her eyes, “Our boyfriend.”

Helen raised an eyebrow at that comment. Niles had polyamorous sisters and they both were dating the same boy. Interesting. She wouldn’t have expected polyamory from the Sinclair family, who were rather influential in the medical industry, seeing how their father was the head of the surgical department at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. On the surface, they seemed traditional and more focused on their studies. Then again, they were the cousins of AJ Tyler and AJ was caught in the most entertaining, toxic love story of her year. Unfortunately, Rye was caught in the Gearhead’s mess, being used as a distraction, which Helen didn’t like but that was neither here nor there. She continued to listen, keeping her thoughts to herself, curious where these girls would take the conversation.

“Would it be cool if we took a picture of you, over there by our selfie wall?” Autumn asked, upfront with their intentions. “I think it would be good marketing since ‘tis the season to be spooky.”

Helen smirked. Of course they wanted a picture of her. Who wouldn’t? Still, aside from exposure, she wanted something more. The offer wasn’t intriguing enough. “Hm, I could but what’s in it for me?”

“We’ll tag you!” Summer offered, already with her phone out and searching for Helen’s socials.

Helen helped her since she wasn’t under her name. “Immortal.Hellcat.”

“There we go! We’re following you now and when we get the picture, we’ll post and tag you. People will get to see your hot fit.” Summer beamed, hoping this would get her senior to agree.

Helen crossed her arms, pretending to not be convinced. Honestly loving the attention. “I don’t know. I could easily post a picture of myself. A girl dressed in black surrounded by rainbow? That’s not hard of a prompt.”

“And free ice cream,” Autumn countered, bringing up the incentive. She only did this job because it helped build character, as her dad told her. This parlor made enough money to expand if they truly wanted to so it wasn’t like they would be hurting if she gave a customer a freebie. “I’m going to assume you’re here for our Boolicious Fright Night Sundae.”

“That’s so big! Can you eat it all by yourself?!” Summer gasped, surveying Helen’s figure and the obvious corset she was wearing.

Helen laughed.

Free stuff was always something she was up for. She might have money but if she didn’t need to spend it, why should she? “You got yourself a deal. Don’t worry about whether I can finish it or not. That’s a battle between me and Satan. Now, before more customers come in…” Helen directed the twins to follow her. Summer did so quickly, with her phone camera out, while Autumn began making the trick-or-treat special of the month with skilled precision and speed, having worked at this place for a little over a year. Once Helen was settled on the swing, Summer took a few photos without ice cream at hand. A natural and extremely photogenic, Helen didn’t need any direction, already knowing how to pose and what facial expressions to use. Helen knew her body. She knew her body better than anyone. In a matter of minutes, Autumn had joined her sister and the vampiress, handing her the halloween special. The photo op continued. When the Sinclair twins were satisfied with their selection, it didn’t take long, Helen was scarily good at this, they thanked her and went back to behind the counter. Summer proceeded to update the parlor’s socials and Autumn returned to work, assisting a family of four. The children, a little blonde boy and a dark haired girl, who reminded Helen of her and her brother, kept making glances at her. Playfully, Helen winked at them and revealed her fangs. The girl blushed and the boy buried his face on his mom’s leg.

Cute.

Pridefully, Helen sauntered to where Luce was and finally took a seat. It was twenty five minutes after her arrival. “Heyyyyyy, want some?” She offered a spoon to her peer. “This shit is good. It’s basically cookie dough dyed black.”

“Hmm?” The music which held control of Lucian’s brain lost it's grip with the advent of Helen’s arrival. His eyes peered up from the phone he held in his hand to the woman that sat before him. “Oh, look who finally arrived.” Lucian flashed a smile at Helen, shifting his headphones down to around his neck. Helen, who paraded around with her princess of darkness personality, was one of the few people Lucian had befriended during his short time within the halls of Beverly Hills High. A friendship spurred from a single, chance encounter from their junior year due to a locker mix-up of all possible catalysts; it took the two of them quite a bit to remove the ink from the surface of his locker in the aftermath. From that statistical improbability in the statistical world they lived to the present they have been friends ever since. Despite her outward demeanor to some, she was a person he could talk her ear off about music with, and one who would listen and empathize with him whenever something slipped through the wall he erected around his past. He didn't care for the reputation she held, or the way people saw her, Lucian saw it was a dumb preconception on a person of whom they truly knew anything about. He understood the implications of a bad stigma, he himself had been held to one in the past. At heart, Helen was a good person, and that is what he saw her for, and nothing less. Past the layers of black clothing and lipstick, that's what she was. His brother, Rocky, had always always told him he had a strange ability to really understand a person.

Lucian waved his hand at the offer of the spoon. “I think I've had enough bougie Beverly Hills ice cream for today, God knows much you paid for that monstrosity. I'm scared to even ask.” He sighed thinking about much money he begrudgingly paid for the milkshake he had earlier. His fingers softly tap on the glossy surface of the table to the rhyme of the low track that still secretly pervaded his ears. “So, are you gonna tell me whatcha called me here of all places for? My uncle’s gardenin’ facts finally get you?” His uncle was truly a great guy, he would give someone the shirt off his back if they needed it. He could still be a bit overwhelming at times, but he always meant well. Lucian wondered how Uncle Jason and his father could even be related at times. “Still confused on why ice cream, first time I even been of this place now that I think ‘bout it.”

Amused, noting how into his own world he had been to not realize the interaction she held with the ice cream girls, Helen scooped some of her black cookie dough and leisurely placed the spoon upside down in her mouth, sucking the sweet goodness right off. Childishly, she grinned and swayed in her seat, loving her monstrosity. When she went for another scoop, she chuckled, “I’m not that deep. I wanted ice cream and to prolong the wait even more, I got this for freeeeeeee. All you gotta’ do is offer your body and you’ll get what you want.” Helen crudely joked. “But seriously, I didn’t want to get the halloween special and eat it by myself. I also wanted to talk to you and here we are, achieving both.”

She allowed herself to devour more of the ice cream and add ons in it, bobbing her head, completely animated and showing her glee in the moment. If it wasn’t for their connection in music, and their fateful first encounter, Helen wondered if they would’ve ever crossed paths. Personality wise? They were two different people but because of their love for music and the stories around them that inspired songs, they found an unlikely bond. They weren’t polar opposites like her and her cousin Hope, but they still were from two different planets and it showed. That didn’t matter though. What mattered was their universal language: music. “You really think I’d go out of my way for gardening tips? Luce, the last time I tried to grow something with my dad — the sex therapist one — it died. It was helluva poetic. I kill the things I touch. So edgy. I’ll mark that as a success.”

Luce would have to try harder than that to get Helen “the killer of plants” Wells to focus and not distract herself, or him, from the point of this meeting. She continued to dance to the song in her soul, the music in her mind, and the beat in her heart, all the while indulging in the large sundae meant for four people. Not holding back on the lack of grace, Helen truly became a frenzied vampire sucking the life of its victim. She wasn’t trying to be a lady. Not in front of her friend. Having skipped lunch, solely to have ice cream, she gorged herself and it showed. Helen was starving and she had prepared for this moment all day. She truly was a child but that in itself was endearing and she was unashamed of who she was. Not many people of their year could say the same thing. At least Luce wasn’t one of those lost kids. He was just like her. He knew who he was and he wasn’t trying to be anyone other than himself. That’s what truly connected them. Their sense of self. That’s what made them friends.

“Blow works as a nice alternative too but I ain’t got no contacts for that anymore.” Lucian joked back at the black-haired girl before him, it was always nice to have someone around who you could chat to freely without the judgment that would accost him in a conversation with anyone else. “And, well, at least you got somethin’ out of the experience, gardenin’ isn’t that hard when you get into it.” Lucian cut his words short, he couldn’t allow himself to get too distracted by Helen’s child-like glee of their meeting. He watched Helen sway around in her seat as if the dark mess of ice cream in front of her was her next fix. He couldn’t help but smile. Helen was herself through and through, he admired her unchanging presentation to everyone she encountered. In a way, Helen was like his friend Rocky; utterly herself, and unnecessarily difficult to make pay attention to the topic at hand.

Distraction, like all weeds, must be snipped from the root. Having raised his sister for almost her entire life, Lucian knew this like the back of his hand. He reached his hand out across the table as if he was reaching for the spoon she had previously offered like he was relenting to her request to share. In a swift motion, Lucian treacherously swiped the bowl to his side of the table. He didn’t desire to violate the bliss Helen received from the free sweet treat she was devouring but it was an action that needed to be done. “Helen, this hurts me more than it hurts you, but you have to focus.” Lucian held the bowl before him, just out of Helen’s black thumb reach, it was the only way. “Your ice cream will be returned when you tell me why I am here.”

An audible gasp escaped Helen’s lips. Did he? He totally did just take her ice cream away from her. All to what? To get her to FOCUS? There was absolute shock written all over the gothic beauty’s face. How could she let this happen? He stole her treasure right from under her, using a ploy that he would have some of the sweet spooktacular goodness and she believed it. How foolish of her. The TREACHERY! The BETRAYAL! The SIN! This was a trick but there was no treat. Not anymore. How devastating. Her life was ruined and it was all because Lucian took her ice cream away from her like they were preschool kids. She wanted to cry.

Kidding.

She wasn’t actually upset but she enjoyed playing along, it wasn’t often she could be the baby in the dynamic and with Luce she didn’t have to be strong all the time. She could relax and enjoy his company. Once she placed her spoon on a napkin, she crossed her arms, leaning back in faux defeat. She pouted, wanting to protest. Helen knew that her friend waited long enough and yielded. If she kept prolonging the inevitable his patience would be tested and we couldn’t have that. She did this more to get her ice cream back than anything. “You’re tying my hands but fine.” She unlatched her arms and raised her hands up, surrendering and ready to reveal the truth of why she needed him to meet her, at Creamistry. Why meeting each other was more important out of school than in. Why of all times she chose 4:20 PM on the dot and how necessary it was for him to be there, on time, like she asked. This would be the moment of truth. The moment he had been waiting for. The moment he was so badly anticipating, that put him on the edge of his seat.

But first, she took out her phone and prefaced, “So you know my grandpa is kind of tight with the Greens’ grandmother right? Not the scary blonde one. The dark goddess that rocks black and purple. Same though.” Helen had tabs already open in her phone browser, to showcase exactly who she was talking about and switching over to different tabs as fast as lightning, whenever she mentioned someone new. She had full faith Luce knew all these names, he knew his shit, but she wanted to be extra and act like she was giving a presentation. “She was the lead vocalist of East of Eden. Huge symphonic metal band. Legends. Just how my grandpa, Jareth, was, and still is, the frontman of the big time emo revival band, Deciduous Dreams. He’s an old man now but he can still rock out with his cock out. They don’t perform as much, since he’s enjoying eating his husband’s goooooood food but if he has the urge, he sure as hell will give into it.” She was way off track from her point but it was fine. Luce was going to get what he wanted sooner or later, he just needed to let her cook and toy with his feelings for a little while longer. “Well her best friend, Bex Crosby, co-leader of the band who rocked the guitars with Shepard Fraiser? Yeah, well she’s the owner of Poison Apple Recording Studio.”

Was that unnecessary information? Right now, maybe, but down the road? Absolutely not. This was her way of showing Luce that she was connected and that meant if they really wanted to succeed, she knew the people they could show their musical talent off to. Helen was purposely being long winded because she could. It wasn’t like either of them had somewhere to be. If Luce did? Oops. This was far more important. Plus, he took her ice cream. She could be petty too.

“So check it,” Helen placed her phone face down on the table. “On Monday I decided you know what, we have so many fucking talented people at our school, why haven’t we all worked together, you know? I hit up Yani first because they're genius and having them on a project means less work for me. I considered all my other options and you, of course, were next on my list. I have other people in mind but I only have one drummer I want.”

Was he getting it now?

Yeah, so Helen did bring Luce here for ice cream not only because she wanted ice cream but because she needed to ask a simple question she could’ve written in text or asked at school. Helen, however, was not a predictable girl. She did what she wanted. A girl and her whims. “What I’m saying is why don’t you, me, and Yani start a band? They’d manage and produce, you’d drum, I’d sing and do the keys, all we’d really need is strings and then bam. We got ourselves a band and we can head on over to Poison Apple to record and jam.” Leaning forward, her arms on the table and her hands clasped, Helen smirked. Finally, the business proposal was out in the open.

“Pretty cool, huh? I thought long and hard about this.” Helen said rather proudly before pressing on, “All that music we talk about, since last year, we can finally put it in motion. Find people like us and leave this school on a badass note. I know how much you want to put your drums to work and I mean TO WORK. Not just in a room alone rocking your socks off. With some of our peers, with me, we could do just that because Luce, I think you’re cool and I like you a lot. In the most platonic of ways. So,” the songstress paused, catching his eyes. She grabbed her spoon off the napkin and glanced down at her ice cream, before going back to meet his sharp yet kind gaze, “Whaddya say?” She offered one last time,“Wanna be in a band together?”

Lucian was blindsided, well, he was most times by the desultory whims of one Helen Wells, but this occasion was different. The concept of a band had been foreign to Lucian’s ears for as long as he could remember. Helen has only been the only true person who he had rocked with in a long while. It had always been him and her, locked away in the fortress of solitude that was his uncle’s shed for hours on end after school playing whatever random song they had desired in the moment. Although within these sessions of being the bane of Uncle Jason’s neighbors, the idea of grouping up with others and forming a band had only been mentioned a single transient time from Lucian’s mouth; a short, cursory lamentation of never having played in a band. Helen was right about Lucian wanting to put his drums to work, it was his passion, it was his escape. An escape from the struggles of the day, an escape from the unwanted thoughts, it was the home he never had, it took him away from this plane if only for a few fleeting hours. It made him feel as normal as normal could be, removed from everything. The pain from his batter and bloodied hands at the end was yet but a sacrifice for the salvation he obtained. He poured his love, his hate, his anger, his regret, his sorrow, his everything into each and every beat upon the surface of his drum; no matter if it was the bucket drums he played in the Harlem subway with the homeless, or the DW set he played in the shed to an audience of few, he put his passion into every strike. He longed to put his music into the world for ears beyond simply those whom he kept in his circle to hear, to understand. The means to had finally been placed just within his reach, a tale that if told to Lucian not even two years prior he would believe to be naught but a fallacy, like the tales he and Rocky spun to each other on the street corner of foretold fame and fortune that would be promised to the two in their fantastical view of the future, but to which they knew was a lie as good as any.

“First off, that was one helluva presentation, props where they’re due, but I been knew most of these cats for a while. I get it though, exposition or whatever” Lucian’s hands gripped the side of ice cream bowl once more “Now, I mean it all sounds good on paper, but it aint gonna be easy y’know…”

Lucian slid the black, cold mess of ice cream back over to Helen’s side of the table to end the childish encounter.

“But, count me the fuck in.”

[Aces Away]

^{Timestamp: Between the Rally and the Game
@LovelyComplex and @Aces Away
Jordyn 'JJ' Jones and Gavriel 'Rye' Shomer}

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“Okay,” Rye sighed dramatically at JJ before pulling the straw into his mouth and taking a big gulp of his rootbeer in order to fortify himself. After his little breakdown in the library, Rye had woken up and pulled himself together in the presence of JJ and Helen before continuing on with the rest of his day like he always did. He and JJ agreed to go to the mall after school and catch up then, as they’d been forced their separate ways for class. They’d had their small talk and general catch up while they were actually shopping, and now that they had their bags of clothes and impulse buys, the two best friends were refueling at a food court table, their takeout boxes spread haphazardly all over the small surface. Before he could continue, his phone screen lit up from the table and he glanced down disgustedly at the unknown number before locking his screen again to ignore it. Rye, who already despised trying to decipher audio over phone calls in the first place, barely ever answered calls from his friends, let alone unknown numbers. He much preferred to text, or to video chat so he could watch the other person’s lips for any words he missed audibly. “Jesus, the scam calls are just horrible around election time, I swear I get one like every hour. JJ, I’m not even legal to vote yet, what could they possibly be needing to tell me?”

Okay, stop it, Rye thought to himself, well aware of his own habit of using any little distraction as, well, distraction. “Sorry, nevermind. You wanted to talk about Jamie and Decky? Or just Decky?”

“Where did we leave off?” Jordyn said absentmindedly, having eaten most of her chicken teriyaki and going straight to her salted pretzel. Tearing a piece off, she thought long and hard before winging it. Hopefully she wasn’t repeating herself from earlier, “So. As you already know, I like Decky and I think today is the day he noticed me. Or well, I hope he noticed me…” Briefly, JJ stumbled over her words, doubting herself and wondering if this was a chase worth pursuing. She was quick to bury the doubt to focus on the conversation at hand. “But before I get lost in talking about him, I should bring up the incident between Jamie and Decky from this morning.” JJ chomped at the piece of pretzel she tore off and chewed for a bit. Chewed in silence. Chewed in thought. Chewed in happiness from the salty goodness.

Once she swallowed, JJ continued, while her eyes were on Rye, her mind was elsewhere, on the events from this morning, “In homeroom, Jamie and Decky were going at it. Throwing shots at each other. I don’t remember who started it, if I’m going to be honest. Jamie was in a mood already. My guess is maybe an argument with AJ? I don’t know who else would give him such a big hickey. But I was able to bring him back and I think I’m going to try to be his friend. That’s beside the point, though. Decky is… AJ’s best friend?” The curly haired girl asked, trying to explain herself as clearly as possible at the same time but her mind was going every which way. “Is that why he doesn’t like Jamie? Is it bad that I want to be friends with someone my crush hates?” She didn’t know if she was giving a report or seeking advice but here she was, lost in translation, hoping Rye understood the scrambled pieces of information in her brain. She was doing her best. It wasn’t usual that JJ was caught up in drama like this but because it involved two people she liked, she wanted to help.

“Decky isn't the type to care who you talk to so long as they don't pose a physical danger to yourself or someone else he cares about. He may not like it, especially with it being Jamie, but he's not the controlling type that would try and tell you you weren't allowed or some shit,” Rye replied honestly to his friend, following her broken flow with the practiced ease only a sibling or best friend could. He popped a fry in his mouth after dragging it through some barbecue sauce and chewed slowly, trying just as hard to piece together a response as she did to get her thoughts out. “But yeah, AJ is one of his best friends so he's super protective of him, as he is with anyone he cares about, but AJ was like…the first person from Beverly Hills to take Decky in and call him friend. So it's more personal and that means Decky like…he kind of fucking hates Jamie, to be honest. It's not my business to tell, but in the vaguest wording let's just say that AJ changed a lot while dating Jamie, and Decky wasn't a fan. Pretty sure most of AJ's closer friends weren't fans but don't take my word for it,” Rye ventured, not wanting to talk on anyone else's thoughts or feelings that he didn't know for sure. His fingers tapped rapidly against the condensation coated cup in between his hands and he looked away from his friend, not really feeling shame but not feeling great when he admitted the next bit. “Decky and I stopped hooking up because he got AJ and I together for a no-strings situation after he and Jamie broke up, since neither of us were doing great and Decky thought we could help each other out more, y'know? We just keep each other from falling off of our prospective edges, and we know there's no romance past friendship and physical intimacy in it, but it's been working well enough. Or I guess it was before AJ and Jamie decided to try hooking up again, but obviously something went down this morning from what you're saying.”

And that was worrying, because AJ had been radio silent all day, meaning whatever happened was bad enough to get the other boy in his own head and stuck there, likely until one of his three best friends pulled him out of it. Jamie having a harsh hickey? Not the weirdest thing out there, especially with AJ, but from what JJ had said of the way the other media-based boy had acted and the fact that AJ ditched school, things hadn't gone well, so Jamie walking away with a physical reminder of whatever went down between them made something sit heavy in Rye's stomach, the small boy forcing himself not to think of any possibilities or spin himself out on self-created stories fabricated from his own past experiences in place of whatever the truth was.

He shook his head, ignoring the phantom fingers of anxiety creeping up on him while dispelling any thoughts of Ronnie and that end of summer party, deciding to focus instead on his friend and the progress of her incredibly slow burned love story. “But what about Decky noticing you, huh? How'd that feel? The moment we've all been waiting for,” he got a little more nervous energy out as he drumrolled on the edge of the table and smiled at JJ. “What actually happened?”

What happened that changed things?

JJ tilted her head when she processed a silent message from Rye, noticing his fingers tap, tap, tappin’. Respectfully she didn’t probe, willing to wait until he was ready to talk about whatever internal battle he was facing that made him anxious. Breaking another piece of pretzel off, she went in a daze, trying to register when exactly the tension started to show. “I had Addie’s lipstick on, he noticed,” JJ started, nibbling on her pretzel piece, stuck in a memory. “I checked up on him and called him Chai, which seemed to get a subtle reaction. Maybe I embarrassed him? But I don’t think it was a bad embarrassment. I would know if he disliked it, so I think he liked it. Iunno… I hope he liked it.” She talked to herself out loud, trying to understand what happened and if it was a good thing or bad thing. “And then Jamie came into the picture.”

There was a pause as her attention went to her tote where Biggie squeaked, demanding some pretzel. She slipped the tiniest of crumbs in the bag and then it hit her and her eyes widened and there was sudden terror in her stomach, as she began to assume the worst. Her own anxiety got the better of her. Her heart raced, sending warm blood to her soft, brown cheeks and she could feel the butterflies fluttering all around inside her. “OH-MY-GOSH-DARN-IT.” Dropping the pretzel from her hand, it falling from her lap to the floor, she started biting her nails. “Biggie… went to the windowsill and…” JJ nervously laughed and continued to nip at her nails. “He’s going to think I’m a HOE, Rye. Why didn’t I think about what I was doing? Why did I do THAT?!”

“Well, he's an actual hoe so I don't think there'd really be anything negative behind that if he did think it. And trust me, you calling him Chai probably made him blush like a schoolgirl inside,” Rye assured almost dismissively as he watched his best friend squirm, attempting to squint past the obstacles now blocking her lips, leaning in both to sip more of his drink through his straw and to hear her better. Tilting his head at JJ once he'd finished, he complained softly, “Jay, dude, the fingers. I’m sorry but I can’t read your lips like that and this food court’s hella loud,” He’d only been able to hear the part of her story that he’d replied to before her fingers had blocked half of his understanding and her words became a garbled, unprocessed mess to his ears. It was like the subtitles suddenly being removed from a foreign movie and you realize you never actually understood the characters’ words at all, and it was frustrating. He liked to lie when asked and say that the tinnitus was just the ringing in his ears and pretend like he didn’t have any actual hearing loss from it yet, but he hadn’t exactly learned ASL super young or joined the ASL club at BHHS out of passion for another language. It was just good planning for his future. “Please choose another anxious fidget for this conversation. And repeat your last sentence after ‘hoe, Rye’.”

JJ was quick to put her palm on her lap, clasping her fingers together. Swaying her feet, heel toe, left to right, right to left, the inexperienced teen, having never dated and only having a feeling of what her sexual orientation was, decided to not repeat the same words but to explain what exactly happened. “I just panicked… sorry.” Not looking Rye in the eyes, flustered and shy, she remembered out loud, “I climbed over his desk to get to Biggie and he might’ve had a nice… scenic… view.”

“Oh!” Rye giggled like an idiot, almost spitting out his latest sip of soda in the process. “He saw your ass! JJ oh my god,” Rye dissolved into a fit of laughter, his previous anxieties dissolving along with it as he held his stomach and shook. “I’m sor-” More laughter, barely contained to be publicly acceptable, and then a deep, steadying breath as he held up his hand, asking his friend for patience as he pulled himself together. When he was ready, he grinned at JJ and held his hand to his chest in apology. “Sorry, seriously. It’s just that I told you like first thing back in sophomore year that he was an ass man and you waited almost two years, until Biggie was pulling a houdini, to finally give him a glance? Dude, JJ, that is the least hoe behavior I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh,” JJ giggled, realizing how silly she was being. A simple misunderstanding in the brain. Classic JJ. Grateful and appreciative for her friend who never failed at discerning her words, the dorky girl gleamed. With a wide kind of smile that showed she was relieved and delighted, she confessed and asked, “Tell me straight, Rye. How out of my element am I? I have never been in a relationship, sexual or romantic. I’d like to think I would love all kinds of people and have room for more than one partner but that’s just because I believe it to be true. I will it into existence. I know my heart and that’s all I have to go off of. Right now? I want Decky. I’ve wanted him for TWO YEARS. Just like you said.”

Sighing and taking a breath, JJ grabbed her cup of water and took a sip. “I worry though,” She admitted. “How would Decky feel when he finds out… I’ve never been with anyone? What if that discredits my understanding of him being polyamorous and what if his partner, Sonny, feels some type of way? I don’t want to replace him. I can never replace him. I am me and I want to add to their love story, while finding my own, maybe with Decky, you know? I think I can make it work I just, don’t know what I’m doing.” She shouldn’t use the love word. They were teens. How did they know what love was? JJ knew, however, if she took a leap of faith, she wouldn’t have the ability to do a one night stand. She could try. Anyone could try. Something told her, in the pit of her stomach, that doing something just for sex wasn’t for her. She needed something more than that. Sex wasn’t needed. When you loved somebody, she’d like to think sex felt good. When you desired someone, the feelings came naturally. Inside and out. When they wanted you back? That was pure magic. Oh man, was she already thinking of having sex with Decky?! She hadn’t even told him her feelings. The fire of passion, coming from a blushing, new bride appeared on JJ’s cheeks as her mind thought of her next interaction with her crush. Not so pure thoughts. Naughty, actually. Embarrassing. Shaking her head, dirty thoughts begone, she pouted, “I want him to like me, Rye.”

The smirk Rye leveled his best friend with was all knowing, telling her that he saw exactly what was going on in that chaotic little brain of hers and that it amused him greatly. He ate another fry as he thought about her words, doing his best to actually think on them first and not just run off at the mouth like he usually does. This was an important conversation. He decided to start with the easiest part.

“So, first off, I know for a fact that Decky does not care how long, short, or nonexistent your list of sexual experiences and partners is. Sex is that dude’s first form of communication and as long as he and the other person or people are all consenting, then fucking will happen. It’s just fact with Decky, he throws himself in physically first because he’s afraid of letting people see his feelings before they’ve seen his body,” Because his body can take hits that his heart can’t. Rye thought back to the difference in the way Decky acted around him between his first night with the strong gearhead versus many interactions later when the taller was finally comfortable enough with him in bed that he took his shirt off. After Rye’s limited reaction and continued acceptance despite all the scars on the other’s torso, especially the one across his left pec and collar bone leading to his shoulder, Decky had been more open with the curly haired boy and that was when their friendship had hit off just as well as their physical relationship. Rye understood to his own extent why Decky was so scared to share such a vulnerable part of him, and it helped the slightly younger boy understand the other’s actions and defenses just a bit more when he’d finally revealed it. Decky knew that if you couldn’t get past the scars littering his body like pieces of the past that refused to be forgotten, then you wouldn’t be able to handle him and everything he holds inside. Sex first just made sense.

That, however, was a situation JJ would have to go through herself, because Rye was on the same boat as the other handful of people trusted enough by Decky to see the scar that weighed him down like the very word branded there. That boat was ‘don’t say a word about it no matter how much is asked or offered’, and Rye would stay there until he died.

The Boaz parents truly were disgusting human beings.

“Secondly, you don’t have to be some kind of sex goddess to be polyamorous, JJ, and you’re allowed to try different labels and see how they fit you. Being queer in any form is not a one way stop, it’s all about the journey on the way to discovery. No one is going to judge you if things change as you get more experience,” Rye never thought he’d be the one giving these lessons, but here they were. God save them all. “If you don’t want to have sex with Decky, tell him that. If you do, tell him that. If you want him to be gentle, or rough, just communicate. Dude does great with up front wording, but he’s only really good at context clues when it comes to reading actual books. Just wait, he’s going to blindside the fuck out of you with his flirting now that you’ve awakened him to your possibility. It’s mostly him like, hotly leaning over you against a wall somewhere while throwing out blunt compliments and innuendos during conversations, but hell if it doesn’t pull you in somehow.” Rye rolled his eyes as he recalled the many times simple flirting from Decky had him weak in the knees because it wasn’t just words when it came to the other jewish boy, it was something about his actual presence and proximity that became intoxicating.

“And Sonny? Don’t get me started on Sonny, dude. You’re fine there, because if Sonny says no to Decky whenever Decky calls him next then you’re not even going to get to the flirting stage. Sonny’s an ornery dick on a good day, and they're both unhealthy in a ton of ways but the way that they treat each other and their relationship isn’t one of them. Decky’s going to be getting Sonny’s permission to ask you out or he’s not, in which case he won’t lead you on or I’d bite him next time I saw him, and not in the kinky way. In the ‘how dare you try and play with my bestie’ feral gremlin kinda way, y’know?” Rye was a healer, not a fighter, sue him. “Plus, you know, PJ would slaughter him, probably DJ too at the very least, and he wouldn’t dare raise a hand to defend himself against them because he’d know he deserves it.” Rye finally took a breath from his informative assurances and took another sip of his drink, ignoring the now cold food before him with a small frown, realizing he hadn’t had much more than his fries before he let it all cool too much to eat, not even a bite taken from his chicken tenders. Oh well, JJ was more important. He leaned onto his crossed arms, elbows resting on the unbalanced and wobbly tabletop, and addressed the final issue that he recalled from her ramble.

“We all already knew he liked you, JJ, and now he finally realizes it too. Don’t start doubting yourself now, yeah? You’ve waited, you’ve played it safe, but safety’s about to be off, babe. Now’s the time to buckle up for the ride.”

Internally noting the advice her friend was giving her, JJ looked around them, at those sitting in the food court and the passersby. She never expected her crush would bear fruit but now Decky saw her and he wanted her, at least physically. That was a good thing and yet, even when her friend told her to stop doubting herself, she found herself more worried than usual. Turning back to him, catching his kind, brown eyes, while her gaze was packed with concern, love and respect, Jordyn worried, “And you’re okay with this?” Rye deserved love more than anyone she knew and she would hate if he was burying his feelings for Decky because he knew how she felt. All he had to do was say the word and she’d shut down any romantic or sexual aspects she had with the mechanic. “I get it, you’re giving me advice and all and I know you’re always rooting for me but as your friend, I want to know— no. I need to know that my actions won’t hurt you.”

Extending her legs from under the table, she grabbed a hold of one of Rye’s legs. Instead of holding hands, she held his leg (minimal mess since she didn’t want to reach over her food). “Regardless of how I feel, Gavriel,” JJ continued. “You are my best friend and you come first.” There was extra emphasis on the last part, wanting him to know that he was her priority and no relationship would pull them apart. No matter what, they had each other. “You know so much about Decky, you know that right? And the last thing I want on my conscience is something like I took what makes you happy away from you. I know you have other lovers, you tell me everything, but you can’t deny what you have with Decky is special.”

“You’re right, I’ve never denied that we had something special, but what’s between Decky and I, the important part? I don’t think it’s that kind of love, Jay,” Rye imparted, eyes leaving her face and skittering across the crowd without actually taking any of the faces in. You tell me everything. That was only partially true. He hadn't told her what happened with Ronnell aside from the barebones, and absolutely nothing about what happened once the firefighter had gotten upset with Rye. He didn't lie to JJ, he just didn't give her an in depth explanation. The only people that actually know what happened there were Helen and Decky, who knew everything, and to a lesser extent of knowledge, Monarch, Sin, and AJ. Well, maybe Monarch knew more than she let on, but she didn't get the information from Rye.

Anxious fingers found his napkin and began to fray it before tearing off a tiny piece at a time and balling it up, only to toss it into his box of unfinished food that now served as the base for their table’s trash before going back for another round. Of course what he had with Decky was special, the two boys didn’t just share touch as a love language, they also shared a culture, one that encouraged strong ties amidst its tribe and fostered deeper connection and conversation with every encouraged question. Rye was a positive connection to the culture his upbringing with his parents withheld from him, and Decky and his family had been the community and conversations that Rye missed from home. There was just something different about the commiseration of having transferred to a place where even the people at your synagogue were completely caught up in the frivolity and shallow depths of the world that they drowned themselves in. Decky had been a breath of fresh air that hadn’t come around until almost a year into Rye’s own acclimation to California.

To top all of that off, Decky was far too much like Rye’s childhood friend from the start, and the second the shorter boy had seen those haunted mahogany eyes that constantly scanned the world for threats, he’d been drawn to him. His mother called it his healer’s heart, and he never denied it. He wasn’t there to fix people, just to show them that they were seen and accepted as they were, and if that love sent them on a road to healing then all the better, but if that person stayed the same? Rye saw them. He’d always see them. When he’d found out Decky was AJ’s friend, Rye had used his flirtatious connection with the king gearhead to ‘run’ into Decky at the next party while he’d been partying with their mutual connection.

“We’re great as we are. I liked sleeping with him but it was never going to be anything more than a deep friendship, Jay. He’s too much li-” Rye froze, fingers clenching around the tattered remnants of his napkin and the leg in contact with JJ’s wrapped desperately against her limb to ground himself. Memories rose unwanted in his mind like a sudden swell in shallow waters, threatening to engulf his mind and drag him away in the undertow. “He’s too much like Toby, having him as a friend is perfect, but I don’t think I'd be able to love him in an actual relationship without seeing someone else in his place sometimes, and that’s not fair. I wouldn’t be good for him. I don’t know if I’d be good for anyone, but especially not Decky. I love him too much to ever even try that with him, and he knows that. It’s why it was so easy for us to stop when AJ and I started. You’re different from what he knows, but trust me when I say that’s a good thing. I never would have encouraged you if I wasn’t completely secure in my place in this whole thing.”

There was a sigh of relief after hearing Rye’s words. JJ was new to all this relationship stuff. Truth be told, out of all her sisters, including her step sisters, only Addie had the most experience in this department. That said a lot since the girl loved sex and loved love. She was able to let go of any restraints of the social constructs of sexual orientation, identity and gender, as well as the ideologies of sex and romance to get herself involved in chasing a feeling. A feeling of ecstacy. Not even Dallas, their older sister by a year, actively pursued a relationship, content with her pursuit to visit the planets in the galactic skies. Jordyn was out of her element and she hoped her personality alone could get Decky to see her for more than a one night stand but only time could tell. She would never know unless she took the risk. It was a little scary and nothing usually scared her, aside from her babies dying one day. To be vulnerable, completely to someone, as if they were family to her, allowing them inside her heart and telling them things that she doesn’t even tell her twin… a scary thought but not scary enough to hold her back. Her desire outweighed her fear and she knew deep down. She wanted Decky, like really, really, really wanted him. “I hope he likes my different. I’m a little weirdo, I know that… different could be good, like you said. I want my different to be good for him.”

As JJ reached to take a sip of her drink, contemplating her thoughts and how Mordechai would pursue her, Rye’s phone vibrated in his pocket. This time it was shorter, informing him that it was a text.

“I think it will be. If not, we riot,” Rye once more assured his best friend, this time with a joke, while reaching into his pocket and pulling his phone out to check who texted him. “Sorry, one sec.”

FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER
I realized calling you was definitely weird. AJ gave me your number. I wanted to see if you were okay. Also please bear with me, I don’t like to text… call me? If you’re comfortable with it. If not, can we talk tomorrow? At the dance? If not, that’s fine too. Alright, going to shut up now. Talk later.

Another text came in.

FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER
It’s Niles, by the way.

Rye stared at his phone screen, blinking rapidly as he processed the words before him, fingers on his free hand tapping rapidly against his thumb in a repetitive and soothing pattern. “It…it's Niles,” He muttered for JJ's sake as hope began to bloom in his chest. Niles asked AJ for his number. Niles had gone out of his way to get Rye’s number and message him, which meant Rye hadn't completely and utterly fucked up this morning in front of the library.

The way that Niles texted was nowhere near the way that Niles spoke, and Rye actually found himself grateful for that, if only because without his own anxiety from standing in front of his crush, Rye was now privy to a bit of Niles’ own. He was nervous. Niles was nervous, and tried to immediately cover all his bases so that he didn't have to field several questions in response. Was Niles nervous about texting Rye? Or was it texting in general that made him come off as a bit more awkward and anxious than he is in person? Rye’s free hand went from finger tapping to desperately swirling his earbud cord around the digits in a constant flow of motion as his thoughts ran off without him.

“JJ, it's Niles,” Rye repeated, this time with a bit of hopeful panic in his tone. He shoved the device over to his friend so she could also read the message. “What do I say? What if I tell him I don't like phone calls and he gets upset with me?” Rye didn't hide that he had his hearing disorder, he just didn't advertise. The most you get when you try to explain that you constantly have your own version of a tinny dial tone constantly reverberating through your auditory senses was either confusion then well intentioned louder speech, straight up denial, or the classic ‘my ears have rang before, it can't be that bad,’. As if a single or multiple infinitesimal moments of your life where you hear a slight change of pitch was comparable to never once being able to understand the concept of true silence. As if it was the same thing to have ringing triggered by the clanking of ceramic and metal pieces together as it was to have your audio processing and understanding completely overwhelmed and blocked off by the incessant shrill siren that was so loud it caused nausea.

Assessing the texts, staying calm (although internally she was excited for her friend), JJ took what she knew of Rye and what she was gathering of Niles from the text alone and processed the information accordingly. Before she gave any advice though, she noticed the voicemail. “Maybe we should check the voicemail he left out first and that could help you decide? Looks like he is willing to text even if he seems anxious as heck. This is crazy.” The gremlin girl said in disbelief. “This is cool Niles? The one that’s quiet and reading his books? The one that sleeps under the tree with little to no care in the world? The one that put you in a straight up panic attack this morning?” JJ couldn’t believe it. The words coming from this other person didn’t match the face but then again, Niles was one of the smart students that kept to himself. She didn’t really know him. Not like Kate and Kim did. “Do you want me to listen to it? Or we can transcribe it into words?”

“Honestly I put myself into a panic attack, but yeah, that Niles. Transcribe it, please,” Rye answered, watching his best friend press the required button in the voicemail app and then press play once the words had finally popped up on the screen. As he listened to Niles’ voice, his eyes locked onto the short paragraph of text.

VM: Hey Rye. Niles here. Before you ask, AJ gave me your number. I… want to make sure I didn’t hurt you in any way by leaving the way I did. If you want to talk about it, this is my number. Text me, call me…video chat me, whatever makes you comfortable.*clears throat* Sorry if I upset you. I wasn’t really thinking… but that’s a conversation we can have when we talk. I’m here when you need me. *Click*

In his tone, it was controlled. All his emotions were contained. The only part that showed a sudden drop in uncertainty was when he mentioned video chatting, as if that wasn’t something he did often, if at all. He was willing to adjust for Rye, if that made the other boy comfortable. He spoke genuine and from the heart, and although it was hard to notice, the long pauses between words showed how careful Niles was trying to be, having thought about what he’d say long before he made the call. While the speech to text didn’t convey the tone, it certainly showed when Niles took breaths and breaks. This was a sensitive matter and if the text wasn’t revealing enough, the voicemail showed that Niles, like Rye, spent the whole day thinking about this morning and whether he fucked up. It was eye opening to say the least.

“Holy shit,” Rye breathed in disbelief, his heart beating just a bit too fast and his face quickly taking on a red hue as the words sunk in. The idea that Niles had been worried about him, had been thinking about him, should not have been as mind blowing as it was for the anxious boy. But it wasn't just thinking about him that got Rye, it was the fact that Niles wanted to check up on him, must have realized that the way he headed off after their conversation had been the wrong move for someone like Rye. It was the fact that he was willing to forgo his preference of mobile interaction in order to make it easier for Rye, likely without even really knowing why Rye had his own preference in the first place. Niles was seeing Rye, and he wasn't trying to look away.

Shaking fingers saved Niles phone number to a new contact, simply under the other boy's name instead of a nickname or pun like he usually does. When his brain wasn't broken from the way Niles spoke and the mix of excitement and nerves for their next interaction, he'd be able to think of a good one. Then, he returned to his messages and took a deep breath before typing and sending off his response.

To: Niles 😳
Hey, thanks for reaching out!
I don't do phone calls well so between text or video call
Whichever of those is better for you
Or if you want to wait for the dance that's fine too.
Oh!
And you don't need to apologize, but thank you

Rye stared at his screen as his finger hovered over the send button, second guessing himself before he'd even gotten out the gate. Silence stretched between the two friends until Rye looked back up to JJ for the support he needed to click send.

JJ shook his leg that she held onto with her feet. He would never know until he did it. What ifs, if things went differently, could be realities. This was Rye’s chance to make Niles a reality in his life, just like she was making Decky more and more an integrated part of her life. “Dooooo it. You got this. It isn’t like he’s going to say no. He reached out to you. Remember.”

“Yeah…I mean, yeah! Yeah you’re right,” Rye swallowed harshly before smashing his finger down on his screen. No going back now. He looked up to JJ for only a second, intent on using her to distract him until Niles replied, but his phone vibrated mere moments later.

From: Niles 😳
Video call tonight? I need to pick up my sisters from work, then we need to figure out dinner. But afterwards, I’ll be available. Does 8:30 work for you?

At this point, Jordyn was wiggling her eyebrows as she wore a devilish smirk. This was going smooth, better than smooth. Amazing! Maybe Niles wasn’t straight and maybe he did like her friend. Or maybe he was a good guy worried about the impression he left off. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter! Rye was making progress and soon enough he’d be on everyday talking terms with his crush, outside of the library. Teasingly, JJ made a heart with her hands and danced in her seat. “♪ Niles and Rye sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. ♫”

“Oh yeah? Two can play at that,” Rye laughed with a blush high on his cheeks before giving her a devilish grin and going for the one shot kill. “♪ Decky and JJ down by the creek, F-U-C-K-I-N-G. ♫”

“Stoppppppp!” JJ’s genuine sweetness and innocence went from her heart to her own cheeks, immediately bringing her legs back from under the table. Decidedly, she retreated from the conversation by cleaning up the table. “Look who has a date tonight, not me!” She stuck her tongue out, not taking a cheap shot but still poking fun at him. Grabbing their trays, she rushed to the trash. Her bags, one tote with a Biggie mouse, were by her seat which meant she’d come back but only after she brushed off the embarrassment. The idea of sex made her nervous and it showed. Once she settled her heart, from the sudden change in pace, and calmed the butterflies in her stomach, she’d come back but for now Rye could sit in his own emotions, thinking about Niles. He deserved it.

“Aww man, too far,” Rye chided himself when JJ made her retreat while also being well aware that she was getting back at him in her own way when she didn’t come back immediately. Determined to apologize for pushing her boundary when she returned, Rye took his punishment on the chin and focused on forming a text back to Niles and sending it without her proofreading or encouragement. Fair’s fair. Leg bouncing up and down erratically, Rye’s fingers slowly tapped the screen as he thought far too much on a response that could have been a simple sure. Finally, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he hit send, only opening one back up to make sure he had succeeded and it had been sent off to his crush.

To: Niles 😳
Yeah, totally! 😁I’ll be around, so just hit me up!
Thanks again for reaching out 👍
Talk soon! 👋

“...You desperate motherfucker,” Rye groaned to himself after rereading the sent texts, dropping his forehead onto his hands and making the whole table shake in the process. Yeah, he used emojis a lot but one for each line was a bit embarrassing even for him, and now all he could think about were the shitty MLM spam messages that tended to read much the same way.

See what happens when he’s left alone? This is why he needed his best friend!

[Aces Away]

^{Timestamp: Beginning of game
Celeste, Piper, and Athena
@LovelyComplex, @Aces Away, @Melissa
TW: Misuse/Abuse of prescription medication}

____________________________________________________________________



____________________________________________________________________

Piper stared at her perfect mask of makeup in the slightly foggy mirror, letting her dark waves cascade back over her shoulders as she took the clip out from atop her head. When her eyes caught sight of the bruise on her wrist that her emergency makeup wasn’t equipped to cover, she frowned and reached into her backup purse for some thick bangles that matched her outfit, slipping them on like it was any other day. The forearm length red leather jacket covered all the scratches from her run down the cliff and to the school, and her sore and cut up feet were resting in comfy fuzzy socks that were completely hidden by her backup boots. For all the world of Beverly Hill High School ever had to know, Piper simply went home to change her outfit for the game, ever the fashion icon to be ready with multiple themed styles each day. Finally ready, she pulled her phone out and sent Adam a quick text, just saying thank you and signing off with her name so he could save her number, before returning the device to her pocket. Celeste had been texting her non-stop despite Piper’s responses that she would be there soon, and the buzzing continued even after her latest reply, a constant reminder against her thigh that she was disappointing someone else that bothered to care for her. Putting on the smile across her dark red lips, the one she’s practiced in the mirror her whole life, Piper sucked up the pain that jolted through each stride as she began her strut out of the girl’s locker room.

Only to come up short as she opened the door and ran into the brick wall that was Butler. Even with the sunglasses on, she could feel his glare on her and she shrunk immediately, a lion becoming a scared kitten in an instant.

“Butler, I-”

“You’ve been grounded.”

“But–!”

“No buts. No Homecoming dance. No Party. You’re lucky your father is kind enough to still let you go to the game.” The mountain of a man scolded, and Piper went to bite her lip shamefully before she remembered her freshly applied lipstick and settled for just looking away from Butler instead. No dance? No party? She’d worked so hard to be allowed to go in the first place! She’d even gotten Celeste and Athena to convince daddy that she could be over one of their houses in the time leading up to the dance, and now it was all for nothing. She’d screwed it all up by acting like she had when she’d still had her mother and hope for a better tomorrow. She thought she’d learned better years ago, but that was before anyone had stepped in for her. Before Adam had taught her something new, given her something back she hadn’t realized she’d lost. “I cleaned up your bloody footprints leading all the way here, you’re welcome.” Piper flinched, fighting back tears in the silent hallway. “You’re late, by the way. Start walking.”

And she would. Normally, she really would, but Butler was here and had cleaned up after her, that meant he had time and last she’d seen him he was on the ground with Adam standing over him. So if he was here, if he had that much time?

“Is…is Adam oka-”

“Walk, Piper, or I’m taking you home.”

Piper started walking immediately, glancing back only once as Butler started to shadow her and taking vindictive pleasure when she saw the way he limped before he began to properly compensate for the pain Adam had put him in. They said nothing to each other after that, and as Piper emerged into the fading evening sunlight and made her way toward the field and stands, she couldn’t help but breathe deeply and close her eyes on occasion, trying to listen for the breeze rustling bush leaves and the chirping of insects.

♥♥♥

Piper pulled out her phone just before she hit the bleachers and pulled up Ethan’s contact, hesitating over the keys for a moment as she tried to think of how to break the news to her boyfriend. Much like Celeste and Athena, Piper doubted he would be happy about the matter. He’s been so excited for his party ever since he started planning it, practically talking her ear off about it sometimes, and now she was throwing a wrench in his plans because she’d been selfish. Typical of her, as daddy would say.

To: Ethan 💋
Sorry baby
I screwed up
got grounded 😢
at the game but no dance or party…

Piper Rose 🌹

With that done, she let out a breath and fixed her hair once more before rounding the bleachers, only needing to glance up at the spot Celeste always sat in to gain her bearings before she made a beeline to the blonde, a disarming smile on her face as she got to her best friend.

“Hey, sorry I’m late!” She announced, as she primly sat down next to Celeste and crossed her ankles. She ignored her Butler setting up post next to Celeste's and focused instead on the spotlight blonde beside her, forcing any thoughts about the day out of her head with practiced ease. “Atrocious to leave you alone, I know, but I had to change outfits.” Her chipped nails were hidden in fists at her sides in hopes of stalling any inquiries as long as possible, but she knew it would be clocked eventually. Celeste knew of her little disappearances, it was just that even she didn’t know where Piper went, it was the brunette’s one true secret from the blonde. “I can’t believe I beat Thena here, though. Like, where is she?”

“God, watch us find out she has a boyfriend now and I’ll have to watch you both be happy without me,” Celeste protested, in an ornery mood because of a certain Spanish prince. Grabbing her purse, she placed it on her lap and rummaged through it to take out a few packs of gum. It was an assortment of brands and flavors. “Want some?” She offered her best friend, her mood gradually lightening up in the presence of Piper. Her other half. As Celeste waited for her friend to say yes or no to gum, she complained, “You wouldn’t believe who decided to come sit next to me! I’m so glad you’re here because now I don’t need to think about that awful experience. The nerve of that boy.”

Piper’s phone vibrated.

From: Ethan 💋
Yeah, no.
You’re going.
We’ll talk soon.

“Oh? Here you were talking about Thena and I having boy distractions,” She maintained face as she read the text but that didn’t stop the pit of dread that dropped into her stomach as the messages flashed up at her. What did that mean? What was Ethan expecting her to do? Daddy had already said no, already retracted the precarious permissions he had granted her with in the first place, there was no way she’d be able to convince him again, especially if Butler told him everything about the stunt she’d pulled. Her boyfriend was many things, but none of those things were introduced to daddy as her boyfriend, and as per their agreement to keep things as down low as possible, she doubted he ever would be. Even then…convincing Gabriel Lyon of anything was not an easy feat. Focusing back on her bestie before she sent Ethan her reply, Piper asked, “Who was it that dared think he could catch your eye, babe?”

To: Ethan 💋
What? No.
Daddy would never let me.
He already said no.
I can’t just change his mind.

From: Ethan 💋
You can’t.
I can.

“Álvaro,” Celeste growled behind gritted teeth. When Celeste noticed Piper being distracted and ignoring her offer of gum, she shrugged and closed her purse, putting it right beside her. “Me being the good samaritan that I am allowed him to sit next to me. I guess he couldn’t deal with his friends and all the football talk. It went well until he acted like he didn’t know I played tennis. At this school. I’ve literally seen him in the bleachers. That’s when I was like okay, this boy is up to no good and trying to make me his sloppy seconds. Like GROSS! He fucked Naomi. I don’t want to touch him. Not even with a 10 foot pole.” The more the blonde talked about this subject, the more heated she got. Clutching onto her skirt, she hissed, “i’M tRyInG tO LeArN yOU. AS IF!” She didn’t care who was listening. She wanted the world to know the prince-of-nothing was not on her good side. He deserved the fall from grace.

“You wouldn’t have been sloppy seconds, Cel, you would have been an upgrade.” Athena had slid into their row of the bleachers with ease, taking the seat on Celeste’s opposite side while she had been ranting. The blonde couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s frustration, “I still can’t get over the fact that you let him sit here for long enough to have a conversation.” She leaned in to make eye contact with Piper and gave her a smile, “Is Ethan coming to the game?”

“UGH who knows!” Piper replied without a second thought as she threw her phone into her pocket with a pout. I can. Like, what? Ethan wasn’t making any sense right now and being asked about it was just frustrating her further. “He said he’d see me tomorrow in the text that he sent after the pep rally, but now I don’t know what’s going on!” She crossed her arms and huffed, tilting her head to the other stunning blonde that completed the trio known as the Triple Crowns. Or, if you hated them as much as many in the school did, the Red Flags. “He just does what he wants, I never know what’s going on in his head,” She reached into her pocket and pulled one of her xanax out and tossed it back dry, no trace of relaxation from her meditation with Adam remaining in her body. “I got myself grounded, by the way, and now he thinks he can fix it? With daddy? As if. Anyway, Athena’s right, Princey boy is lucky you let him sit down at all, and then he tried to play a game with you? Gag me. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“RIGHT?! And girl, Ethan doesn’t deserve you. I keep telling you, to get a boy like that to really notice you, you need to go radio silent. Then he’ll see what he’s missing and that’s a QUEEN. Like how dare he? And oh my god, speaking of queens,” Celeste went from one friend to the other. “What was taking you so long, my dearest Thena?”

Athena sighed, pretending to act annoyed. Let’s just say she hadn’t let her best friends in on the Benji situation. Or the Jonah situation. In fact, both Celeste and Piper were completely in the dark about the two men in her life. Sure, they had met Jonah on the occasion, but the other members of the Triple Crown had no clue the antics the two got up to when it came to their business model. And when it came to the boy currently on the Football field, neither of her friends had a clue that she had been texting Benji all Summer and was harboring quite the crush on him.

So… she lied.

“Sorry, I had to talk with my Aunt about something. Family business always calls, y’know?” She shrugged, and diverted the subject. “Hold on, rewind. Piper you got grounded? Why?”

“Oh,” Piper froze when the conversation came back around to her, having hoped to slide right past her comment by focusing on Celeste instead, but she should have known that their thorough third would have caught on. She looked at them with wide eyes attempting innocence and uncrossed her arms to throw her hair over her shoulder distractedly. “I just, like…okay, I totally ditched Butler earlier and he fucking snitched like the bitch he is, so now daddy’s mad,” she revealed carefully while letting her annoyance at the scarred man a few feet from them seep into her tone. She was tempted, for a moment, to tell her girls about Adam and about everything else that had happened, but something about it felt personal. It felt like it would invite questions and judgements from two of her favorite people, and her pills weren’t working well enough for her to be ready to field them. She waved her hand carelessly, bangles clacking together, and sighed heavily. “No more fun for Piper after the game tonight.”

Flabbergasted and not pleased, Celeste snapped her gum in annoyance and complained, “Your Butler is so TOXIC, Piper. My Butler would NEVER.” This would not do at all. Celeste wouldn’t dare go to a school function without her best friends. The audacity of Gabriel Lyon prevented his daughter from being a fun-loving teenage girl. “Please tell me Ethan is stepping in? Do I need to call him and tell him to be a man? Do I need to be the man?” The Green Princess already had her phone out, ready to give her cousin a piece of her mind. “Also, girl, we need to stop doing what daddy says and live our goddamn life. What are you going to do, Piper Rose Lyon? You do realize you not going to the dance is a CARDINAL SIN.”

Piper frowned at Celeste and hovered her hands over the blonde’s phone without touching it as though it would actually stop the glamorous girl from making whatever move she wanted. “It’s not that easy, Celeste,” She whined, her lip jutting out. Celeste would never get it. Neither of her best friends would. It didn’t matter if they knew that her bedroom door locked from the outside and not the inside, or that Piper’s Butler was meant to be Levi’s but failed his final test and was then hired by her father instead. They never seemed to understand that there were chains on her wrists and legs heavier than any real ones could hope to be. She huffed and retracted her hands from their place above the phone slowly, cautiously. “But yes, when I told him I wouldn’t be able to change daddy’s mind he just texted back ‘You can’t, I can’, which like, what? Even my Bibi wouldn’t be able to convince him now. I mean, Butler got hurt and he lost me for, like, an hour. I'd be surprised if I’m even allowed to go to my next photoshoot with how upset he must be.”

“Your dad could stand to learn a thing or two about parenting. Or he could just take a Xanax.” Athena shook her head, “If you need an escape plan, you know you always have a room at the Helmsley house.” She placed a comforting hand on Piper’s shoulder, “Maybe Ethan has something up his sleeve you don’t know about. Blackmail can get you far in this life, after all.” The blonde turned to Celeste, moving her head in such a way where their dark haired friend could not see her face, and raised her eyebrows in a slight panic. The other girl was right, not going to the dance was indeed a sin, and if there was a way out of this, she would try her very best to help.

“Whatever my stupid cousin has in mind, I’m sure he’s thinking his ego will carry him to success. So. How about this,” Celeste watched the field, loudly snapping her gum, thinking about an ingenious plan to get her best friend out tomorrow. She needed to double up on her cousin’s plan because she’d be damned if she didn’t have Piper when she went to the dance and party. “Why don’t we force your dad’s hand? The fact your Butler got hurt is curious to me, seeing how our Butlers come from a very legit company, so we’ll need to talk about this… later. BUT if you, me, and Thena go to the dance together, all showing up at your house with dates ourselves, I don’t think daddy dearest would want to deny you then. What? Is he going to start a war with his business partners? That’s like social suicide. To add extra incentive, I’ll have my mommy come and take pictures of us. They can chat away and she can convince him you’ll be at my place afterwards.” Celeste instructed, thinking her plan would be better than Ethan’s, by a long shot.

“Baby,” Celeste turned to Piper and gently grabbed her hands, squeezing them with love but also showing through her gaze that she could not, would not allow Piper to go out without a fight. “You’re only in highschool once unless you fail out. You really can’t miss this party. That’s like setting yourself up to drop out right now and how would your father feel about that then, hm?” She was losing her point but Celeste still talked with conviction and confidence, like she was the smartest girl on the bleachers. “This is our last year to make memories and I’m not okay with you making those memories alone in your bedroom. Do you understand?”

Piper stared silently at the two blondes that made up almost all of the happiness and freedom that she ever experienced, and her frown became an empty, wooden smile as she swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “You girls are my best friends,” she spoke quietly to avoid any shake that almost escaped in her tone while she also desperately hoped for both girls would keep their attention on her face and words and not her actions. She didn't acknowledge Celeste's comment about talking more on what happened with Butler later, knowing that whether she replied or not, Celeste would make sure to remember for the both of them. Athena’s own comment about Piper's father needing to take a Xanax was incredibly ironic to the brunette, given that her father had control over her own prescription and only allowed her a certain amount per week ever since the incident over the summer. She squeezed Celeste's hands with her own, as the blonde still had them in her grasp, and did her best to gently extricate herself from the dainty yet powerful grip before her friend decided to look down and catch sight of the bruises Butler's grip had left on her when Adam had sent him to the ground. “But please, please don't do anything that can make daddy upset. He'll just extend my punishment later even if he does let me go. At least this way it's just the one day…”

Athena raised her eyebrows at Celeste’s plan, her face contorting into one of surprise. How were they supposed to show up at Piper’s house with their dates to break Rapunzel out of her tower when they didn’t have any dates to begin with! She shook her head slightly, the other blonde always had a way with words and did not put thought behind her ideas when it was necessary. Like right now. But, not wanting to ruin their united front, she nodded. “Celeste has a point,” Thena gave her a pointed look, almost as if she was staring into her soul, “Your dad won’t be able to say no if we all show up, and if he’s upset he wouldn’t dare show his hand.” The blonde smiled softly, “We’d do anything for you, honey. And I promise we’re going to make this year count, starting with tomorrow night.”

“See, I have a point!” Celeste crossed her arms, taking the validation near immediately. When the smart one of the group joined forces with her, she knew that she was onto something. “And quit with the damsel shit, Piper. I know you have a fire in you. Use it. Like come on, you’re a Lyon. Be a Lyon and stop playing so coy.” The small blonde was getting more and more agitated by the second. She chewed her gum and glared at the field. This wouldn’t be the first time Gabriel Lyon ruined things for her. “Is this really how the rest of your year is going to play out? Are you seriously going to let your father ruin everything? It’s like you’re already defeated when you never put up a fight.” Ugh. This was so typical of her. Quitting before she ran the race. She couldn’t survive without her, could she?

“Cel,” Athena reprimanded through gritted teeth, “Not the time, nor place.”

Pop.

Celeste sucked her gum in as a response, watching the game and seething. She didn’t have anything to say to that. Athena knew she was right.

It’s like they forgot that she used to have Scott to help her at home, to fight for her, and remind her of the fight she had in herself, to sit with her on her bed and remind her that she wasn’t as crazy or useless or small as daddy made her feel. Piper had actually been the worse of the two Lyon children when they were younger, always running away and throwing tantrums in public and making it clear that just because daddy was the one that won custody of them from both of their mothers, that did not make him the one she wanted to be with. Piper had been a disruption, a stain to the Lyon brand and rambunctious tomboy when she wasn’t busy throwing fits or breaking down. Granted, Butler had always been there so she only actually got away with however much her father allowed. The extent of her freedom has been dictated by Gabriel Lyon since the moment her mother and Scott’s mother made the mistake of trying to file for full custody of them, and any time she reached for the sky in her cage she realized it was nothing more than paint on the ceiling. Scott had been just as trapped as her. Celeste and Athena had powered their way through early, of course, the girls an inseparable trio since single digits. Then, Bibi had come along and got her into modeling. Piper fell into routine.

But Scott left and it all went to shit at home, and then she got too fucked up and Butler brought her home and told daddy and things have been spiralling down ever since. She’d numb herself daily and she hadn’t cried the way she had with Adam since the night Scotty officially left her behind.

Celeste was wrong. It wasn’t that she never put up a fight, it’s that the fight had slowly been drained out of her along with her hope and now she was just existing as a bystander in her own life for her own sanity. The cliff, Adam, that had been the most Piper that had risen to the surface since the summer, and look what happened.

It wasn’t her father that ruined everything, it was Piper. Being herself.

Cracked fingernails dug into her palms as she fisted her hands tightly in her lap before she reached for the last pill she had in her possession and tossed the final Xanax back with abandon, mood now sour after thinking about her brother. It’s not like any of the other ones had helped, but why not. The burn as the dry pill scraped down her throat kept her from responding to her friends until she was sure it was clear, and once it was she crossed her arms and responded to them both with more bite than intended.

“If you want me to fight for myself then stop trying to come to my rescue. Let Ethan do his thing, and if he fails and can’t get daddy to let me go to the dance then I’ll know that he’s not worth staying with any longer.”

“So you do want your Prince to save you,” Celeste scoffed, not surprised. “Fine. Choose a boy over us,” the Crown Green stood up, bringing her purse to her side. Nose high up in the air, she hmpfed in displeasure. Her day was turning horribly. First the prince-of-nothing, now her best friends. “I’m done with this. We’re going to lose, I can feel it in the air. I can’t believe you made me wait and now I’m bored!” Putting her shades back on, flipping her hair over her shoulder, Celeste maliciously snickered, “When my cousin fails, because he will, remember this talk. And remember my voice when I say: I told you so.” Surveying her friends and their facial expressions, seeing Athena gritting her teeth, Celeste rolled her eyes and brought her attention to the towel that prevented their bottoms from touching the dirty bleachers. Disposable. She had plenty of towels at home. “Remember to toss that when you leave. We don’t need some perv trying to steal something our asses touched.” The thought of some gross person collecting their things gave her goosebumps. She had a stalker once but Butler took care of him. All was good in her world and she knew better than to allow someone the satisfaction of following her without her knowing ever again. “Goodbye girls, this has been so… life changing. Not really. It was boring. We really do need to stop talking about boys. They’re not worth our time. I will see you tomorrow, or not.” Her gaze fell on Piper one last time before sauntering away. “God Butler, please tell me something worth my while.” The Triple Crown girls were down to two, leaving Athena and Piper alone together.

The remaining blonde sighed, shaking her head slowly.

Celeste could be… well, a lot.

It was no secret she was the drama queen of the trio, and Thena was always the one to clean up her messes, whether they were intentionally made or not. The girl wordlessly scooted next to Piper, closing the gap that their friend left upon her departure. “You know, she means well.” Athena rationalized, hoping that the girl would know well enough to understand. “It comes from a place of love, she’s just… protective.”

“Well sometimes I just don't want to hear it,” Piper huffed, looking away from Athena so the blonde didn't see her tears of frustration. And after all the work she did to get her makeup back to perfect, wasted. “Does she think I don't know I'm pathetic? I don't need her telling me too. I don't care anymore,” The words slipped out before she could stop them and she bit the inside of her cheek in self reprimand. She was usually better at holding everything together but that brief flame of hope with Adam had been suitably extinguished with the return of Butler's damning presence. Piper could play pretend all she wanted, but she wasn't her own person and she was getting too tired to carry on like she was. She had been reminded of how she used to be and then quickly reminded of why she was no longer that way. She loved her friends dearly, but she was bitter too. Athena would be able to read her like a book if she so much as glanced the blonde's way. Sniffing as an act of pretension just as much as it was to cover the stinging in her eyes, Piper watched the field without taking a single thing in, retreating within herself before the game could even really take off. She brushed invisible dirt off of her pants and dropped her chin into her palm, resting her elbow on her knee. “I only came to the dumb game for you two and now she doesn't even want to be around me, I might as well stop ruining things for everyone and go home too, get my grounding started.”

“No, Piper, don’t say that.” The blonde’s face fell, her brows furrowing at Piper’s devastating confession and the moisture she could see forming in the corners of her eyes. She sighed, brushing a piece of her friend’s hair out of her eyes. “I want you to be here, please stay.” Athena pleaded, hoping that her friend would take a breath and enjoy their evening together (even though it was partially for personal benefit since she didn’t want to watch Benji from the bleachers alone like a loser). “Let’s just forget that conversation even happened for now and we can talk about it later. I want you to have fun tonight, you and me.”

“Okay…” Piper went along with Athena’s request, slumping against her friend’s side like a ragdoll and dropping her head on the blonde’s shoulder, a combination of the effects of her meds and the exhaustion of running all the way back to the school after climbing a cliff finally beginning to breach her awareness with the less judgmental approach Athena took with her. She was so fucking tired, and Thena was comfy. She took a deep, steadying breath and wondered if her best friend had intentionally used the words escape plan when offering Piper a room at the Helmsley home, or if she was just being dramatic and intending to mean for a sleepover. As she watched the players move on the field like battling and racing ants, the brunette realized something. “Thee…why are we watching football? I like, I don’t even know what’s happening.”

“Shhh… don’t worry about it, just enjoy the game.”

[LovelyComplex]

_{TW: mentions/description of withdrawal symptoms
@LovelyComplex, @Aces Away, & @Hey Im Jordan
TIMESTAMP: Sometime after The Price is Right
Ethan, Andy, Decky, & Sully
Big FT of: Henry Green
Small FT: Owen Lyon}

____________________________________________________________________


____________________________________________________________________

Decky glared up from the backseat of the car at the house Ethan had driven them, arm around Sully’s shoulders as the younger senior dozed pressed up against his side. The spanish colonial style home stood large and wide across an already sprawling property with perfectly trimmed hedges and manicured lawns, garden beds taking up both sides of the house with the ornate entryway sitting regally in the middle. He had a feeling before, but he knew for sure now that he was going to hate every minute of this, and if the vineyard party was to be any similar then he was glad he’d be high as fuck the whole time. As Ethan brought the car to a stop, Decky tapped Sully on his bicep until the lighter brunette opened bleary eyes, which Decky easily took as his cue to straighten up and take his enveloping arm away.

Sully sat up and rubbed at his eyes as he reacclimated to the waking world, trying to remember what was going on past the fact that he fell asleep on his friend, the other boy easily recognizable to him even before he began to register anything else. He looked at the scowling mechanic blankly before following his gaze out the window of the car and to the property beyond.

“Oh yeah,” He stated simply, gaze traveling across the architecture before them with minimal interest or thought aside from, shit’s huge. Then, he registered that they were there already. “Wait, how long was I sleepin’ for?”

“Does it matter?” Decky scowled at Sully and threw the door open but didn’t step out yet. “Ya obviously needed it. Green, what’re we doin’? Waitin’ here for a cue or just followin’ ya in?”

There wasn’t an immediate response. With his mind finally slowing down, in the comfort of his property, and parked, Ethan was looking through all his messages to make sure he didn’t miss anything from the chat with his boys to his girlfriends’ dms. If it wasn’t obvious by now, Ethan wasn’t the best person to text. Actually, he sucked at it. Noting the time, the game would start in twenty five minutes, Ethan wondered to himself if it was even worth going to the game. The thought of the game was fleeting because soon enough, he realized he had a text from an unknown number. He raised an eyebrow.

From: Unknown
yo, im new. my name’s owen. jamie suggested i text you
he said i need to be in attendance for your party tomorrow
he also said you owe him one for not telling your girlfriends about each other

There was a momentary rumble of protest in his throat. Jamie was being bold, as per usual. Owen? Doesn’t ring a bell. He must be new. Ethan didn’t know any Owen in their year and if Owen was already connected with Jamie, and Jamie suggested Owen to him that means the gossip boy thought this new kid suited the Elite. Or the gossip boy wanted to protect this new kid from Hive. Whatever the reason was, it seemed that his hand was being played for him. Ethan didn’t want any trouble and being on Trixie and Jamie’s good graces wasn’t such a bad thing… sometimes. They were needy, especially when they wanted him to do something. It got exhausting but at the same time, it wasn’t like he cared for school politics and the petty drama. He just wanted to chill and build a brotherhood (which was inclusive to all genders). He just helped them from time to time because they asked (it’s that easy, folks).

Once he added the number in his contact, he messaged back.

To: Owen
you do
anyone that’s anyone is going to be there
don’t expect you to go to the dance
at 6
Party bus will be in the lot 7:30
We ride then

From: Owen
I don't really party so rn I'm just planning on staying at the gym
But Jamie said he'd hook me up with Trixie if I went so I might be there lol

Oh. This was going to be too easy. With quick ease, Ethan copied Trixie’s instagram url and put it in his text with the transfer student. He pressed send, dangling the hot babe to guarantee Owen went to his party. Trixie was hot. She was just hard to get. Maybe Owen would be different. Maybe she’d bite.

To: Owen
your welcome.
see you tomorrow.

“Sorry boys,” Ethan finally responded. “Had to take care of something, but come on, let me show you around my family’s crib.” Ignition off, Ethan was out of his car leading the way to the front entrance. Once he unlocked the front door, he gestured for the two lost souls to enter one of his family’s properties and make themselves at home. “Wha’cha think? Pretty dope, huh?”

“I feel bad for your landscapers,” Sully responded with little thought as he glanced around the ornate foyer with a vaulted ceiling and chandelier, mind still a bit behind and processing the outside still.

“I fuckin’ hate rich people,” Decky muttered darkly, glaring at the ostentatious display before him. “Too much fuckin’ time an’ money, too many tchotchkes. There’s so much shit, what the hell is the point in havin’ all these things?”

“To fill the empty spaces they can’t in their hearts?”

Decky paused and stared at the other poor boy in the room, not surprised that Sully’s barely-there mental filter hadn’t woken up with him, but the tiktoker hadn’t even missed a beat. Decky was almost proud.

“Huh, you’re probably on ta somethin’,” He agreed easily.

The usual laid back and all smiles Ethan Green was now wearing a pinched expression. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the Elite leader whispered under his breath. Crossing his arms, he stared at his two guests disappointed. “You’re both acting like my cousins, but just on the opposite end of the spectrum.” Was he wrong for picking these two to be fake friends with Andy? Well, they didn’t say no to his offer, so this money they were disgusted by was helping them get what they wanted. If they were really against helping him, they should’ve just communicated. It was too late now. They were here and they were going to help him get the vineyard.

“We only have one landscaper and I help him,” Ethan disclosed, flicking at his nails that had dirt in them. “My dad has given him full reigns on the design and basically can do whatever the fuck he wants. He gets paid well. It’s my job to mow the lawn, do the dishes, take out the trash, clean the fucking pool, and be my brother’s keeper. My parents didn’t raise bitches and it’s wild to me your friends with AJ if you think like this.” Looking away from Mordechai and Sully, burying his annoyance and bringing out his casual, cool persona (his automatic setting), Ethan breathed, focusing on the task at hand and emptying out any worry. He yelled, “ANDY YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE!” His voice was loud enough that if his father was home, he would hear. His mom wasn’t home — she was in Tokyo purchasing an exclusive statue for one of her all time favorite animes — so unless she had ultrasonic hearing, she would not hear him. She would not appear.

“He’s got a point.”

“Shut up, Sully.”

Sully shrugged at the surly boy, not having intended to say any more on the matter anyways. Ethan had been right, what Sully and Decky had said was rude and deserved reprimand. Oli was his best friend, it wasn’t like the DIY streamer was unused to sights similar to the Green home. But, Sully forgets himself often and randomly spits out the things he’d heard growing up in his low income neighborhood, where there was no love to be had for the opulent lifestyles existing just a few blocks away. What he’d said about empty hearts had been something his uncle said often, usually a few minutes or hours before he showed up with some stolen items from the very type of people he’d disparaged earlier. There was a reason uncle Del was in and out of jail his whole life, and Sully usually knew better than to quote him. His ma would probably be a little disappointed. Seeing as he’d probably hurt Ethan’s feelings without trying, and wondering if his words would have hurt Oli if he’d heard them, Sully removed himself from their little triangle, wandering away a bit to start inspecting the actual structure off the foyer’s interior rather than what it had hanging on its walls.

Decky glared after the other boy in annoyance, arms crossed defensively and unwilling to admit that Ethan had properly chastised him. Not that the taller boy would care, especially given the way Decky had just acted, but his response had gained him a lot of respect in the gearhead’s eyes, as well as struck a chord with him at the brother’s keeper comment. It made him think of his smoke session in the bathroom earlier with PJ and Nicky, and the only child’s initial unenthusiastic response to the way Decky had spoken about being a sibling.

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

So yeah, Ethan had sufficiently made him feel like a bit of a dick while remaining humble himself, and Decky found himself liking the guy a little more. Who would’ve thought? Still, he didn’t want to be here. It’s been forever since he’s had a proper hit of anything but weed to mellow him out and his people skills were barely passable when he was on a fresh high. But his uncle had insisted and no matter how obstinate he was, he tried his best to respect the wishes of the men that took him and his brother in. Any wind gone from his sails, Decky hunched his shoulders tensely and remained silent by Ethan’s side, awaiting the response and arrival of the two other Greens.

By the time Decky had resolved to silently brood instead of loudly, Andy was only moments away from appearing on the scene… and appear he did. He had a plastic guitar strapped around his neck, hanging at his side. He crossed the long hallway and stood in front of his brother and his ‘friends,’ and it became immediately apparent that Andrew Green’s eyes were bloodshot, a redder tone than a fire hydrant. Somewhere along the way, weed must have come up between Andrew and his father. “Dad’s downstairs. I’m glad you guys are here… He keeps wanting to play vocals, but maybe he’ll let someone else do it.” Andy glanced over at Decky and Sully, adding a quick explanation, “my dad can’t sing. He’s got the juice but not the pipes. Does that make sense?” Though not a groundbreaking sentence, for the first time in their lives, Ethan was hearing his brother sound more like their father as he rambled about ‘the juice.’

He looked at Decky and Sully again, and it was like a wave of reminder had been washed over him. “I don’t know what you guys like. Dad wants everybody to have a good time and he asked if we needed refreshments and I said probably, so! He gave me these to give to you.” He dropped a hand into his jeans pocket and produced a plastic baggie with two very full, very large rolled blunts which he thrust toward Decky. “I think Dad thinks everyone we know is a stoner.” Though he was looking at Decky, that was directed toward his brother.

“Oh, he also wanted me to say ‘mi casa is su casa.’ Although… maybe I shouldn’t have said that he told me to say that… can I try again?” This time, it was back to Sully and Decky.

“No need, I got the message,” Decky replied, scowl still in place but tone lighter than it had been before Andy’s entrance. The other boy was pretty high from a glance alone, and his talkative nature was not something Decky was expecting, but he had a soft spot for ramblers and Andy being both chill and bouncy at the same time was as off putting to the former dealer as it was endearing. He hesitated a bit at the bag being offered to him before reaching out and taking it lightly from the musical Green with a soft but confused, “Thanks,” while craning his head around to look for the other person that was supposed to be falling into the deep end with him. He sighed in irritation when he saw that Sully was staring at the fucking arches of the walls and ceiling instead of paying attention and called out, “Sully, he was talkin’ ta both’a us, tune in man.”

“I was listenin’,” Sully defended as he took a few long strides to Decky’s side, waving at Andy in greeting.

“Repeat it, then.”

“Somethin’ ‘bout juice and refreshments, were we supposed ta bring some?”

“No, and ya definitely weren’t payin’ any attention.”

Sully shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for tryin’. Hey dude,” He looked at Andy, finally addressing him with more than a wave. “Who does the restorations on this place? It’s some of the cleanest shit I’ve ever seen.”

“I don’t know, ask my dad. I thought it was like this when we bought it, but I don’t know… this is just the guest house, maybe they restored it? The main house is getting renovated,” He added that last part with a shrug and a somewhat apologetic look to Sully. He didn’t have an actual answer for the other boy, but his eyes lit up as he thought of something he could tell Sully. Pointing at one of the pictures on the wall, Andy explained. “But my mom did all the decorating. See? This is me, my dad, and E at a safari. We saw a giraffe, which was pretty cool.” Alongside the hallways were pictures of the twins, their parents, and various groups of them. Andy gestured for the group to follow and started to head down the hallway, glancing over his shoulder to look at the other three boys.

“And if he asks, Amy Kwon is a perfect princess and I have the situation completely under control.” Not true, but a prying father didn’t need to know.

Sully shrugged at the lack of answer from Andy, having asked out of immediate interest more than anything deep, and slowly followed after the now leading Green, following his fingers and latching on to whichever painting or photo he spoke about with more engagement than Ethan would have seen in him all day. He liked having references when getting new information, it just made things easier, and Andy was providing him both with little effort.

“Guest house? Christ,” Decky puffed out in shock, waiting to start moving until Sully and Ethan had. “This place would take up a whole neighborhood block back home. Wait, what the hell does Amy Kwon have ta do with this?”

“Welllllll, I’m taking her to the party, Decky.” Andy couldn’t help but look over his shoulder and grin at the assembled boys. Whatever fears the masses had about Amy’s bad reputation, it seemed Andy either didn’t share them - or was too blinded by how pretty she was. “Super cool, huh?”

“...” Decky stared silently into Andy’s eyes, a million different responses to him ranging from she’s gonna eat ya alive to an incredibly sarcastic suuuuper cool, dude, but none seemed appropriate for the bright, excited grin on Andy’s face. Decky didn't know Amy too well, they had only the vague connection of having Rye and Helen between them. And while their close friends were also close, the same could not be said for those on either end of the friendships. He looked to his side a bit to stare at Ethan’s profile, trying to see if the other Green boy had an opinion on the matter. He noticed the not so subtle distaste and the quick cover up back into his neutral smile when Sully suddenly turned around and spoke up, saving Decky the trouble of forming a response to Andy.

“That’s sick man, you like her?” Sully pulled a jolly rancher out of his pocket, unwrapping it and popping thw hard blue candy into his mouth. Then, distracted once more, or rather returning to the train of thought he was previously on, he pointed to one of the proudly displayed photos, “Is that you guys as babies?”

Ethan Green didn’t like Amy Kwon. He knew her game and what she wanted to do. He loved his brother more though and if she was what made him happy, he would accept his brother’s blooming romance and wait until he was needed. He believed that would be sooner rather than later when Amy inevitably breaks Andy’s heart. Ethan didn’t know Amy, not like Helen and Toury did. He knew better than to judge a book by its cover. It was the rumor mill that got him concerned and that someone actively exposed Amy. True or not, that was not a web Ethan wanted his older brother to get caught in.

To his own grief, Andy was a Green and Ethan knew he’d get involved because that’s just how they were. They all got involved in their own ways, even Diana with her art and love for love, leading the Candies to some meddlesome matchmaking antics. Celeste might not think she was involved but the fact that she can be heard over a crowd of thousands is her own way of getting involved. She was a Triple Crown and her actively ‘not getting involved’ is a stance on its own and will get noticed. Ethan had his Elite and Levi had the Hive. Andy though? Andy was a wallflower and didn’t have any reason to fly toward the sun, risking getting burned by it. His crush on Amy, however, changes everything and soon he’d be attached to the Tantalizing Trio, whether he liked it or not. Soon someone would actively try to throw him into the rumor mill. It came with the territory of being famous and let’s be real, Amy was famous. Everyone knew her name.

Deciding to take Sully’s cue, no matter how unintentional his redirect was, Ethan laughed, “Yeah, you wouldn’t believe it when you see it but I’m the smaller one that looks like he’s going to cry. The other baby, that is soothing me, that’s Andy.” There was a moment of reflection as Ethan looked at the picture. Before the zoo incident, they would’ve seen Andy with confidence, with direction and with an eagerness that couldn’t be contained. Ethan looked up to his brother as he thought about how things were and how things are. Even now, even if Andy was less in control and hardly at peace with himself, the younger twin looked up to him. None of that mattered right now! What mattered was the vineyard and securing it for his party. “Okay boys, we can always sight see after the talk. Do you want anything? You can head to dad’s mancave with Andy and I can fix something up in the kitchen. Unless you want dad’s snacks and drinks, then he got the hook up downstairs. Just say the word and it’ll be provided. Want an espresso martini? You got it, dude. An Italian sub? Hell yeah, I could eat. Something simple? Crackers and cheese? Easy.” The more Ethan talked about food, the more hungry he got. It’s been awhile since he and his bro had food. Clearly, he was ready to eat again. “Now what’s it going to be?”

“You got coffee?” Sully asked once Ethan had completed his explanation and offers, ever reliant on the energizing substance regardless of the time of day.

“Yeah, sure thing,” Ethan replied, choosing to accompany the boys until they got to the door that led to the basement. Then he’d head toward the kitchen and fix Sully up some coffee.

Decky’s stomach twisted at the thought of any food. It may change once he smokes a little or finally has a good hit, but as it is he's as close to sober as he's been in he doesn't know how long and there was nothing appealing about the thought. He could already feel his stomach cramping and the occasional chill wracking his body, and the thought of taking something in right now just to throw it up later when the withdrawals sunk their razor sharp teeth deeper into his body was sickening.

None of this stopped him from observing Ethan as he explained the photo to Sully, the rich boy's mind somewhere else as his eyes were locked onto the photo of him and his brother as babies. There was a lot said from that single lingering gaze, and likely it wouldn't have been so obvious if Decky himself weren't his own brother's keeper, or if he hadn't been paying so much attention to Ethan in the first place. There was a lot of love in that gaze, and plenty of happiness and nostalgia. But there, just before he changed his line of sight from the photo to the two boys he'd bought the time of, there was pain and loss in equal measures. There was a brother who saw both paths that his brother could have gone down, and had decided to shadow him on whichever he ended up taking to make sure he had the best go of it. Decky's seen that look in the mirror ever since they survived Gravette and came to Beverly Hills, ever since little Danny had started flourishing and letting his genius show. Decky may hate most everything about the ritz and glam of the area they found their new lives in, but he could never regret what it was doing for Danny.

When Sully and Andy both started making their way to the Green father's den, Decky shoved his hands deep in his pockets and did his best to change his scowl into something softer, though he's unsure if it worked. He waited until the other two of the quartet had gotten further down the long hall before he addressed the boy of equal height.

“You're a good brother, man,” He said without any emotion, glancing sideways for a brief moment of eye contact before he looked at the backs of the other two boys and took a step forward while ignoring the ache in his muscles. “If ya got concerns, we'll look after him when we're around,” another glance at Sully wandering back over to the walls and getting distracted by the detailing of the baseboards, he let out a sigh and began to make his way after him. “Or at least I will.”

“Thanks,” Ethan answered, trailing behind and matching his pace with the gearhead. “As worried as I am,” he began, speaking honestly and low enough for only Decky’s ears to hear. “I would much rather him learn now, while we’re still in school. I have full faith he can take care of himself, he just needs to believe he can.” The Elite member stopped in his tracks, at the door that led to the basement, where his father was waiting. Andy and Sully continued onward, idly chatting, likely thinking Decky and Ethan were close behind. Ethan turned to look at Decky; his thumbs hooked in his pockets. “I should be thanking you two though. You could’ve said no but here you are indulging in my stupidity. And I know I’m being stupid. Our party could be held here if we really wanted it to but there’s something about the vineyard, and the fact that it’s off limits, that makes me want to throw it there more. Stupid, right?”

“People always want what they ain't s’ppose ta have, Gre- Ethan, it's human nature,” Decky responded, fumbling over his tongue as he realized it wouldn't make much sense for him to be calling both the twins Green while in the presence of a third Green, especially if he's supposed to be Andy's friend. He thought about Nicky's earlier comment on Decky's use of last names for everyone outside his friends and while he didn't agree with the gamer's assessment that last names were only for sports teams, he did agree that at the very least he could start calling a few people by their first name. So long as he's open enough to getting to know them more, of course, he wouldn't just go calling everyone by their given names as if they held any lasting place in his memory or life. “Not stupid, you're just bein’ a normal person, nothin’ wrong with that. And hey,” He paused for a moment, wondering if he should say the next bit since he wasn't sure about it, and deciding if Ethan was willing to be more open and honest with him, then the least Decky could do is respond in kind. “I don't know if this is any help, but Rye's good friends an’ shit with Helen Wells, and he don't tend ta stick around people that ain't worth it, or that don't have good hearts. Somethin’ tells me that shit with Kwon ain't what it seems, just like everythin’ and everyone else in that fuckin’ school. I mean dude, ya brought me in ta your house and I'm a literal convicted criminal and drug addict.”

“You right, you right, and I owe it to Andy to give his maybe future girl the benefit of the doubt, but man, she’s going to eat my brother alive,” Ethan grimaced; Andy and Sully no longer in view. It was hard to not think the rumors were true because it revealed Amy’s character, who she was in the dark, or at least it was manipulated to the point that it made an extremely convincing argument. Ethan wasn’t going to think about that. It was just going to ruin the vibes. He needed to lock the fuck in and focus on the task at hand. The vineyard. “Alright homeboy, go work your magic and convince my dad you’re cool. He’s a simple guy. If he offers a joint, take it and smoke.”

“Well, least I wasn't the first one ta say it out loud,” Decky responded to Ethan's ‘eaten alive’ comment before giving him a careless salute and following down after the already disappeared Sully and Andy, leaving the Elite leader alone upstairs.

Whilst the other two had their private conversation, Andy and Sully walked together down the halls of the home, with Andy providing context on whichever picture Sully commented on. Despite the boys calling it a ‘guest house,’ the twins' mother had done their best to make it feel like a home. Eventually, they found their way to a staircase, with Andy speaking as they stepped down them. “I hope he’s not playing without us, dude.”

The stairwell was wide, and perhaps a few feet deeper than one explained, but it was lucky for Sully that Andy was there to add the exposition. “So, when my parents bought this property - it’s a fifteen acre lot, there was just this house. The basement used to be like, a wine cellar I think… but dad had it expanded! Anyway, they’re building the actual house… but it won’t be done for a while. That’s why all of our family photos and stuff are in here.” Andy shrugged as he spoke with the cadence of someone who had said this spiel a hundred times before, and put his hand on the knob to a door at the end of the staircase.

“I guess I’m rambling. But you sounded interested in the pictures!” Andy justified his chatter about his home’s origins, and threw open the door. The basement was huge in a ‘cavernous’ way, with one of the four walls lined with arcade cabinets, pinball machines, and one skee ball machine tucked into the corner. The opposite wall held framed art, mostly of anime characters, a glass container that held figures, some of which were big enough to be clearly visible even from this distance.

Under the art, there were shelves stocked with bottles of different liquors and a wooden bar equipped and ready for a full service. Past the bar was something a little out of place at first, probably the strangest thing in the room: a single, full-size bowling lane was tucked into the wall. Andy gave a sweeping gesture to Sully, and ultimately pointed at the back wall, with a large black leather couch in front of a huge TV hanging on a wall and flanked by massive speakers, with a man splayed across it. “DAD! We’re here.”

Upon hearing the door open, Henry Green sat up. Upon hearing his son’s voice though, he hopped to his feet and spun around to look back at the two teens on the scene, a still lit blunt in one of his hands. “What’s up, dudes?” He quickly closed the gap between himself and the other two boys, then held out a hand toward Sully. “Yo. I’m Henry. Welcome to my humble abode, mi casa is su casa.”

Sully had been interested, so Andy needn’t have justified his explanation, but the taller boy didn’t seem to actually be worried about his amount of talking so Sully simply nodded to him instead of interrupting. As he reached the bottom of the stairs with him and took in the basement, his face lit up at the arcade games and layout, a small smile finally breaking his blank features. When Henry Green came over and introduced himself, Sully didn’t waste the manners that his ma instilled him with and he quickly clasped the man’s hand with his own and gave him a firm and steady handshake.

“Thank you for havin’ us sir,” He replied, trying to maintain his gaze on the patriarch but unable to keep it from wandering to all the visual stimulation around them. His wandering gaze also had him realizing that Decky and Ethan had yet to follow him down, so he amended his previous statement. “Or just me, I guess. This basement is awesome.”

“Dude, don’t call me ‘sir.’ Henry is cool. I miiiight accept a Hank if you guys hang out here often enough.” He lifted the doobie he held between his fingers to his lips and drew from it. He held the smoke in his mouth and looked between the two younger boys with a quick glance. He blew the smoke out as he spoke, “don’t tell my wife I’m down here burning flower. She’d hit me with a shovel,” he explained, with an offhanded gesture toward the anime figures in the case. If Alicia heard about the smoke being blown in the game room, Henry would have heard it not just because of ‘smoke residue’ on the figures, but on more than one of the original arcade cabinets they had. That was a big deal! Apparently.

“Hey, kid. Do you know the lyrics to Enter Sandman?” Henry asked as he met eyes with Sully. After Henry asked the question, Andy did his absolute damndest to subtly motion that Sully should agree. It was not subtle, and Henry shot Sully a look before launching into an unasked for explanation. “My son here, he doesn’t appreciate my singing. Usually, when we play Rock Band, my wife sings - she was in choir in high school. I wasn’t! BUT, I’ve been singing damn near half the setlist in the car since before you were born.” Henry groaned, but ultimately relented.

“Do you like to sing, dude? You wanna play vocals in Rock Band? Andy told me the only way Decky — helluva name, your other bro — would play is if we let him play drums, since then he can hit something.”

“He’s actually a good singer, I’ve heard him singin’ to music in the garage when he thought the break room door was closed,” Sully responded, but didn’t deny that Decky would be more willing to play along if he could get some aggression out. He, just like Henry, had seen Andy’s imploring look and simply tilted his head back at the other boy once the father had stopped talking and wondered if this was the conversation he’d missed earlier upstairs. Was he supposed to be the one singing?

“Well now I know ta lock your ass in the room if I want some privacy,” Came Decky’s voice from the last few steps of the staircase, followed soon by his actual appearance into the basement, an unhappy scowl on his face at the discovery of Sully’s knowledge. Deciding the other boy already had his chance to answer the Green twin’s father, Decky crossed his arms and answered for him. “I ain’t the one with girls fawnin’ all over videos of me if I so much as hum a chord, so Sully’s your man if ya want vocals.”

“That doesn’t mean I sing, dude,” Sully argued with little care, turning to the other gearhead with a confused frown. “I don’t even know what my singin’ voice sounds like.”

“Looks like it's time ta find out, then,” Decky bitched back before adressing Henry’s earlier comment about his name. “By the way, it’s a nickname my brother gave me before he could pronounce my full name, but it’s the only one I go by.” It was informative for the man that didn’t know him, but it was also a warning not to use his birth name even if Henry already knew it. Decky wouldn’t respond to it in any positive manner, and he had a feeling that from what Ethan had already told him about Henry Green, the man would understand to leave well enough alone. “Also, I’ve played real drums but I’ve never played this game, would it translate?”

Henry walked as Decky and Sully talked, and he couldn’t help but grin. It reminded him of the way he had talked with his friends, when he’d been younger. If this was the kind of people his son was hanging out with, then Henry felt like he could relax and let things take their own course. Andy was a little soft at times, and Henry knew that was partially his fault - but knowing that didn’t mean he magically had an answer for it. This was good though! A good start for Andy.

By the time Decky posed his question, Henry was already holding drum sticks. He spun on his heel and instead of answering, he pointed a drumstick at Andy for an answer. Andy looked momentarily alarmed and then looked down at the guitar controller that hung from around his neck and then quickly shook his head, “what? No, no way. This is hard. Ethan is better than me at this.”

Decky grimaced and held his hand out for the drumsticks. “Great.”

The door to the stairs entrance creaked open and there were light steps heading down the stairs. Slow and steady wins the race. Whistling like Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, thanks mom, Ethan inched closer to his destination. He was going at a snail’s pace, which was unusual for him. There was a reason for that and it would soon be revealed. Almost a minute later, the youngest son of Henry Green found himself off the stairs and in the basement. The tune came to a close and he breathed out in relief. In his hands, held with a tight grip, was a serving tray. Ethan cautiously moved to the bar.

On it was a sterling silver coffee pot, a sugar bowl, a cream pitcher, a shot of espresso, a small cup of 2% milk, a small cup of oat milk, a couple of packets of Splenda, two mugs (just in case Decky wanted coffee too), a micro spoon on a dainty plate, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, ginger, vanilla extract, some chocolate, whipped cream, and a couple of biscottis. He forgot to ask Sully how he liked his coffee and from what he knew of coffee, especially from his girls, there were many ways to make it and plenty to add in. All he really liked was a shot of espresso and occasionally a chai latte on the side with it. Coffee could be complicated so he kept it simple. He was a simple boy. He didn’t need much. “If you want liquor, like Kahlúa or rum, my dad has some here. I filled this tray up as much as I could. Didn’t know how you liked your coffee.” Once he placed the tray on the bar, having held his breath from the bottom of the stairs to the bar, he breathed out again. He succeeded without clumsily dropping everything.

Success!

Turning on his heel, Ethan faced his father, his brother and two friends, yes you too Decky, and he grinned, “I can sing!” He couldn’t. While he could keep a whistling tune, once he sang, he couldn’t stay serious and always made funny voices. His favorite was acting like he was a demon from hell, growling and poorly attempting to do screamo. He wasn’t good at it. At all. His family knew better than to let Ethan sing.

Decky and Sully both stared at the serving tray with wide eyes, neither even able to take in just how much the rich boy had loaded onto it without their focus jumping from one addition to the other like a bad game of pinball. When Ethan offered to sing, Decky’s attention split away from the tray while Sully moved towards it slowly like it would bite him if he made the wrong move. Decky didn't believe Ethan for a second that he could sing, if only because he’s never heard so much as a roaming whisper in the school hallways about it. Ethan didn’t seem the type to hide his talents, see: his sports career. To top that off, if the shorter Green twin could sing, Andy wouldn’t have asked Decky and Sully ahead of time to take the bullet.

“What, ya don’t wanna see Sully switch in ta his Entertainer persona?” Decky goaded, knowing that the way Sully acted on screen and camera versus the way he acted when they were off was forever intriguing to much of the BH student body.

“It ain’t like I’m a whole other person,” Sully called back from the coffee tray, his eyes having found his targets and most of his focus going into not losing sight of them. He took the espresso and dumped it into his black coffee before doing the same thing he’d done this morning and taking the smallest amount of sugar and a splash of cream and mixing his coffee together. It didn’t even change color. Perfect. He drank half of it in one go before continuing. “It’s just more like I used to be. Like rewindin’ time.”

“Yeah, but it does throw people off.”

Sully shrugged. “People shouldn’t be so easily surprised or entertained, but I guess that’s why I have a followin’ that pays the bills,” He tilted his head at Ethan while Decky rolled his eyes at him. “Did you wanna sing? I don’t wanna take your spot or nothin’.”

“Sully sings.” Henry spoke as he looked up from his phone and over to Ethan. “I wanna see the entertainer thing. Sounds cool.” He shrugged.

“I hum,” Sully stressed once more, his objection falling on deaf ears.

Henry scoffed. “Yeah, so does Hetfield. You’ll be fine.”

“Jesus, that’s how you like your coffee?” Ethan’s mind was not keeping up with the rock band conversation. He was fixated on Sully’s black coffee of death. He really should’ve just asked him how he liked his coffee. Never judge a book by its cover, that’s for sure. Now he knows for future sleepovers. There was nothing fruity about Sully! Black coffee was probably like a shot of espresso anyways. He just didn’t realize Sully liked his coffee like that. “Okay, okay. The Music King is here,” Ethan announced, with conviction, grabbing a plastic guitar and putting it on him. “We’re going to play a whole set list and then when we’re done, we’re going to watch a movie. Dad has an arsenal of good movies, it’s going to be great! I made sure to have the guest rooms prepared last night.”

“What’s wrong with my coffee?” Sully asked defensively, having already been teased about it by Rye this morning.

“Guest room?” Decky asked with a frown as he twirled the drumsticks with shaky fingers. “Why?”

“Whaddya mean why?” Ethan raised an eyebrow, legitimately confused at Decky’s question. “And Sully, my man, nothing is wrong with your coffee. I just didn’t expect it, is all.” Damn. These two asked too many questions. What were they? The fuzz? “Nevermind that. Places boys. It’s time to rock.” Not waiting for anyone, the youngest Green started the song and swayed his head to the music, all the while making glances at his brother to: ask the fucking question.

“Whaddya mean what do I mean?” Decky volleyed back while his attention got drawn to the screen, the row with his little drum set logo already rushing notes forward for him to hit. He may have never played the game, but it didn’t exactly take a hard thinker to figure it out; yellow note, hit the yellow drum pad, wait for the next one, repeat. That is, until it changed pace and suddenly the screen was requiring a lot more of his attention, pulling it away from Ethan. “Who just brings up their guest rooms? And a whole setlist and movie? What time am I s’possed ta be gettin’ home tonight?”

“I still have to drive home from the garage too,” Sully piped up, the vocals yet to come on screen. He turned to look at Ethan, head tilted in question. “I have to be at Oli’s early for us to get ready together for the dance. I think we’re recording a Get Ready With Me or somethin’ for my channel.”

“You don’t have to stay the night if you don’t want to! But you could. Chef makes killer waffles, you guys like waffles?” Henry had now kicked his feet up onto the couch and was resting as he watched his sons and their friends play games. Did he have somewhere better to be, or something better to do? Maybe so, but at the moment… it was all about the vibes.

“Dad can we party at grandma Eve’s vineyard? Uh, just me and E and these two. And Amy.”

Henry grinned. “And there it is. See? I knew there was no way you guys were doing all this for nothing! You think I never pulled the ‘sibling asks instead’ card, E? Cyndi used to do this shit for me all the time!” He sat up and shook his head as the music continued to fill the room, “That’s what? Five people? There are more than five people here every Saturday! The entourage is bigger than five, why you lyin’?” He rolled his eyes, before eventually giving a serious answer.

“I don’t care, just don’t burn nothin’ down.”

Did they even need us? Decky thought as he tried to get back on beat after he fumbled upon realizing the Greens had planned a fucking sleepover. Decky doesn’t plan to sleep at other people’s houses, he just usually ends up passing out there from either exhaustion, drugs, alcohol, or a combination of the three. Having one planned seemed so…childish? Innocent. Something like that. It was a cute, if weird, sentiment from the rich boy considering how close they all actually weren’t, especially considering the fact that their dad didn’t even seem to need much convincing on the matter that was the entire reason the two working class boys were here. He glared at the screen and hit the pads a little harder than necessary.

“I got a little brother ta get home ta, he won’t put his damn book down ‘til sunrise if I’m not there,” He finally answered around the one minute mark of the song.

“I’m just goin’ home to an empty house so I don’t really care,” Sully answered, eyes not leaving the screen as he waited for the vocals to begin. He tilted his head and fiddled with the brim of his cap. “But I guess if you’re gonna be droppin’ Decky back off then there ain’t any point in havin’ to do it again in the mornin’ for me to get my truck, y’know? I don’t wanna put you guys ou-” The lyrics hit the line on the screen and Sully cut his sentence off, starting the song without missing a beat. “♪ Say your prayers, little one, don’t forget my son, to include everyoooone~♪” Sully was no longer in the sleepover conversation, his attention now on the screen despite the fact that he knew the lyrics already. Andy seemed pretty excited to have someone that wasn’t his father or brother singing, and the Greens have been really nice so far so he wanted the other boy to enjoy the game as much as possible, which included actually trying to sing well. He didn’t know if he was actually a good singer, but hopefully he was better than Henry and Ethan.

Sully did sing well but by then the vibes were off and Ethan was missing more keys than he was used to. He was glad his dad was down to letting them use the vineyard but now he was upset that neither Decky or Sully wanted to stay over and watch movies with him. He didn’t say anything in response but it was visible that he was getting angry at himself the more he fucked up in the game. If he kept messing up that would certainly lead to a broken guitar, which isn’t uncommon in this household. He just wanted to hang out with his new friends but that was too much of an ask. Was he really that awful to hangout with?

“Just bring the kid brother, dude. Who cares? Kids would kill to hang out here. Ethan, take a chill pill, bro. Ain’t many of those guitars left, y’know?” Henry sat up as he talked, the song having come to an end and the results up on screen. “What garage is he at? I’ll send someone over there. But, Decky, dude… You gotta get into it man, you know what I mean? Like this.” Henry mimed headbanging along to the beat of the song, flailing his arms as if he were playing the drums. How did he end up with two dudes who didn’t know how to have fun? Luckily, there had never been a better place to learn.

“You got that long ass hair, bro. Put it to use.”

The thought of moving his head the way Henry just did sent a spike of nausea straight to his stomach, and he did his best not to look like he’d sucked on a sour lemon at the feeling. When he responded to Henry, the tone was completely flat despite the fact that it was intended to be sarcastic. He didn’t know what had Ethan upset, but his father had clocked it so it must not be out of the norm for the Elite boy. “Oh yeah, just call up Dom’s Garage and tell my Uncle Hershey ta have ‘im ready and waitin’ with our bag’a spare clothes, have him grab an extra set’a mine for Sully,” He looked at the adult in the room with a raised eyebrow and pointed to the screen. “I got the second highest score? What does headbangin’ gotta do with it?”

“Life ain’t about the score, it’s about the vibes, my friend! The energy. Dude, are you even stoned? For fuck’s sake, I sent A up with two fatties for you guys, I figured you smoked ‘em on the way down. Hold on, dude.” Henry stood up and stalked over to the bar, which he disappeared behind, and Andy looked between Sully and Decky.

“Sorry my dad’s weird.” He’d never really had anyone over to say that to before, but it felt accurate.

A few seconds later, Henry emerged from behind the bar with a device, and sat it down on the bar. “Come here, dude.” He said, gesturing for Decky. “Come hit this shit.”

The song concluded, right on cue, and Ethan looked over to his father, brother and friends. His dad was right, he did need to chill, but at the same time Ethan didn’t want Sully or Decky to go home so early. He contemplated something for a moment before signaling to his dad, silently, that he’d pick up Danny. It would be better if Decky’s little bro didn’t have a random stranger arrive. Stranger danger and all that. If his father and brother kept these two distracted, Ethan could discreetly come and go without them noticing he was gone for too long, especially if they got stoned out of their mind. Taking off the guitar, leaning it on the entertainment center, Ethan grinned, “You too, Sully. Relax a bit. Get to know my dad! He’s a cool dude.” Backpedaling to the stairs, Ethan made his spidey escape and lied, “gotta’ take a dump. Be back!” And just as quick as he came, Ethan was gone, on a mission to pick up Danny Boaz so that he can have his goddamn sleepover.

“What the fuck is that?” Decky asked, looking askance at the foreign object the Green patriarch had brought out, setting the drumsticks down as Ethan left and slowly making his way over to Henry, grabbing Sully by the scruff and dragging the boy with him so he didn’t have to be the only one learning something new. Sully stumbled for only a moment before following along easily, smacking lightly at Decky’s hand to have him release his grip on his collar.

“I’m comin’ dude,” Sully protested and Decky released him easily, and stopped on principal just to see the look the taller boy gave him before turning his attention back to Andy to address his previous comment. “If you think your dad’s weird then you don’t even wanna meet my uncle.” He tilted his head to the Green boy to show he wasn’t just walking away from him like he has a habit of doing, and then made his way over to the counter with Decky. It was then that he finally took in what was sitting there, and his eyes lit up in interest. Ever curious, he asked, “Nah he was right, what the hell is that thing? How’s it work?”

[Festive]

_{TIMESTAMP: Some time after Opening Act
LOCATION(s): The Revolution Record, Beverly Hills
SONG: Good Enough Reasons
STARING: Kelsey Devon, And
Lucian Bowers}

“Thank you again! Take care!” A different variation of the same phrase flowed from Kelsey’s lips with each exiting customer. The service persona had been drilled into her for years up until this moment. “Kind words and a smile” as her grandfather called, and those words held true in the smile she wore at that moment. Although, the outwardly kind gesture she offered to each and every customer of the store wasn’t the hallow facade plastered upon most retail worker’s faces and voices. Her words were authentic. Kelsey clung to the notion of the store like her life depended on it. From every particle of dust in the back storage room, to the vinyls that lined every foot of the front, she adored it. She loved the store more than her grandparents did, and they were the ones who had it built. Anything she did in the store, whether that be sweeping the hardwood floors that lined the building, stocking the shelves with whatever new shipment of vinyls her grandparents ordered, or even the simple act of interacting with customers, Kelsey put all her energy into it. The store was her home away from home; She needed it. The store was a reminder, but also a distraction from her father; anything to take her mind off the brunt of the pain.

Kelsey’s hand traced the abstract art piece that lay on the cover of the vinyl that played record player beside her. “The Moon and The Melodies,” an album Kelsey had heard plenty of times in the past, one of her grandfather’s favorites, and what he had decided to play for before he left on an errand. An ethereal concoction that comforted the ears, but Kelsey much preferred listening to one of the playlists she had painstakingly put together the day prior. The day was slow, and the music that poured out of the surprisingly well-maintained gramophone hadn’t worked to speed it up. Kelsey had started a habit of counting the number of new faces who had visited the store, and today her count stayed at zero, with joining the past two weeks streak of all zeros. Nothing could ever beat the day a couple of weeks ago where she counted at least ten. Now that was a monumental day. It wasn’t all empty though, the regulars came by here and there, satisfying their musical cravings with a dose of Revolution Records almost endless supply. Kelsey was sure there was almost nothing they didn’t have, Grandpa Grant always managed to find the most obscure things in the back with a random story to go along with it too. That, unsurprisingly, held true for almost anything you could find in plain sight or hidden within the store, it was laced with its own easter eggs so to say to find in unexpecting locations. The customer earlier was also a regular, a sweet old man who was a friend of the older Devons, just seeking to chat, he had talked to Kelsey for around an hour before making his exit with his purchase, she’d have to let her grandparents know he came by.

Kelsey’s ears perked up with the blissful ring of the bell upon the shop’s door, breaking the stream of music in her ear. Her eyes looked up from the desk, and saw another one of the shop's regulars, Lucian. “Hey! If it isn’t Lucian Bower seeking comfort in this shop once again. Looking for anything specific, Lucy? I saw a few new LPs from some bands I know you listen to while stocking today. Or are you just browsing?” It was a sight for sore eyes to see Lucian again, although he did come into the shop at least once a week, she meant in general. Despite the lives they had led up until this point the two kids were old friends, both a chip of the Harlem neighborhood both settled in Los Angeles. Kelsey had been a close friend of Lucian since their younger years. Before he and Rocky were truly involved in a life he’d rather not talk about, they were joined at the hip. They only started to drift away when that became his priority, and before they could fix anything she had already moved away. Their reconnection was one unexpected by both, before he had even seen the girl walking the halls of their shared school, his uncle had brought him to the store in which they stood on a day she was working. After the moment of shocked faces, and a storm of questions thrown at the other, the two had been reconnected.

“You hear my sister call me that one time and you stick with it for so many years,” Lucian sighed at the advent of the nickname he had desired she’d forget. One he had been called by few and one he’d never forget. He hated it, the name hung heavy on his soul as it was burned into his ears each time it was said. That was something he have to tell her another time, though. Lucian was here for music, and he’d be damned if he let anything put a damper on the day he was having. “And, nah, I’m just lookin’ around, Kels. Don’t really got much in mind but I do got some news you might wanna hear.” Those words caught her attention more than his own arrival had, Kelsey sat up in her chair, raising her eyebrow as she looked focused more on her friend. “Oh shit? What has been up with you recently, Lucy? And for the record, it was TWICE, not once I heard Eliza call you that.” Lucian sighed at the girl's last remark, his hands searching through the crate of vinyls on the stand in front of him, no real direction in mind just scouring for anything that looked good enough. “Well, I might be joining a band soon. Don’t get too excited now, nothing is set in stone but, I mean, it’s looking good.” His eyes focused on the records as he softly pulled one up from the rest, inspecting the cover, and reading the songlist on the back before placing it back into the slot it came from. “Y’know Helen right? The one with the jet black hair, and drives the sick hearse? Yeah her. She’s the one that asked me to join. Me, her, and this cat named “Yani” as the first three. Fire, right?”

“Holy shit, Lucian! Finally putting those sticks to work. You really came far from the one music class in the 5th grade, huh? I remember when you barely even knew how to drum, and here you are about to do it for a band? God. When y’all have your first show, tell me, I’ll be the first one there!” Kelsey sat back in her chair, her smile was reinforced with Lucian’s proclamation. She was glad for Lucian, he needed something like this. What the store meant to Kelsey was similar to what drumming meant to Lucian. She knew he wanted to put it out there, to have his pain shown to more than just himself, so to see him finally have that outlet meant a lot to her.

“When we make it to the first show, I ain’t gonna let you miss it.” Lucian turned his head to look at the girl, returning a smile back to her before switching his search to another genre. “Off topic but what happened to to the Devons today?” Lucian realized, finally looking around the store for the short old man always spouting tidbits of lore about the store or his career. He was usually always around the front or somewhere hidden in the back, always popping up as soon as he heard his name. Grant Devon was quite an eccentric old man, you never really knew his next move. Laura Devon was always the one who brought the man back from whatever planet his mind inhabited, much like Kelsey she cared for all who entered the doors to her store, they were both a truly sweet couple Lucian had the blessing to interact with. Before Kelsey had a chance to get a word out to answer Lucian’s question, another set of words attacked her ears like a volley of arrows. “KELSEY, WHY ARE THE POTHOS DYING? ARE YOU OVER WATERIN’ THEM? I TOLD YOU ONLY ONCE A WEEK. HAVE YOU SEEN THE FUNGUS GROWTH IN THE POT??”

“HEY, I TOLD THEM ONLY ONCE A WEEK TOO. THIS ISN’T MY FAULT!”

“YOU’RE KILLIN’ MY UNCLE’S POOR GIFT.”

“BLAME MY GRANDPARENTS NOT ME! THEY ARE THE ONES WHO WATER IT.”

Lucian was distraught, well, not really, but the abuse of the poor vining plant he helped set up around the store for the Devins was a disappointing site. He was only playing around with his friend, letting out a faux sigh before speaking, “Christ, Kels, can’t even keep a pothos plant alive. I’ll have to help you repot it, the soil in these pots has too much fungi growth, and we’ll have to prune off some parts of the leaves too.” Lucian held one of the dead leaves in his hand, the yellow leaf laid in his hand under the Beverly Hills sun shining through from the window, the ends of the leave slightly curling up at the ends with signs of browning. Two years ago, Lucian wouldn’t have given a single care to gardening, his life here had given him so many opportunities to explore than he had in the past. Without the move? He would’ve most likely ended up like the leaf in his hand. After what happened to him? It was a shock he wasn’t like the leaf but still shining green. He counted his blessings every day.

“Yadda, yadda, yadda, talk to the hand buddy.” Kelsey thrust her palms from off the table they rested, hiding her smile behind her outstretched hands. It felt like the old times, back when they were just kids messing around with whatever, and doing random things together. Two-thirds of a former trio, if only he were here. Kelsey let out a laugh as she rested her hands back on the counter. “But in all seriousness, just call me whenever, dude. To answer your question before I was so rudely interrupted, they are out grocery shopping. Given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and your talk of plants, you want to go spark up in the back?” Kelsey made the motion of striking an invisible lighter in her hand as she looked over at Lucian. “Don’t you gotta, y’know, watch the store?”

“I haven’t taken my break yet all day, plus, nobody will notice if the store is closed for a bit. I deserve some time for myself, this is hard work, Lucy.” Kelsey stated proudly, the smile still plastered all over her overzealous face.

“If you say so. I was just going to do the same shit alone at home later, so might as well.”

“Now that's more like it, Lucy! Flip the ‘out to lunch’ sign on the door, and lock if for me, my good friend.” Lucian followed his friend’s instructions, soon placing the records he intended to buy later on the counter before following Kelsey off to where they would smoke.

---

“Welcome back, my friend, to Revolution Record’s humble break room!” Humble was certainly the correct word to describe the room the pair stood within. The break room, if you could call it that with the size, was night and day compared to the shop floor. The desultory decorations found all across the front room were void as one stepped into the break room, alone sat a solitary table with a few chairs pushed under it, with a kitchenette set up to the wall beside them. The room sat with a stagnant air before the two rushed new life into its atmosphere. “Does anyone even come into this room? Christ.” With Kesley’s flick of the light, the two took a seat at the small table in the center of the room. “If they did they would notice I am the only one with a key, but as you can see barely even I use it.”

“Solid reasonin’. An’ I ain’t one to complain over free weed but bro, that shit you had last time was terrible.”

“LOW BLOW, WOW. We agreed never to speak on it again too. But rest assured, Lucy, this is of the highest quality!”

“Oh I hope it is.”

Kelsey’s hands were busy at work crafting the blunt for the two of them to pass as they chatted. The contents of the small bookbag that had sat on the table before their entrance was scattered around the surface. Kelsey placed the grinder in her hand back onto the table as she poured the grounded remains onto the woods she held in the other. The leaf was delicate, but she had rolled it so many times through trial and error it had become muscle memory. As her fingers rolled up the leaf she peered over at her friend across the table. This had become almost a routine for them, to come back here and reminisce over a blunt. Ever since he arrived in their junior year, it had always been the two of them in the back room just chatting about anything that plagued each other's minds. They were mutually each’s biggest supporter, closer than they were back when they were rowdy kids. Kelsey brought the blunt up to her lips, sealing it before placing it down on the tray before her. “You got a lighter, Lucy? I think mine might be dead.” Rummaging in her pockets in search of the light she had bought earlier. “I told you that them crackhead lighters ain't it.” Lucian slid his light across the table to his friend, he always kept working one on him, just in case. “Thank you!” With the blunt in-between her fingers she brought Lucian’s lighter up to light it, taking the first drag on her creation. The smoke permeated every part of her lungs before cascading out as she opened her mouth, handing the blunt and the light back over to her friend. Lucian took a hit on the blunt before speaking, the smoke filled his lungs like the thoughts did his mind. “You ever miss Harlem?”

“I mean, I guess? Not really the city, more my father and my friends, and I already got a part of that place smoking with me. You alright, Lucian?”

“Been on edge my whole life, Kels, you get used to it. An’ ion know, guess I just miss my peoples.”

“Shit, I know being here without father hurt me a lot, I can’t imagine how you must feel without Eliza.”

“Was supposed to be us two ‘gainst the world, and now we two different sides of the country.” Lucian took another drag before passing it back to Kelsey. This was the only way Lucian found he could talk about that life without breaking down into the mess that he kept locked within.

“I am so sorry, Lucian.”

“You ain’t gotta apologize, aint shit you did wrong. I blame my life-givers for that. An’ with Rocky, Christ, I don’t even wanna think ‘bout that. Makes my heart hurt in all the wrong ways.” Lucian rubbed his shoulder, lightly feeling over the scar that sat there through his shirt.

“I feel you, we all miss him.” Kelsey held the blunt in her hand as she looked over at her friend. When Lucian had told her the news her heart was broken too, like it was smashed into a million pieces as the last vestige of hopeful belief that she would be able to see her old friend again faded away. He and Lucian were the brothers she never had, the pain ran deep and the fact that they never had the chance to reconnect stuck her deeper. She tried to understand Lucian’s pain, she hurt for Rocky as well, but to actually be there the moment it happened was a type of pain she could never imagine. Lucian was able to hold his pain just as well as her mother could. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen Lucian cry over their friend but when he first told her the tears flowed like hot lava down her face. She didn’t know how he did it, to keep his pain bundled up so deeply in as big of a heart as he had still shocked her, in her own heart she wished she could handle her own pain as well as he appeared to be. Little did she know that behind Lucian facade of managed grief, he was still that kid frozen in the moment, his mind never truly having left that one street corner that altered his life drastically. She had yet to see little glimpses of his grief that punctured the surface when his ears were assaulted with sudden loud noises. The pain that showed through his eyes when he would fall to the floor winded, gasping for any air he could take in, and on the verge of tears. She never saw the tremors that washed through his body when he was awoken in the middle of the night by a nightmare he never dared to retell. After she took another hit, a light stream of hot tears rolled down from her eyes. “Ah fuck, I didn’t mean to make you cry, Kels.”

“You’re alright, Lucy. You know I’m a crier, and this isn’t making it any better.” Kelsey let out a light laugh through the smoke, and tears, passing back over to Lucian

“If this means anythin’ now, this is way better stuff than last time.”

“See! I told you.

“We’re still smokin’ my shit next time, this is still subpar.”

“Alright. You’re done.”

[BrutalBx]

^{Timestamp: Around the start of the game
STRONG SEXUAL OVERTONES
Location: Mr. Fell’s classroom
Tally and Sin
@BrutalBx and @Aces Away}

____________________________________________________________________

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It was a war of attrition.

Who could hold out the longest?

PLC v The Toxics.

A tale as old as time; a tale that Tallulah Venetia Stratton could give two flying fucks about.

The whole Stratton empire of Beverly Hills High School was not one that Tally ever particularly wanted to be a part of, it was something that she inherited from her older sister Scarlett, whom had inherited it from her cousin and so on and so forth and at the end of it all was just a bunch of rich white people selling drugs for the sake of it or to feel some kind of rush. The Stratton/Van Cise clan didn’t need the money, there were not hard up people. If life was a dance on a pinhead, they were hanging off the edge of it by their manicured fingertips.

Tallulah was the youngest Stratton, Alexandria, her twin, her soulmate, was a few minutes older. Whilst their other sister Scarlett was a few years ahead of them. At first glance, one would not think that the two girls were twins. They were not identical and between the two of them, a mixed heritage of Jewish, Romani and Argentinian was prevalent on their skin. Even when lined up with their cousins, Theo and Bronwyn, there was not much that would give them away as relatives…save their attitudes.

To be a Stratton was to be bad to the bone, to be dangerous and was to be better than anyone else. It was built into them from before birth, it was in their DNA. To be birthed into her family meant that whatever path Tally chose in life, she had to be the best, nothing else would be worthy of her blood. Theo was a superior athlete and Lex was a rockstar. The flame haired Tallulah loved to cook, her desire to open a place of her own in the future had been a dream since she was a girl. But the world of recipes and boiling points was not the type of completion that was adored in her family. It wasn’t as cutthroat as business or politics. That was probably why she picked up her first skate and surf boards when she was ten. No Stratton had dominated extreme sports, yet.

There was one other thing that Tally was better at than most, sex. She had learned relatively early that she was a beauty incomparable to any other. Tallulah oozed sensuality and she knew how to wield her body, her mind and her soul like a bladed weapon and she knew how to do it almost instinctively. She could remember, quite vividly, when the looks in the eyes of both the boys and girls in her life changed from indifference to desire. She could remember the stir in her own body, the excitement and tingle to give them what they wanted, to give them a bit of Tally. It was exhilarating and once she’d had a taste, the toxic thirst became insatiable. Men, women, teachers, cops, all different, all sharing the same want…they wanted her.

Unlike her cousin, Tallulah had learned a very valuable lesson from her grandfather, keep it professional. Theo had a tendency to mix business with pleasure, messing with the emotions of his prey and torturing them for fun. Lex too was set upon a dangerous path. With their grandfather's advice to take the PLC supply, it meant manipulating the little firecracker called Addie. Tally had nothing against the girl personally, she was just working for the wrong side, Lex just saw a target, she had been truly stung by the losses of Everly and Neveah from their group. The younger twin's pleasure did not come from the corruption of the innocent or the downing of a foe, hers came from the outside, from the flavour of a good dish or the taste of the beautiful set of lips.

Speaking of tastes…

Tallulah awaited a taste at that moment. Everyone had rushed off to the game which meant the school was basically empty and she just so happened to have the key to the sociology classroom, thanks uncle Matt. It was the perfect place to meet her version of pleasure, a feisty blonde with a name as addicting as her body, Sin. As Tally leaned against her uncle's desk, her weight against her flat palms and her outfit more daring than a man ready to jump a canyon on a motorbike, she pondered how much longer she had before the path of her family opened up before her. She wondered if it was even possible to stray from it. As far as she knew, no one ever had before.

Sinead walked confidently down the hallway to her destination, slowly wiping any evidence of her irritation with her brother Rian off her face as she went. The blonde man, despite having been the one to decide for them both after Sin’s short juvie stint that they would forsake their legacies as the heirs to Gravette’s very own Dullahans MC and move, had just twenty minutes ago loaded up his saddle bags and headed back to their hometown without her. Sin had been against it back then, especially when he’d wanted to try and dissolve the mother charter completely, but when Poppy had found Decky’s uncles and the Boaz brothers had needed support in their journey, Sin had softened her stance just slightly and agreed with Rian to leave with the boys, while also convincing him to simply leave the club in good hands. And he had, it was just that sometimes there were Donaghue specific secrets and knowledge that required him to return, some shit still in his name needed to be signed or approved, and he had to make the long trip back to Gravette for a few days to sort things out. Sometimes, he tells Sin to load up her bike and join him. Most times, she’s left home alone for the better part of a week. Obviously, this time was like most times.

The older she got the less well it sat with her. If she was in Gravette still, she’d have completed her prospect period and been patched in already instead of struggling to recreate and experience that club feeling on her rides to and from school with Monarch and the Boaz brothers. She’d be able to see her brother-in- law and annoy her nephews every day in person instead of over video chats. Rian only brings her back with him when he needs information that their father or their sister Fiona shared with Sin and Sin alone, knowledge and history that had been bestowed upon her in preparation for her to have a place at the club’s table amidst her family, both blood and bonded. But of their blood, it was just Rian and Sin left, only two of many remaining to bear the weight of generations worth of responsibility and dynamic, and Rian had made the choice to leave it all behind, not her, yet he got to return the most. So, hiding her irritation and hoping for some fun distraction it was.

And what a wonderful distraction that lay beyond the door Sin had come up to. Tallulah Stratton could distract Sin like no other, her touch like ignited gunpowder trailing heat down her skin and her gaze that set a fire in her core and kept it stoked. She opened the door silently and closed it the same once she’d gotten to the other side of the barrier, locking it behind her and turning to the girl with hair as orange as the molten metal Sin loved to mold. She smirked at the taller’s pose against the desk and took her all in, striding forward until she was standing in front of her with her hands resting on either side of Tally’s own on the surface. With their faces inches apart, Sin’s smirk became even more playful and she tilted her head slightly while she looked between Tally’s crystalline blue eyes and her alluring lips.

“Well hey there, were you waitin’ in the dark here just for lil’ ol’ me?”

“Baby, I don’t just wait in the dark.” Tallulah purred like only she could, her words carried on a whisper, directly between Sinead’s lips and into her mouth. She shifted her position, lacing her fingers with her biker girl’s and standing further upright. Tally was the taller of the two bombshells but not by much. Everyone knew Sin to be a powerful presence, a raw presence that could not be controlled or ignored and to behold her was to be in awe. That’s what everyone else would see. The toxic gypsy saw what others could not, she experienced what others daren’t even try. She had seen and made Sinead submit.

“Mami, is the dark.” Tallulah, like a venomous snake, fleetingly licked the lips of her pretty prey before snatching her fully into her embrace, constricting and binding her with her strong limbs. She flipped their positions, forcing Sin onto the table and lingering over her, ready to strike with her fangs.

It was no secret amongst the vapid peers of Beverly Hills that Tally had her fingers in many pies. It was a Stratton hallmark. One of which was her OnlyFans. She didn’t care for the weirdos who wanted pictures of her big toes and dirty underwear, or the ones that knew she was still in school and wanted her in pigtails and sucking on a lollipop; to her that was just easy money. It wasn’t until one day, she saw a new subscriber and her interest was piqued. She didn’t need to do much sleuthing to figure out that it was one Sinead Donaghue, a girl that had been buying drugs from her and Lexie on the regular since she turned up from her trailer park or wherever it was she came from. Tally was nothing if not intrigued but she could say she was surprised. She knew how good she looked and she also knew what the girl really wanted whenever she bought her drugs. The look in the eyes always gave it away. Which was why the next time they met, Tally did give it away and Sinead gave her something back; she wasn’t sure exactly what it was but it felt like the biker’s soul.

“You missed me.” Tallulah didn’t ask questions, she spoke in facts. The hunger in her lover's soft blue eyes was comparable to a starving nation. Her mouth lingered over Sin’s as she spoke, gently caressing her lips with every word. “You were very obvious today with the princess and your friend at the stairs.” Beneath the bravado, Tally had seen Sinead at her most vulnerable, it wasn’t something she hid well, or at least it wasn’t in the presence of hell's favourite harlot. “My girl had a rough day?”

Sin was pliable beneath Tally's actions, following along easily and letting herself get caught in Tally's coiled grip. It was so liberating to not be the one in control, and to not want to be. It had started off as just drugs, of course, being new to California and needing a new plug, she'd found the Strattons quicker than even Decky or Monarch. She'd established the connection with the twins, but very quickly realised that it was more just with Tally than both her and Lex, and Sin wasn't one to pretend, so she kept her focus on the orange haired deviant. When she'd gotten whispers of her OF, Sin had done something she never had before and paid for a subscription. The next time she went to Tally for a bit of coke, the dealer had made it very clear to the biker princess that she'd seen through the username the blonde had chosen, but Sin certainly hadn't complained about the new attention. She hadn't even complained about the change in her expected flirtation dynamic, because unlike her usual games with people, she could tell that with Tally it was Sin's turn to be played with. She found that it was more exhilarating and, in fact, she loved it.

And she still did. Loved the way Tally pressed against her and wrapped her up like she'd keep her there as long as she wanted, and the way that her lips brushed her words across her mouth like calligraphy strokes being inked onto her skin. Sin did love her ink. Tally spoke of being the dark, and that may be true with her criminal elements- not that Sin was any more repelled by that than she was any other part of the girl- but to Sin she was a bright, blazing inferno that drew the other in like a moth to her flame. The scorching feeling of Tally's presence was better than any fire Sin had ever set, any explosion she'd ever triggered, and any drug she'd ever burned and taken into her lungs. Sin wanted to be bathed in Tally's fire and lay across her embers like a resting dragon, get lost in the heat and passion that only this dangerous girl had managed to match her with. Sins belonged in the fires of eternity, a perfect match made in hell, and she did love to embody her name.

It was as confusing as it was addicting, and Sin already had an addictive nature to start. When Tally called out her poor poker face, and wasn’t that wild that she could see through it, the metalworker scoffed and rolled her eyes, pressing into the taller and stealing a lingering kiss from her before pulling back and shaking her head. She didn’t want to think about her day right now, it was basically a filler episode between the morning smoke session with Monarch and Trixie and her recent fight with Rian. She looked Tally in the eyes as she twirled a bright orange lock of her bangs between the fingers of her hand not trapped in Tally’s grasp.

“When ain’t I obvious ‘bout what I want? And who cares ‘bout a rough day? The silver linin’ of it is that I got the house to myself for like a week, and an outfit with your name on it,” She revealed both as distraction and an invitation, biting the inside of her lip as she gave the other a confident smile and released her hair in favor of dropping her hand to Tally’s hip and trying to pull her closer to close the almost non-existent gap between them. “Well actually, the choker has mami on it and I’m not puttin’ that on ‘til you earn it, but the outfit’s cheap an’ very ripable, which I figured we could both appreciate.”

Deflection.

Tally knew it well.

Weakness of any kind was not acceptable in the Stratton household. To show but a single flaw in their families faux finish was to bring great and unrelenting shame upon the house. As Grandfather Jacob would often reminisce, they were a family of survivors. Famine, war, holocaust, none could fell the Van Cise and Stratton clan. Any mere iota of something deemed un-familial-like would be buried deeper than the bodies that were surely feeding the worms at the bottom of their palatial estate in the hills. Whenever Tallulah felt a pull of emotion, a stirring in her stomach of something assigned as lesser by her family, it would be hidden, tucked away behind her wall of toxicity. Left to fester like an open wound, it wouldn’t kill but it would poison.

She savoured Sin’s taste on her lips from her swift kiss but that would not be enough to satiate and as much as she wanted to devour the blonde whole, she also wanted to inquire further on her submissive’s state of mind. Tally had not truly cared for anything or anyone really, at all, save her sister. There was glory and wealth to be had, love to her cherished for some but the gypsy model had long been a Nihilist. Lexie worshipped the ground their family walked on. Theo, for all his evil ways, had goals and dreams. Bronwyn, the precious flower of their tribe, she loved more than anyone else in the family ever had. Tallulah filled her life with things and stuff, she put her body out for the dogs to devour and she experienced everything that she could but still nothing truly clicked inside of her. Yet this uncouth, loud and obnoxious biker chick stirred something in her soul that Tally had never felt before. She didn’t know what it was but it was exciting.

“Hm.” The orange haired succubus pulled herself away completely from Sinead and took several steps back. With her pale blue eyes lingering on her lovers heaving chest, Tallulah reached down her own side, her finger tracing down from her breast, down the corset of her red leather dress and to the hem of its skirt which barely covered anything. She loosened the strings on the side, allowing her thick thighs a touch more freedom, room to breathe and Sinead a view that she would die for.

“Sit.” Tally pointed to one of the desks before the sound of the click of her heels filled her Uncle’s empty classroom. She made her way around the other side of the large teachers desk, as if she was about to open the class herself. “Now.”

Sin frowned in disappointment when her distraction didn’t land, but she hadn’t much been expecting it to, either. If there was one thing she’d learned in this dynamic it was that Tallulah Stratton was not one to be lead through life blindfolded in any way, including Sin’s almost impulsive need to not share her life or troubles with anyone. Before the tempting Toxic, the deflection and attitude she tended to give the people she had fun with meant they would soon get sick of her or feel unwanted, and often they would try and give her an ultimatum that would have her laughing at the other person until they were out of her life and only her life. None of them ever had a place in her heart from the start.

But that was when she was in control. Tallulah was all about control, thrived on it like it was second nature, and she was the only person outside of Decky and Monarch that could demand something of her and she’d follow willingly. Not even Katie or her fellow gearheads here managed to break past her obstinate front when she didn’t want to share something, and not even her two friends could convince her as easily as Tally did with a single word.

Sin took her leather jacket off and threw it on the desk before sitting in it, crossing her tattooed arms and leaning back like she was in detention. She glared at the fabrics pinned to her jacket, blacking out all Dullahan patches as if she ever got a chance to fully join the club and claim her birthright before leaving in the first place. It was all legacy and honorary for her where it should be full tilt. She tilted her head to try and look past the teacher’s desk at the temptation that sat there, well aware Tally had done that on purpose.

“I can’t believe you just gave me a glimpse and hid it behind a desk,” She complained with little variation in her tone, lips pursing together until she was somewhere between a scowl and pout. “Well, I’m sittin’.”

Sin listened to Tally, more than occasionally enjoyed doing what the other girl commanded of her, but that didn’t mean she made it easy. She may not be great with books like Charlie, Poppy, and even Decky were, but she would play with vague wording with the best of them, and all that Tally had told her to do was sit. So help her if her next words were ‘speak’, though, because being spoken to like a house pet was not on her list of fun or exciting turn ons.

“Anticipation is the best aphrodisiac, baby.” Tally had designed her voice to appease, tease and tantalise. It was soft, smokey, lending itself as a whisper from a bygone day of black and white cinema wear woman oozed classy sensuality and lived in a world of hedonistic delights and delicacies. “And I do so love to watch you tremble.”

She made her way from behind the desk, dragging her fingers across its edge before she took a few short steps towards Sinead, where the tips of her manicured nails found the now bare arm of the biker. Tally’s pointer danced up her paramour’s sun kissed skin as she continued her motion around the blonde, circling her like a shark. Pausing, she caressed Sin’s chest gently, leaning down to kiss her clavicle and nibble at her ear. “And you love pleasing mami, don’t you little sinner?” She sang into Sinead’s ear like a siren of yore, enticing this concrete pirate into her domain.

She continued her circle around the blonde, repeating her kiss on the opposite side before completing the rotation and finding herself staring down at a wanting Sinead. Their games were simple enough, Tallulah didn’t go in for the complex like her cousin Theodore, who so loved to dominate people just because he could. Sure, Tally loved to control, to be in charge but she did so purely for the satisfaction it brung. She wasn’t out to make life miserable for people, quite the opposite, she lived for pleasure because nothing else mattered anyway, existence without pleasure was meaningless. She turned away from her lover and made her way back to the teachers desk, bending over it suggestively to reach something on the other side. Tallulah turned her head and smirked. “Close your eyes.”

“Absolutely evil,” Sin all but whined, now more than a little hot and bothered. And Tally wanted her to close her eyes against the treacherously tempting tableau before her? In a great test of wills, Sin pulled her eyes away from where they’d trailed all the way down the dominant’s long legs, catching Tally’s intoxicating gaze to do as she said and close her eyes. She tensed slightly, well aware of the vulnerable position it put her in, but vulnerability with the other girl was kind of the point nowadays. Her world now nothing but the back of her eyelids, Sin crossed her leg over her knee and dropped her chin onto her hand, leaning onto her jacket on the desk. “Does it please, mami?” She asked with a bit of snark, mimicking Tally’s earlier words.

“You can please mami in a moment.” Tallulah grabbed a small box from the desk and held it close to her ample chest before turning and stepping back towards Sin. She took a hold of the other girl's leather jacket and tossed it onto another chair nearby to free up the space. Leaning down, Tally slipped her tongue between Sinead’s pursed lips and kissed her deeply, all the while her hands placed the box down in between them and opened it up. From inside, emerged a strong, sweet but spicy smell. Tallulah stepped away again, dragging Sinead’s lip with her for a brief, tantric moment before offering up her surprise. “Open up and tell me what you think.”

Sin would have face planted on the desk with the way Tally ripped the jacket out from beneath her propped up arm if not for the other girl catching her with her lips, and the shocked gasp hadn’t even had a chance to form before Tally’s tongue took over her senses. She felt drunk on the lingering kiss alone, but when something amazing started filtering in as she took a breath in through her nose, she could have sworn she was losing it before realizing the other must have brought out one of her dishes to try. Still, she kept her eyes closed dutifully through it all, and as the orange haired seductress demanded, she opened her mouth and accepted whatever Tally was offering.

Taking a fork from the box, Tally sliced into the meal she had prepared and made sure to get a little bit of everything onto the prongs. “This is Gypsy Eggs. A meal for my people.” Her fingertips teased Sinead’s chin as she guided the fork into the girl's mouth. “Baked eggs in a tomato, chilli and chorizo sauce, with a Parmesan accoutrement, sliced Parma ham with special chimichurri seasoning and a nice piece of toasted sourdough.”

Food was Tallulah’s secret passion. Where Lexie had her music, Theo his football and political aspirations and Bronwyn her ice skating, Tally had found herself drawn into the world of cooking. She wasn’t even sure why. She enjoyed skating and surfing and the lifestyle that came with it. Being a model was like breathing air, it was easy. But being in a kitchen at boiling point, the searing heat from the pots, pans and ovens burning skin and focusing on putting out a meal or a dish that could wow someone in ways that only an orgasm could match? That was the sort of challenge that made life worth it.

She had already incorporated food play into her and Sin’s dalliances before but this wasn’t just about kinky sex. For Tally, this moment was about sharing something that she had specially made just for the beautiful girl that sat before. To see and feel her reaction to something that she had created and something that perhaps she may want to pursue after the Hills have finally burned to the ground.

The amount of different ways that this girl could make Sin moan should be illegal. The moment the food passed her lips and flavor burst across her tongue, Sin was sold another one of Tally’s recipes. She chewed slowly, savoring every shift in spice and making sure she gave the other girl’s art the appreciation it deserved. She should have known this was the other’s goal when she had her close her eyes. She had wanted her to focus on her taste buds.

“Fuckin’ hell, Tals,” Sin breathed reverently once she’d swallowed the bite. Sure, Sin enjoyed baking with little Danny Boaz and had been doing it ever since they were kids, but she didn’t think anything she ever made could hold a candle to a single dish Tallulah Stratton had introduced her to. It showed her how wide the gap between hobby and passion could be, and it just had her more enamored with the girl.

Wait.

Enamored?

Shaking off the silly thought, she opened her eyes to look into the cook’s own, Sin’s metal blue clashing with Tally’s diamond hard gaze. “That was amazin’, seriously. I don’t even like tomatoes.”

“I know.” Tally smiled. “That’s why I put them in there. I knew I’d be able to change your pallet.” To see the look on Sin’s face, to see her savouring the flavour and not wasting a bite, that brought Tallulah a joy that she got so rarely. Not because her food was bad, she knew it wasn’t but to be able to share it with someone, to give it to someone who would honestly enjoy it and appreciate the effort and time that goes into the dish. That was the true joy in a chef's life.

Tallulah dug the fork into the food again and spanned it thrice in hand, her eyes never leaving the locked in gaze of her lover. She slowly teased the bite she now held with her tongue before placing it into her own mouth to chew. “Mmm.” She moaned in pleasure. “Could’ve done with a little more spice though, guess I know for next time.” She teased. “I assume your brother is away again? You said you had the house to yourself.”

Sin’s happily hazed expression dropped a bit when Tally brought everything back around, but she’d done it in a way that she knew would have the biker responding. She’d shared something personal first. She'd also managed to soften Sin even more by showing her knowledge on what foods Sin wasn't fond of. Reciprocation is key. “Yeah,” She sighed, slumping back into her seat and crossing her arms defensively as she broke the stare and looked toward the nearest window despite it being covered by blinds. “Would’a been nice to go too, ‘specially since I didn’t get to see anyone for my birthday last month, but they didn’t need any'a my knowledge,” She rolled her eyes. “Actually, they kinda did. Rian took my fuckin’ key so we got in a fight before I came back to school. Fuckin’ dick.”

Each Donaghue child had a key to a different safe hidden at different Dullahan MC properties, and their late sister Fiona’s had been entrusted to her husband Francis, or Big Bro Franky as Sin loves to call him. Much to his chagrin. It was also used to represent a vote from the bloodline if one of the siblings couldn’t be there, and Rian wouldn’t tell her for which reason he’d snagged hers. God help him if it were the latter. After they’d both left for their separate destinations, Sin spent the whole bike ride yelling at Francis over her headset that if Rian tried to use it as a vote that she’d stab him with a hot dagger herself when he returned. She made it very clear that she had no idea what was happening with the club at the moment and Francis had assured her he’d handle it when their brother arrived.

“It’s whatever,” She buried it, uncomfortable with the old feelings that Rian’s cold attitude had brought up in her. Like the way he’d treated her before Fiona died and then Pa and suddenly they were all that was left. When he’d hated her birth for being the death of their mother. She thought they had gotten past it, especially since moving to California, but when the club is involved they have a bad habit of slipping back into their old roles. She hated it. “My brother-in-law’s takin’ care of it. But yeah, house to myself, nothin’ to do but my metal work. I was thinkin’ you could come over and give me a better reason to be all hot and sweaty.”

If anyone knew about family drama, it was Tallulah Stratton. She couldn’t perfectly envisage what unfolded for the Donaghue’s but she had a pretty reasonable idea considering the constant war for superiority that raged in the toxic city known as the VCP. In such battles there were very few innocents, with only Bronwyn and her mother Bobbi being the only true family members without the blood of both an enemy and an ally on their hands. “I’ll be there, don’t you worry.” Tally pushed herself vertical and once more made her way behind Sinead, though rather than kiss her, this time she began to run her silky soft straw colored hair through her black nailed fingertips. “Mami will take care of you, in every way you need. Forget about all that shit, you belong to me. Don’t you, baby?”

Sin relaxed considerably under Tally’s surprisingly gentle ministrations, this time closing her eyes of her own volition and trying to get lost in the feeling of the Toxic Twin’s touch. The frown fell away and she leaned into the fingers running through her hair and the nails grazing her scalp. She was already turning to putty in Tally’s hands, and she barely thought about the question Tallulah had asked her as she replied with a soft, “Yeah, ‘course I do,” and then her eyes shot open as the words actually processed in her mind and she shot straight up in the chair to turn around and look at Tally with wide eyes doing their best to cover the fear beneath, suddenly more tense than she’d been before showing up here. On the defensive. “Wait, what?”

They’d played possessive before, Tally’s called Sin her’s and Sin has done the same back, but this wasn’t that. There was a big difference between claiming someone in the heat of passion and saying you belong to me after Sin just showed her vulnerability. The blonde tried to think of a time where someone wanting more from her didn’t end horribly, but every time a relationship was kicked up from casual to calling it, labeling it, the other party would end up upset with her, like they expected her to change the way that she acted now that they wanted to date her or even just get closer to her than a fuck buddy. Hell, the Gravettite couldn’t even make proper friends outside of the gearheads, even Katie Calaghan was honorary due to her dating Scott. Tally had already forged her own place somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum, not being some random lay but also not having any labels.

Maybe not to others, but to Sin, even belonging to was a label, and she did not want what she had with Tally to end because suddenly new expectations came into play that she couldn’t meet. Buried even further beneath the fear and worry in her eyes was something new though. Intrigue, want, desire for that something new, something more. Hope? She stared at the other girl silently for another moment before speaking up, much quieter than she’d intended, insecure in a way she’s never felt before.

“That ain’t some random flirt for me, Tally.”

The immediate shift of Sin’s body in her hands and the look in her pretty blue eyes made Tally take her own step back from the situation. It didn’t take a body language expert to see that the blonde had taken the drug dealer's words in an unintended and unexpected way. Tallulah, ever the Stratton, could not allow the situation to spiral out of her control; it was not happening.

Did she want more with Sinead? Something beyond fucking for the sake of it and festering her domination kink? Had she developed feelings? A million thoughts raced around her head like stars in the sky and she attempted to process herself the meaning of her own words. Had Tallulah absentmindedly made some declaration of love? Or was the metal worker more crazy than her reputation?

What to say? What to say?

“It wasn’t a random flirt.” A simple fact was all that she could come up with as Tally’s momentary lapse in presentation corrected itself. “You’re mine. Whenever I want you. Wherever I want you.” She returned her step back forward and guided Sin by her shoulders back to facing the front of the class. Taking her hair back into her hands, Tallulah wrapped it tightly around her fingers and then yanked up firmly. “You do what you want with whoever you want but we both know, you’ll always find your way back to me.”

The orange haired temptress licked her lover's ear lobe ever so lightly before pulling out her chair and in one swift motion mounting her. Tally slipped her hand around Sinead’s throat and their eyes locked as the harlot began to squeeze.

The pull on her scalp had her gasping, Tally’s tongue had her eyes fluttering shut and a tremble making its way through her, just as Tally liked to cause. When the other girl was suddenly on her lap and tightening her grip on Sin’s throat, the blonde gave in completely as ecstasy began to take over her higher thought processes. Any tension from the previous comment flew out of her mind as quickly as Tally’s grip stole her breath. Tally’s words had helped. Sin didn’t mind being hers, didn’t mind being at this girl’s beck and call, so long as she didn’t want something Sin wasn’t sure she knew how to give, had been told she didn’t know how to give by so many people. Talllah had come up upon a curve too fast, but managed to shift gears and take the apex like a professional, coming out on the other end not only unscathed, but triumphant, revving her engine for good measure. Sin was hers now.

“No one else worth findin’ their way back to,” She rasped out, risking some of her breath as she reached out and grasped Tally’s strong thighs with a biker’s grip. “Mami knows what I want.”

A gasp of pleasure escaped Tallulah’s throat like a thief in the night as her prey latched onto her. She began to roll her hips on Sin’s lap, teasing the girl with her sultry rhythm. “That’s my girl.” She spoke once more, as she so often did, into Sinead’s lips as they crashed together once more in addicting toxic ecstasy. She didn’t know whose desk they were on, Tally always skipped her uncle’s class but she knew that the poor unfortunate soul was about to come as close as they could to heaven with the two women about to lose themselves on it.

Tally got to her feet once more, taking several steps back she gazed upon her lover with feverish want and raised her hand to play with the low hanging necklace part of her choker which perfectly slipped down her chest. She licked her plump red lips before glancing down at the floor and back up to a feral Sinead.

“Kneel.”

Sin was on her knees before Tally had even finished the command. Maybe Tally would get that collar on her sooner than either expected.

[Melissa]

^{Timestamp: Between the Rally and the Game
Location: The Montoya Home
Ramón and Stella
Small FT: Rio Montoya
@Aces Away and @Melissa}

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Ramón threw his door open and tossed his bag to the floor next to his vanity while his clutch hit the furniture’s shiny dark wood surface, and then proceeded directly to the door on the other side of his room that led to his office. Stella had relatively free reign of his home and could follow him easily, and he wasn’t one to break routine so he simply kept moving until he’d reached the destination of the next unchecked box of his mental list. The pale aqua fabric lit up one corner of his office like woven moonlight across water, the jeweled breast line sparkling like scattered stars under the room’s intense lighting. As always with something he’d made, it was a masterpiece. He gently rolled the dress form out from its place and removed the garment from its fabric body before presenting it to his childhood best friend with a smug air.

“Go ahead, try it on, I know you’ve been waiting,” He goaded. He had to make sure everything was fine with her outfit by the time he had to leave to get back to the school for the game, or else he’d be working back and forth between both Stella and Cael’s homecoming clothes later tonight. Plus, as much as he enjoyed making his best friend wait for things just to see that angry red tint that takes over her skin, he was just as impatient to see the completed piece to his work and that included Stella being in the dress. “And be gentle or I will take my fabric shears to everything in your closet that I didn’t create.”

Stella twirled her car keys in her fingers as she followed closely behind Ramón to his room. She’d been uncharacteristically silent for the majority of their drive; the only sign she was there with him was the jingling of her lanyard as she spun it around her index finger. The blonde had been in a sour mood ever since homeroom, and it had only gotten worse as the day went on. Ethan was being a royal pain in her ass, and to make matters worse, he was completely ignoring her. Like, hello? Who just ignored their on again, off again, situationship! How rude.

But all of her woes melted away the second that she laid her eyes on her best friend’s masterpiece. Her jaw went slack as she took in the blue dress, completely left speechless. “Mo… baby you’ve outdone yourself. Holy shit.” The blonde took the fabric in her hands and marveled at the details. “I have nothing snarky to say. You really did that, bitch.” Stella walked over to Mo’s bed and placed down the gown so she could undress to try it on. She had no shame in stripping right there - there was no such thing as needing privacy for the two of them. Stepping into the dress, she delicately pulled it up over her bust, slipping her arms through the straps. She looked back to her best friend, “Can you zip me up please?”

“I know, I’m amazing, aren’t I?” Mo replied shamelessly while also preening from her compliment, checking his phone to see a confirmation text from Andre about the other boy picking his outfit up tomorrow morning before the dance. Mo’s talent was in high demand for the dance, especially amongst his friends, and they all knew it. They also knew that, as his friends, he would spend the most time on their outfits and also be willing to dance along the deadline while still providing the completed product with grace. Thus, the likes of Stella, Cael, and Andre were the last to receive their outfits as for them his final touches went to the last minute to ensure every detail be not only perfect but also eye-catching and show stopping. Stepping up to help his best friend when she’d asked, he put his phone away upon reading Dre’s confirmation and grabbed the zipper, pride flowing through his body as it closed smooth as butter and hugged every curve of his friend like a second skin.

He stepped back and took Stella in as she turned towards him, a grin that only friends like she and Cael got to see, unrestrained and childish in its happiness. She looked stunning, gorgeous, fabulous. Showstopping, just like she always was, only ever accentuated by his designs, never overtaken. And from a first glance, not a single thing needed to be altered on her dress. Ramón has known every minute change and fluctuation in Stella’s measurements since they were children and she they had both decided she was going to be his first model, and the older they got, the less and less he actually needed Stella for intermittent fittings and tailoring. Eventually, it got to the point where they only needed this: the final fitting.

That didn’t stop them from getting together in the least, of course, it just showed how well they knew each other.

“Damn bitch, you said I did that? Look in the mirror, that dress is nothing without you wearing it. You’re going to blind people with how bright you shine, babes.”

Stella could instantly feel how the dress fit her like glove before even glancing at her reflection in the mirror. No matter how many dresses Mo made for her, or outfits he curated, it still never ceased to amaze her how talented her best friend was. He had a gift, it was evident. And seeing his unbridled joy and wide smile was just the icing on the cake. She loved being able to make him feel this exuberant. Hell, if she had it her way, he’d be like this all the time. Because even when she was in a sour mood, like today, when he was happy, so was she. What was that saying… happy wife, happy life? The blonde walked over to the full length mirror in the corner of Mo’s room, stepping onto the little pedestal.

She gasped, her breath taken away.

It was truly a masterpiece. The shape of the gown, the off the shoulder sleeves and the jewel encrusted bodice hugged her in just the right ways, highlighting her figure effortlessly. The color was perfect too, just the right shade of blue to make her skin glow while complementing her hair color. “Mo…” Stella started, turning her head to look back at her best friend. “It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

“Isn’t it?” He responded giddily. Mo was practically glowing under his best friend’s praise, the excitement and satisfaction of finally seeing the completed piece, and how immensely pleased Stella was being all he needed from his almost full month of work since his inception of the design. He’d started hers first, and she was the third to last to get it because while he delivered perfection to every client he had, those closest to him deserved absolute divinity.

“Alright, let me make sure everything’s as it’s supposed to be,” He said as he stepped up behind her place on the pedestal and began to do his quality checks on the gown. Once he’d confirmed the perfection of his product, he helped Stella delicately remove it and put it in a garment bag for her to keep it safe when she left. With business completed, the best friends were left with free time before the game where they’d both be returning for different reasons, Mo’s being supporting his cheerleaders and to later be Cael’s ride back here so that Mo could do his final fitting and the other Candy could sleep over. Which was perfect, because there was a new development involving a mystery letter that he needed to talk to his other best friend about.

But that was for later.

With Stella now in the comfy clothes she kept in his room and the two of them sitting on his bed while he touched up her makeup, he decided it was time to ruin the good mood.

“So, was it Ethan that had that look on your face before you saw your dress?” He asked, ripping the bandaid off as he always did. Quick with a bit of inevitable sting. “Because I was almost insulted when I got in the car and got the bitchface directed at me.”

Stella was mid-sip of water when Mo decided to declare war.

She nearly spat out the drink as the words left his lips, so much so, she had to cover up her mouth with her hand to ensure no water escaped unceremoniously. Swallowing, her facial expression softened from her normally frigid exterior, the light in her eyes flickering. “I’m sorry.” The blonde stated, first and foremost. It was a rarity for her to apologize to just anyone, but her best friend was the exception. She sighed, revealing her current thoughts, “He ignored me all fucking day. Didn’t even reply to my message this morning about the dumb coffee. Of course, the one day I go out of my way for that jackass he blows me off.” Stella shook her head, “And he just finally had the mind to text me after nearly 8 hours and all he could say was ‘it’s been a day’. Like come ON.”

“Ew,” Ramón offered with a matching disgusted expression, pushing his glasses back up his nose so he could raise it in the air in distaste. “It sounds like you need to find someone that isn’t such a little bitch, Stells, because who the fuck does he think he is to ignore you and then not grovel at your feet in apology?” Inside, Ramón was simmering for his friend. He was also upset because despite the fact that it had been with much different boundaries first set in place, Mo had set the whole situationship with Ethan and Stella up.

The girl shook her head, “It doesn’t make any sense Mo. Like, I get he and I have our moments, but everyone in this school wants to be with me. Why does he act like it's a chore?” Stella furrowed her brow, but then quickly reversed the movement since she knew her best friend would have her head if she messed up his makeup job. “It’s a shame, the sex is great, but everything else is well… meh. I like arguing with him and giving him a hard time, but that’s just my way of showing affection.”

“A chore?” The disgusted expression morphed to indignation and Ramón forced his best friend to look at him with a few stern fingers under her chin. “Stella Louise Manning, if you even so much as think that he feels that way then you need to take a step back and look at why you’re still bothering. You can have good sex without a relationship, situationship, whatever,” He said with a glare before she could correct him herself. He stared deep into her striking sky blue eyes, grounding her with his own warm earthen brown. “If he doesn’t get you, if he doesn’t respond to you properly, if he doesn’t even give you gifts that fucking fit who you are, then he doesn’t deserve any bit of you. You are a goddess gracing him with your presence and like an ignorant, godless heathen, he is turning a blind eye. You shouldn’t chase him, you should smite him.”

Ramón Montoya was the King of the Candies, the literal thread that held the drama club together, and one of the most vindictive and vicious responders to a perceived slight against him or his loved ones that Beverly Hills High has ever had the luck of not seeing, his worst reactions being restrained as his attitude was put on a leash by his family and their wariness of bad press and media. If Mo had it his way, if he could get away with it, he would give Ethan the most public humiliation of his life, and make sure there was evidence so that the boy never forgot it.

How dare someone so basic make his platonic soulmate deflate like that? Unforgivable.

Stella listened to her best friend, although her eyes seemed to glaze over as he went all Mama Bear. It was very unlike the girl to show such raw emotion, most of all let a stupid boy like Ethan Green get the best of her. She prided herself with having the grace and poise of someone twice her age without the wrinkles, what was it about this specific situation that was causing her so much discomfort? She and him had played this song and dance for nearly a year and a half. Why now was it suddenly an issue?

Maybe it was the fact graduation loomed in the distance and Stella had to figure out what the fuck she was doing with her life. Maybe it was because Katie Callaghan was favored to get the lead again this year. Maybe it was the creepy DMs she was getting that seemed to pile up by the day. Ethan Green was the straw that seemed to break the camel’s back. “I bother because I enjoy his company and he’s the only person I know who is willing to put up with my bitch ass attitude and serve it back to me tenfold. It’s fun, he’s fun.”

“Fun is fine, babe,” Ramón responded, well aware she had zoned out on him the moment he started his rant against Ethan but willing to let it slide due to her mood. “But you haven’t seemed like you’ve been having fun recently,” He thought back to the car ride in, where she seemed okay, almost defensively hopeful in a way she tried to hide behind a casual air and act of whimsy. How different she was less than half an hour later when he’d entered Belmonte’s class for Cael and Minnie’s cupcakes and some good old Candy kiki. Stella swinging between moods like Tarzan between vines was not unusual, hell it was practically a requirement of the Thespian Society to have a volatile personality regardless of where it was on the spectrum, so that alone would not normally be a problem. However, this wasn’t her being dramatic and shifting through attitude because she felt like it and she could, this was because of a boy.

Gag me with a chainsaw.

Mo took a deep breath before he said something that hurt his friend in her vulnerable state, visibly restraining himself and forcing a more neutral look onto his face when he asked the only thing he could think of that really mattered to him in the end.

“Does he make you happy?”

Stella snapped out of her funk real quick. This was getting too deep for her very shallow emotional bandwidth. Was she really having this come to god conversation today of all days?

Of course he made her happy.

Right?

“Nevermind, Mo. Let’s just drop this please.” She deflected, pursing her lips. It was rare for her to be this candid, but even she had a breaking point, and that came with the evaluation of her own needs.

Ramón's emotions vacillated between shock and worry at the way his best friend was acting. Never had a boy caused his beautiful blonde bestie such confusion and self doubt. Never had Stella sounded so small, so begging, as she did when she was unable to answer his question and requested instead his discretion. His regret at getting the two together was quickly morphing from exasperation to genuine, true remorse as he took in the state that the athletic Green boy was leaving Stella in. Mo slackened the pressure of his fingers under her chin but left them there as stabilizers and he harshly bit his tongue while he began to silently resume fixing the blonde’s makeup. He was gliding a perfect, solid line to finish the point of one eye’s wing when his bedroom door was thrown open, hitting his dresser with a solid thunk and rattling all of his possessions sitting atop it. Mo jumped in his own skin and the black line shot across Stella’s temple like it was making a run for her hairline, and the small boy hissed in rage at having been shocked into a mistake, turning a blazing glare to his doorway.

“What? Look what you made me do pendejo!”

For his part, Ramón’s older brother Rio did exactly as his little brother demanded and took a few gliding steps into his room to stand in front of the teenagers, bending down and getting in Stella’s face to stare intensely at the black streak breaking up her pale skin. He maintained a serious expression for only a moment before he broke out into an amused grin and booped the blonde lightly on the nose as if she were still the child that first befriended his baby brother, holding his hand out to intercept Mo by the face as he lunged forward in protective rage. He pushed the smaller boy back into his sitting position by his face while the younger spluttered indignantly.

“I’ve seen worse done professionally for the red carpet, hermano,” Rio finally said, releasing his brother when he stopped smacking at his forearm. “Don’t be so upset, I came up here to tell you that mamá made your favorite for dinner, and even made it early since Stell’s is here. Both of you make sure to thank her for spoiling you.”

“Excuse you?” Ramón glowered in offense, getting up to try and shove his brother out of his room. “When the hell don’t we? Don’t make us seem like ungrateful brats,” He pushed harder against Rio’s back when the actor didn’t budge, grunting when the older Montoya son slumped backwards over his little brother’s body, sending them both onto the bed in a heap beside Stella. Ramón grunted in frustration and kicked his legs wildly where they were hanging off the bed, failing to wiggle out from under his brother’s torso and dead weight. “Get off you bitch!”

“But Mónie you’re being such a drag that you’ve dragged me down with you! Now I’m stuck!” Rio put a hand to his forehead and feigned a swooning noise, somehow managing to squish his brother further into the soft mattress. He looked to his left and winked at the girl that had become his third little sister before giving Mo another moment of struggle and then finally getting off the boy, standing up while Ramón scrambled to regain composure. He laughed at the look on Mo’s face before explaining. “That was from Rosa, apparently you pissed her off this morning somehow and she didn’t get a chance to get revenge. Now get your bratty asses downstairs so mamá’s work doesn’t go to waste! Stell’s, she made your favorite too.” He closed the door behind him and his footsteps retreated down the stairs, leaving the teens alone once more.

“Have you eaten today?”

You knew that Stella was in a bad mood when she didn’t even care that eyeliner had just been smeared across her face. The blonde might have jumped a smidge when Rio burst through the door, but otherwise, her face was expressionless. No anger, no frustration, just neutral. She watched as the brothers fought playfully, a small smirk pulling at the edge of her lips. She stood up, walking over to Mo’s dresser and pulling out a makeup wipe from the pack, and got to work cleaning up the mess on her face.

Stella was an only child. She was a miracle baby, her parents having struggled to conceive for many years before she came along, so siblings weren’t in the cards for her. Sometimes she was jealous that Mo had such a big and happy family (even though she knew they could be annoying as shit sometimes), but other times she simply felt thankful that she was included as one of their own and welcomed with open arms into their home. Her heart felt warm at the thought, especially given Rio’s words that their mother had cooked her favorite.

With the rogue eyeliner removed, she threw the wipe into the trash. “I had a small lunch, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hungry. But even if I wasn’t, I’d still want your mom’s cooking.”

“She would have force fed it to you even if you didn’t,” Ramón answered, despite knowing Stella was already aware of where he got many of his overbearing habits from. He got up off of his bed and made for his door, coming up beside her where she was still standing near his dresser. As annoying as his brother had been, he could see that the intrusion had helped bring back a little bit of the natural shine that had left Stella during their attempted talk. No matter how many times Ramón tried to bring it up, it always ended this way, with the talk of Ethan brushed aside in favor of something, anything, with less meaning. Mo stared at his friend for a long moment, saying nothing as he searched her gaze for something that would make this game worth it in the end. Sighing at what he found, he tried once more despite knowing it would be in vain.

“You don’t have to answer, and I’m dropping it after this so we don’t lose our appetite, but think on this,” Ramón didn’t say please or beg, but his friends could hear the implication of the word in his tone. The ones that mattered understood how he spoke. Because when people mattered to each other, they learned each other. He thought Stella knew that just as much as Ramón did. “Does he know a single one of your favorite things? And I mean personal, favorite things, not something the whole school knows about you. Again, fun is fine, but does he deserve you?”

The look on his face told her that he didn’t want an answer even if she had one. He didn’t want to upset her or tear her down, but he also wasn’t about to let her keep her head clouded with any delusions that weren’t geared towards furthering her grandeur. No one had ever made Stella act like this before, and thus this was a new part of her that even Mo had to learn, but the fashion designer had never been one to walk on eggshells even around the most sensitive of their friends, and unless she was literally moments from a complete breakdown then he figured Stella would forgive him for continuing to be himself and not coddling her.

Eventually.

“Ramón Inigo! Estella Louise!”

“Coming, mamá!” He held Stella’s gaze for one more moment, hoping she’d take the time to read him as much as he was reading her, before finally breaking contact and opening his door. As he headed out and down the stairs he paused and added over his shoulder to his best friend, “I’ll fix that eyeliner after dinner.”

The blonde let Mo’s words reverberate in her mind. Like always, his inherent wisdom was showing and he did have a point. What did Ethan actually know about her? Sure, anyone who had a pulse at BHHS knew Stella, but only a handful truly paid attention to her quirks and habits. They weren’t technically dating, but could she consider her on again, off again beau one of those people? She sat with her wandering thoughts as she followed her best friend down the stairs to the kitchen, the promise of food a welcome distraction from her crisis. Her eyeliner was the least of her concerns, but still, she nodded.

“You better,” She attempted to jab, but her tone wasn’t cooperating. Instead, she offered her best friend a solemn smile. “Thanks, Mo.”

“Don’t thank me,” Mo responded with a grossed out expression on his face, his attitude returning now that he saw Stella was actually thinking on his words and he didn’t have to go soft. “You never thank me. You never have to, dummy,” He held his hand out to Stella so they could descend the stairs together. “You just owe me the loyalty of being your sole designer and bestie for life, I think that’s a fair trade.”