People should use the world "butthole" as an insult more.

“I wasn’t wheezing, you ass!” Landon snorted, reaching out to lightly smack Anton’s shoulder. Anton was a button pusher, and Landon liked that. It made him fun to talk to, precisely because he was such a wildcard. “Well, I don’t have heart boxers. Although we won’t talk about my pizza slice boxers. Those are pretty great, okay?” Landon had a few fun pairs of underwear, but most of his drawers were really just dark, solid colored boxer briefs.

The subject shifted to their respective job hunts, and he frowned slightly when Anton said he only knew how to pretend to be scary. He gave it a little bit of thought before speaking up again. “You seem like the kind of person to be your own boss. You ever thought about opening some kind of business for yourself?” he asked curiously. “What are some of the things you like to do, or just generally have a passion for? There has to be at least one thing.”

“Soundin’ like you been fightin’ that lung shit, eczema or whatever it’s called,” he knows, vaguely, of what it’s called but mostly didn’t care in the moment to differentiate between eczema and emphysema. “I see nothin’,” he tells him, hands over his eyes, but not covering, grin at his lips. “I guess I own a few, when it’s too hot I just hang out in them, because God fuggin’ knows I ain’t hanging out in my apartment, my balls sticking to everything when I sit down.” But he hadn’t experienced a Californian summer yet, but knew enough warm holiday trips to figure out what was in store for the future.

He didn’t count himself as scary, he had a weird thorny wall but didn’t actually like to hurt people, just didn’t know how to be a normal person. He always jacked things up to ten. “I could be a porn star,” he says, but it wasn’t a serious answer, he just doesn’t know. but it’s been something that’s been on his mind a lot.

Feliks and Gianna have 5 kids together, and Feliks has 2 more that were born outside of his marriage. Most kids have Feliks’ last name, but Anton legally changed his last name several years prior, when he first started to rebel against his father. He is, in fact, a mommy’s boy, but he wanted a name that was short and to the point.

“Galapagos turtles sleep for 16 hours a day. I could do with being a Galapagos turtle right now. Seriously – I would stop being a complainer and just be a sleeper.” ( @slchat​ )

“Yeah, buuuuut,” he laughs, “You ever heard them fuck? You’re telling me you wanna sound like that when you’re banging other turtles?”

“Hey! I go running every day, kinda… I’m definitely not getting eaten by a zombie. Besides, if the zombies come, we’re first gonna have to determine if they’re fast, or slow walkers. If they’re fast, we find the back door of the laundromat, or we’re fucked going out the front door to begin with,” he said, chuckling as they walked back into the laundromat. Landon set his bag back down and quickly began to gather the dropped laundry, shaking it off and stuffing it into the dryer. There were most certainly no heart boxers, but he snorted at Anton’s teasing.

“It seems like there’s no jobs for anyone, to be honest. I’ve been looking to. Found something, then got fired after two days because I didn’t kiss ass, I guess, can you believe it?” he said, scrunching his nose a little. “I’ve got a friend looking into something at the dog groomer’s though, so… maybe I’ll get to chill out with some pups all day. That’d be nice.” By now, the laundromat had mostly emptied, so he hoisted himself up to sit on the free waster next to Anton’s as his clothes dried in the dryer in front of them. He loved the smell of fresh laundry.

“You were wheezing after 20 feet man, I don’t know if I believe that,” he teases, legs danging as he spoke. As Landon speaks though, he surveys the room, figuring out what he would use if someone were to break in, zombies or otherwise. He keeps a gun in his apartment, but the other doesn’t need to know that. It’s just Anton’s paranoia getting the best of him, most days. “You look like a kid who would have heart boxers. My old man does. I go commando. Ain’t about that restrictive life,” Anton says with a nod.

Landon speaks again and Anton follows along, humming as he spoke. But he goes silent after he’s done, letting what Landon says sink in. “Yeah, but like,” he sighs, and then just speaks without thinking, “I only know how to pretend to be scary to get what I want, or what my old man wants. Ain’t nothing for dudes like me here.” He supposes he could be a bouncer, but like most things in his life, he’d get bored.

She doesn’t look his way but the tiniest smile curves her lips. If that’s the appearance she gave off to random stranger dangers, Billie would take it. “Mazel tov.” The joint is inhaled, her menthol cigarette held at arm’s length as she takes a deep, deep toke. Far be it from her to turn it down, even from a hairy back. “You’re from out of town, aren’t you?”

He didn’t understand the wonders if something being legal until he actually went somewhere where it was. He still knew dealers back home, but here, everyone and their mother smoked. It was great. He walked in to a shop, showed his ID and presto, bamo, he could get high for a day for a fraction of it when be bought it on the street. He smirks, laughs, “So far out of town I’m from a different planet, it seems.”

“Are you quoting a song because.. No thank you..” she laughed and raised a brow. “What the fuck is a neon cowboy? Is that a gay thing?”it was a joke, and a weak one at that, but Lana was 100% lost, which was not something that she ever really felt.

“No? Maybe? It could be. Most cowboys back in the day were gay,” he says as if it was the truth, maybe it was and he didn’t know. Anton just shrugged, “Maybe it’s a Kesha song.”

“I don’t care to elicit reactions. I care about accurately gauging a situation, and if that involves labeling a Designated Asshole, so be it– but not quite yet.” With a smirk, her mind raced again– only half-memories and scents and aches that were far long gone. “I’m trying my best to make sure I haven’t suppressed any memory of you, but nothing’s popping in– I mean up, even though I swear I’ve seen your face before, so try and fill in the gaps. New York? Talking Heads? Lower east side? Am I close here?”

He doesn’t know, or can’t remember. So he just starts throwing out names, but only one name sticks because he never really hung out with anyone else. “If you ever met the lumbering fool of Jude Nolan, I’m the taller lumbering fool that is the one usually gettin’ him in trouble,” he offers, “Pretty sure he doesn’t have an angel on his shoulder, it’s just me.”

“I am not going to cause some chaos with a guy I don’t know.” This was just common sense. “You gotta tell me what you have in mind, then I will consider it maybe.”

Comparing women to inanimate objects, check. Clearly she was dealing with a class act here, a friend of Daryl’s possibly, but part of her didn’t care. She was drunk as a skunk. Billie seats herself on the hood of the car, his or someone else’s, who knew at this point. “I have beer but I’ll take weed. But I ain’t gonna blow ya for it if that’s what you’re thinking. You can get the next chump who stumbles out the club for that.” 

“You look like you’d bite my junk anyways and I ain’t in to that,” Anton says, rolling his eyes. He does offer her a joint, “Freshly rolled off the hairy back of a guy named Trent,” he says, tilted smirk on his lips. 

Landon hadn’t recognized Anton at first, and thought this was just some jackass trying to steal from him. He wouldn’t have minded so much if his class assignments and some of his books weren’t in it. University books were NOT cheap, after all. When he realized who it was, he brought a hand up to his chest and stopped running, sighing in relief.

“Holy fuck, dude, you almost gave me a heart attack!” He gasped for breath and shrugged lightly. “I should probably pick up the laundry I dropped in there,” he said, feeling a little silly. Anton got him REAL good, and it was now pretty funny in hindsight. He tilted his head towards the laundromat for Anton to follow him back and reached for the bag. “I was getting kinda bored in there, not gonna lie. Been up to any trouble?”

He offers Landon a big smile, “Dude, you should have seen your face. But you need to work on your cardio,” he tells him, pointing a long finger, “Zoms come and you’re free game.”

Anton hands the bag over and follows him in like a lost toddler following their mom, “Oh sweet, please tell me that’s not your heart boxers, eh?” he says, teasing as he sits on an unoccupied washing machine. “Nah, same old, same old, was out job huntin’ today. Turns out there ain’t work for bums like me. ‘Specially when you don’t take the app serious.”

He nodded along, understanding exactly the sort of homogeneous effect that widespread Americana had. Unless there was some important landmark or a monument for him to stare at, any city across the country could’ve been switched out for another, as far as Lucas was concerned. “How’d you wind up all the way over here?” He asked. “Brooklyn’s like, practically as far away from L.A. as you can get while still being in civilization.” And Silver Lake sure as shit wasn’t a cheap place to move to on a whim. “On top of the car,” Lucas elaborated, miming a little jumping motion with one hand slapping on top of the other. “It’s called ghost riding, too, but I think you’ve gotta be the driver who climbs out then and… yeah, no.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t have that big of a death wish. I’m chill just living with road rash instead of a full-on crash.”

Anton doesn’t have an answer, “Didn’t how much farther away I could get from my family short movin’ up to ‘Laska or somethin’,” he tells the other with a shrug, Family sparked most of things Anton did, and he just wanted a little bit of a freedom. “My buddy lives here, figured it would be a good place to still be on my own but not,” he offers, like that’s any answer. He spent most of his days in his boxers anyway, taking bets as to which neighbor was making meth in the building. “I mean, but bro, that sounds like fun. I’d do it. Just do it with a beater car, in case y’know,” he whistles, and claps his hands together, “Boom!”

Not that it was any of his business exactly, but “we have not. We barely go in there. It’s all clean and neat and shit.” Perfect for him to mess up. “Just sayin’,” he shrugs, and waves at the waitress woman for a glass of water. Too much sugar in this Dr. Pepper, or something. 

“No, you know this one,—” Jude points, and decides to shelf the prelude story about Jack Antonoff for a different time, and get straight to the big fish. “I was in the studio last Friday, helping this one dude with this track — when fucking Dr. Dre walks in, man. Dre.” 

Anton just laughs, knowing full well, or hoping, really, that Jude knew him well enough to know that he was just trying to get a rise out of him. It worked, sort of, but he just says, “I like my space,” the last people he lived with was family, and he was going to keep it that way.

“Shiiiiiit,” Anton says, “I thought he was dead in Enimen’s basement,” he jokes, grinning at the lyric mention. “I guess that’s cool. I didn’t think he was still makin’ music, you know. All the rappers nowadays are those weird mumble guys who just make you wanna smoke weed in a dim room.”

He shrugs, the food comes and he takes a big bite of it a soon as the plate gets sat down. “Shit, I feel like I haven’t ate in a week,” he says, mouth full of food, even if it was only a few hour since his last stop.

Landon looked up when whirring of his washing machine’s spin cycle stopped. It was almost eight at night, and it was getting dark out. Maybe he should’ve done laundry sooner, but the aspiring writer had spent all day… well… writing, and by the time he came to a good stopping point, most of the day had passed him by. It was one of those rare days in which muse came to him, so he had to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, he had class early the next day, and his dirty laundry wasn’t going to do itself.

He exhaled softly, setting his book on the chair he’d been glued to for the past half hour, and lazily walked towards the machine with his basket. There were other tenants there doing their own laundry. Each person was an island, tending to their own business, such as it was in an apartment complex. After pulling the wet laundry from the washer, he padded over to the dryer. He loaded his quarters in, then his detergent, and as he finished loading it, he noticed someone walking out of the laundromat that hadn’t been there before– with his backpack! His eyes widened, and he dropped his laundry basket and the remaining clean laundry on the floor, sprinting towards the door after them. “HEY!!! GIVE THAT BACK!!!”

@slchat

Anton sighs in mock defeat, he had just got back to the building after a day of being a leech on society, and just wanted to have a little fun, y’know. He liked the kid, as much as Ton could like anyone he just met, y’know. But he also couldn’t help a bit of mischievous fun. He still clenched the bag in his hand, it wasn’t like he was going to throw it down- he was a jerk, not an asshole.. if that made any sense in that regard.

  There was an unlit cigarette between his lips that dangled as he spoke when he turned around, hands up. “I was testin’ you, y’know. You passed, my boy. Gold stars all around.”

Lana shrugged, his points all made sense but this conversation was way to heavy for her when all she wanted to do was enjoy what was happening around her. “Do you ever talk about anything fun? Or is everything stressed and laced with anger with you?”

He laughs, “Where’s the fun in that? Gotta get the blood pumping somehow? You tellin’ me you don’t wake up and you’ve felt like you snorted lines o’blow, feeling like a neon cowboy?”