l a n d s l i d e

“you’ll never guess what i bought today?” sofia smiles brightly and pulls out two poop emoji brownie tins and keeps the smile on her face, “i’m going to make poop emoji brownies, and it’ll be funny because it’ll actually look like poop.” she smiles again then soon shakes her heads, “it’s not that cool is it? i saw it at the store and i had to buy it but now i’m craving brownies so i’m tempted to make some..”

“three whole weeks. it was pathetic. my husband was like ‘you should have sucked his blood’, but honestly, the thought of sucking anything on that man makes me gag,” she said, shuddering in disgust. “it’s because of my clothes. vampires typically dress in dark clothes. i only own black.”

“even then. it’s cause you’re sitting next to me. he’s not gonna fuck with you, he’s scared of me. he’s one of the idiots that grew up believing the rumors that i’m a vampire. in seventh grade, he was messing with some kid, so i bit him on the neck and he thought he was turning into a vampire for three weeks.”

Cory was chatting with his friend, back to the empty seat. He was shocked someone even sat there, though people tended to stick to their group of friends. She got his attention though with the nudge to his side, Cory breaking his conversation to face her a bit better. “Oh god -” Cory raised his eyebrows looking at the guy. A jock, obviously, which Cory had a kind of subversion to. “Yeah. Looks like he could crush my head?” He laughed though at her reference, arm eagerly coming around her. He was sober enough to at least defend her in a fight with him but drunk enough to not feel thee pain of getting his bones smashed. He leaned a bit closer to her. “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.” He said, which was true for once.  The guy spotted them still, which Cory turned his head from facing the door and instead pulled her closer to him.

A small smile appeared on her face as he turned to face her, though that soon turned into a grimace as he spotted the guy that had followed her, “yeah, that’ll be the one, hopefully he wont though - I’m the one that pissed him off, not you.” Avery tensed a little as his arm wrapped around her, though not enough that anyone watching would have noticed. Nodding slightly at his words she relaxed again, “It’s okay, I mean, that’s why he’s following me in the first place. You pour a dude a drink and he thinks that means he can kiss you? Even after you tell him you have a boyfriend.” She sighed dramatically and shook her head, “Of course, then he’s not a fan of when you throw a drink over him and speed walk for you life.” She grinned at the stranger, trying to distract herself a little and make it at least appear to prying eyes like they knew each other.

“Help me, Obi-Wan, you’re my only hoe,” she corrected. Looking up, her eyes scanned the crowd before settling on a boy matching Avery’s description with sandy blonde hair, who was, evidently, checking the two of them out. “Shit!” Jade’s eyes widened, a childish glint in her eye. “Can I be your Peter Kavinsky?” Slinging her arm around the girl’s shoulders, she nearly nudged herself into her lap before planting a soft kiss to the side of her mouth, making eye contact with the frat boy in question just in time to see him nervously look away. “Aww, I think I hurt his ego.”

“Fuck, you’re right, I can’t believe I got it wrong. What kind of nerd am I?” She watched as the other girl looked around, it was obvious she’d spotted the guy she’d mentioned, and Avery wanted to disappear into the ground. She hardly had a moment to react to her question before she’d wrapped an arm around her instinctively, laughing softly at the soft kiss. She glanced around to see him walk away before looking back at Jade, “My hero, you saved me, how can I ever repay this debt?” She grinned.

morty looked behind them and raised a brow. “that’s wallace byrd,” she said, turning back around to her phone. “why are you worried about him? he’s a dick, but he won’t do anything to you.”

“HEY, DO YOU MIND GIVING ME A HAND?” kaylee stood on the sidewalk outside her dorm building with two big boxes, each standing at almost a foot and a half tall. the equipment to build her custom laptop had just been delivered; however, she didn’t account for how she was going to get it all into her room. “i just need helping carrying these to my dorm. i didn’t want to leave one alone on the sidewalk while i carried the other.” kaylee wasn’t usually one to ask for help, but desperate times called for desperate measures. 

“ dude i’m a TA for family and relationships and i swear my teacher shows up wasted to every fucking class so i wind up teaching and now ‘m here grading exams while they’re god knows where. ” huffing loudly before saying, “ sorry - sorry ‘m emotionally dumping i know but i had to get that off my chest before i imploded. how have you been ? ”

Without any thought, Rory tilted their phone so that Avery could read it. This was fun, and what did she have to hide, anyway? “He’s a total nerd, like it just is what it is.” She chewed on her straw, a thoughtful hum sounded around the green plastic. So the whole thing seemed to be requiring more thought than she originally believed. “It’ll get annoying, but presents won’t.”

Avery laughed and scrunched her nose up a little, “Nerds aren’t too bad though, at least he’s not an asshole, that would have to be a deal breaker, right?” She swung her legs under the table, her feet not quite reaching the floor, and smiled at Rory. “Oooh, what’s gonna be the first present you ask for? Jewellery? Your own private beach somewhere warm and sunny?”

“Wait, really? That’s amazing! That’d be so cool, I’d love to see that. But if not…would you have to record every part yourself or could you find people to do it?” Aedan picked up the last half of his cookie, devouring it in two bites. “Don’t tell her that or she’ll let the fame go to her head. Then she’ll be asking for treats all the time and where’ll that leave us? She’ll be a diva and next thing we know she’ll have her own Instagram account and I’ll end up working for her.” Laughing, Aedan picked up Avery’s coffee so she wouldn’t knock it over, trying to keep it out of Navi’s reach. “Fair enough. I can do our regular Grubhub order, or do you want something different?” he asked as they headed back toward his apartment. One of the things Aedan loved the most was the familiarity—with so many uncertainties popping up day-to-day, at least he could count on a few things, their usual takeout orders being one of them.

"Yeah, it’d be really amazing if mine got chosen, but there are people writing pieces for whole fucking orchestras so. We’ll see. I could probably find people to play it but they’d have to do it perfectly.” At least she knew she could play it like she wanted it played, and it didn’t help that a lot of the people studying music didn’t play the right instruments. With a grin Avery looked at him, “I don’t know...I think if she had her own Instagram account it would do really well, you could totally live off of the money Navi makes. She already has you wrapped around her paw - would her being a diva really change that?” Avery laughed as she held her sheet music under her arm and her violin case in her hand, smiling fondly as they walked. “The usual should be good, I can’t think of anything better.” Falling into step next to Aedan calmed all of the thoughts racing around her mind, at least for a little while, knowing that he knew her better than a lot of people made her feel safe, and feeling safe meant her jumbled thoughts shut up for a moment.

Aedan frowned at the face she made; he hadn’t meant to make her feel bad about not eating, but he did know how wrapped up she could get in her work and just wanted to look out for her. “Don’t be sorry. We’ll get food in a bit, yeah? Oh, I’m dead serious. Would I joke about the lobster shirt? I don’t joke about the lobster shirt.” He had, in fact, ordered his own version of the infamous lobster shirt online several months ago and had worn it way too often this summer. “Hey, that’s good! I mean, theory sounds like hell but how’s the string quartet piece going? Is this something that I’ll ever get to hear, or is it just for class?” Navi wriggled out of his arms, walking atop Avery’s papers to check out a bird that had landed on the ground next to the three of them. “Nuh uh, those are important,” he chided, scooping her back into his arms. “Want to go now or later?”

"Yeah," She nodded, relaxing a little, "sounds good." Avery drank more of her coffee and chuckled, holding her hands up, "you're right, you would never joke about the lobster shirt, I apologise." Looking at the sheets of paper with various scribbles on them she smiled a little, bouncing her leg excitedly, "Actually, some of the pieces might be chosen to be performed, so you never know. Other than that, unless I can record all the parts separately without losing my mind, it's unlikely it'll see the light of day." With a laugh she reached out to pet Navi before he scooped her up again, "it's okay, it doesn't matter if she messes them up a little, I can just say she's a co writer, it can be a piece written by Avery Evans and Navi Macnessa." She giggled and piled up the papers, careful not to knock her coffee over, "we can go now, I don't think I could write anything else today, and it definitely wouldn't be good."

“So like that dog from That ‘70s Show, then?” he said, before he realized that might sound a little insulting if they weren’t familiar with it. “It’s…it’s a meme. I didn’t want to insult you, or whatever,” he said, mentally kicking himself. Ben could be somewhat confident most of the time, but then there were times he felt like he was making himself feel like a fool. “That’s really nice. I’ll tell everyone around me that the song is about me and none of them will believe me,” he laughed. “Are you working on something for school, then? Or just…writing?”

“Again?” Aedan sighed, sitting down and poking a straw into his iced hot chocolate. “You gotta eat. Okay, you’re coming back to mine and I’m making food. Well, I’ll probably order Chinese takeout. And then I found this video of a Wind Waker speedrun that I feel like you’d get a kick out of. This guy finishes the whole game in under an hour and a half in the lobster shirt!” he exclaimed, taking too long of a sip and immediately getting brain freeze. He picked Navi up from where she was walking around on top of the table, sitting her in his lap. “How’s everything been going? Hopefully good, if you haven’t stopped to eat or anything yet.”

Avery felt the guilt twist in her stomach, looking down at the floor as she nibbled at the cookie, she knew that it wasn't healthy to not eat for so long but she always seemed to get so caught up in her work she couldn't think about anything else, "Sorry." She nodded a little, taking a sip of her coffee, bringing her eyes up to meet his again with a smile, "Chinese sounds so good. Wait, are you serious? The lobster shirt? In an hour and a half? That sounds awesome." She at up a little straighter, leaning forwards, "yeah! It's been...Well, it's been going. I forget how much I hate music theory sometimes, it's all bullshit, but working on my composition has been pretty good so far - I'm trying to write a piece for a string quartet."

“I dunno, man. People can get weirdly successful at weird ages. Like, what if he’s super smart or something?” Rory chewed her lip, typing a message out, and hitting send. “There we go, a conversation’s starting. Let’s see how it goes from here.” Nodding, she hummed around her straw again. “That’s true. He’s letting me use him,” she paused, “and honestly, depending on what kind of shit he’s willing to get me, he could be an awkward virgin literally every time we hook up.”

“He sent a Star Wars pick up line, right? Maybe he’s just a nerd.” Avery chuckled a little, sitting up straighter, “ooh, what did you send? I’m fully invested in this now.” She took another sip of her drink, checking her phone out of habit even though she knew she didn’t have any new messages, “Maybe he’s really into giving girls his money, it’s not unheard of.” Scrunching her nose up a little Avery laughed, “every time? wouldn’t that get a little annoying?”