kurt cobain's wet dream

Jack watched the woman wide-eyed as she slammed the guitar down  “It must have been the song choice because I know my voice isnt that awful”  they defended themselves with a small pout. “I’m pretty simons on the got talent shows too” the mumbled still feeling a bit deflated from the whole ordeal

“I was going for something closer to a massage. Five more bucks and it’ll have a happy ending - I’ve always been told I’ve got the hands of a whore. What’re your thoughts?” he asked, fingers dancing oddly in front of Bradley’s face for a second before he was reaching forward and wiping them down her features, as if to wipe away any evidence of a food fight gone rogue. Puffing air into his cheeks, Mercy looked more like a puffer fish than something from Chicken Run, opting to ignore Bradley’s insult this time around. There were more that would be coming his way in the next few seconds if he knew the other at all. Pawing at his pocket for his lighter, Mercy hadn’t even realized the cigarette had been smacked from his mouth for a few seconds with how quickly Bradley had slapped at it, staring almost dejectedly at the smoke before he was bending over to grab it, “Your little temper tantrums are so fun. If you needed your fuckin’ bottle could’ve just said something,” he sighed, sounding more put-out at this point than anything actually angry, “Why’re you being such a pervert? I would’ve offered up details if I wanted to discuss my sex life. What, can’t get any? Try Fifty Shades of Grey, I don’t think I have the voice for audio porn.”

There was a split second in which Bradley was tempted to grab Mercy’s hand and snap a finger back, rabid dog chomping inside her and begging for release, but she refrained. It wasn’t worth it, she rationalised, and it would only make her think about Tyler’s wolfish howl when she did the same to him. The way Marco stood with a grin on his face, as his legs kicked out just like the pigeon’s had, when Bradley was younger -- pigeons, plural, scrabbling with her father watching overhead. Composure briefly stuttering, Bradley focused on inhaling another drag, letting it circle her lungs like a bored office worker making a lap of the building floor. “If I need my fuckin’ bottom?” Bradley misquoted, eyebrows lifting just barely. “If I need my ass? Bit fucking barbaric. Threatening to lop it clean off, with a machete. What if I need to shit, Ezra? What then?” She knew his first name was inevitably a way to have his hairs standing on end, back arched like a cat mid hiss, but Bradley didn’t care -- preferred it, in fact, poking a thumb against a green bruise to test the volume of the “yowch!” it earned. Most of the time, the bruises were her own. Most of the time, she didn’t utter a sound. “Fifty Shades of Grey called an asshole a ‘puckered love cave’, so I’ll pass, but it’s nice to know what your standards for dirty are. Off the rails, clearly. Sweet little Maggie must be in for a treat.” Observing his expression, at that, Bradley’s own remained impartial. “You just follow me out here to fart near me and make a run for it, then? By all means, release the fart and start jogging.”

Eyes narrowed and desperately trying to remember where they’d seen Bradley before (they’d never met before - they were sure, they thought - maybe, a passing glance or an offhanded mention, but not fully, not before) - the idle question of how she’d gotten their address in the first place had vanished the moment she had held up the tooth, a rare - genuine, maybe even -  smile tugging at their lips, obviously pleased with the item they’d been given. “Fucking - alright, cool.” Viktor, hunched forward, as if not fully uncurled from their beauty nap, stalked towards the kitchen - rubber duck socks padding along the floor, “Yeah - thought it’d be fucking … ironic to live in. Think Girl Scouts frequent this fucking … neighborhood, or whatever, so.” With a small shrug, they rolled the baggie and slid it into their pajama pockets’, opening the freezer door only a moment later. “Kinda look like you sleep in a fucking - bear corpse, for fun.” Viktor shuffled around, a bit, moving ice cream and ice trays out of the way before reaching into the very back and retrieving two, ordinary paper bags. They slammed the door shut and turned, presenting them to Bradley. “Mystery baggies. Like the thrill of ‘em. Pick one.”

Bradley’s lips quirked at the way they spoke. It was like every expletive came with a short stall in which they mustered the energy to leave the anger behind, a hard slam on the breaks after guzzling gas up in the hundreds, and Bradley had always liked vehicles that lurched. Cruising seamlessly was boring -- she preferred running red lights and driving in wrong lanes. “Hyena corpse, actually. I can go very compact, like a camping chair. Like the way they snarl. Tragic that they don’t, postmortem,” she exhaled, as if genuinely anguished by the fact, before opening a random cupboard and nosing inside -- personal boundaries didn’t tend to exist to a girl like Bradley, used to scuffing over carefully drawn lines in the sand or even hopping to reach the other side, just for the fact she didn’t like obeying instruction. Leaving the cupboard open, satisfied that it looked like something a spirit had meddled with during the night in Paranormal Activity, Bradley turned to eye the paper bags in Viktor’s hands. “Is this a trick question? Do they both have fossilised rat shit inside? Christ. Delicious. Favourite delicacy.” Never one to deliberate, much, she lurched a hand to snatch the right one, trading Viktor a glance before she unfurled the opening and peered inside. 

         It felt like a scene cut and pasted straight out of Jonah Hill’s Mid90s. Or maybe it was more like Superbad. Either way, Finn felt fucking ancient — like he could physically feel the flesh sinking into his skull in some morbid timelapse of a biodegrading corpse. Idly, he flicked the butt of his cigarette down into the drained pit below ( no pseudo-philosophical pool sequences for this goin’-nowhere-fast hoard of wide-eyed delinquents ) and watched with mild concern when it caught in a stoner’s beanie. At Bradley’s parallel sentiment — that this was unbearably corny — Finn’s snort was half-arsed, the ilk of a lacklustre sticker slapped from the dentist onto a child’s collar, and as he turned to Bradley, he adopted Barbossa’s West Country drawl. “You best start believing in coming-of-age cliches, Miss Turner. Yer’ in one.” Vodka was a poison he’d gladly accept if it meant he could switch off for a night. He glugged at it like a horse at water before tossing it back into Bradley’s lap, and fished in his pocket for a baggie and his keys, a nervous itch to be far away — though from what, he could hardly tell. “I dunno, man. Beaumont looks pretty gas on a skateboard.” He noted with a wistful shrug, digging his key into a dragon-printed bag and lifting it to his nose with a sniff. “Always see her whizzing around like some chaotic fuckin’ bat outta hell. Great arse.” Reluctantly, he snorted another key of ket, and then flicking his finger against the remnants of powder in the bag, offered it up to his boon companion. “Are you partaking in the devil’s sherbet, Miss Milligan?” he propositioned her, dropping onto his back, the rough tiles of the swimming pool coarse against his neck. “Weird. One legged man. Makes me think of that… er, Mary Poppins joke. I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith. What was the name of his other leg?” He’d put a cig out only minutes previous, but already Finn was patting down his pockets in search of another. “Those gobshites were laughing about that one for… hours. Fuckin’ chim-chiminey bastards.”

“Fucking... baby overboard,” Bradley replied, voice sharp like the gnash of a rottweiler’s incisors as she noisily clattered to screw the flask’s cap. Some vodka had splashed up to darken her skirt’s fabric, and her index strayed, pressing the damp as it seeped, black enough in the evening light that a squint might’ve made it look like blood -- then again, anything tended to, these days, even if she wasn’t trying. The world was her hands and she was Macbeth, but instead of frantically scrubbing, all she could muster the energy to do was glance. It was strange, getting so used to the skeletons in your closet that you hardly flinched when you opened the doors and caught a whiff of all that decay -- even stranger, when you had a visitor, and realised it wasn’t normal. Probably why Bradley tended to avoid letting anyone close enough to catch the scent. “Always used to want to be in Pirates of the Caribbean. I’d be a good pirate, I think. You know when Barbosa turns ugly as shit in the moonlight? I’d just reach out, and poke around in his chest cavity. Yank some pieces out, and put it on a sandwich. Swiss cheese fuck.” It was an out of sync response, a movie with all the frames jumbled, end at the beginning, but Bradley was finding it difficult to respond on cue. Thoughts circled her head like a drain, and she had to randomly grasp at whatever was closest, avoid the spiders and clumps of hair and hope it made sense. “Who the fuck’s Beaumont? Sounds like she wears a monocle. Is she a Monopoly board piece? New kink, I guess. Graduated beyond Angora rugs.” Accepting the bag without any encouragement, Bradley fished the key inside, subtle tremble of her hands serving as the red traffic light that went ignored. Tucking it close to her nostril, a sharp sniff saw a few softer in the aftermath, backdrop failing to produce a wince. Strange as it was, Bradley tended to like the taste. Bitter things felt familiar. Lemon in a fresh cut, blown out candles. Burnt toast. Home. “Mary Poppins was a cunt,” she declared, no reason for the statement other than the fact she couldn’t remember the film enough to say otherwise. Sinking down besides him, Bradley reached up and rest the baggy on her forehead, brain shuddering until she gave up on thinking of a proper place for it. It looked like she was playing a game of Head’s Up, dragon on the plastic appointing her this round’s Spyro. Clearing her throat as the sky seemed to sway, Bradley hardly realised she was gripping his keys inside a fist until a voice somewhere -- far off, maybe even her own -- told her it was starting to hurt. She didn’t stop. Careless to the unspoken boundaries they had in place, her next question had a name in it even if it wasn’t explicit. A name that heckled most cats, with green eyes and blonde hair. “Ever think about her?”

Jack lazily strummed at their guitar playing a cheesy old Christmas tune “Santa baby slip a sable under the tree for me”  their accent just barely peeking though as he sang to what they thought was themselves They looked up and noticed the stranger staring at them. “Sorry am I being too loud? I can move” They offered  “I thought this patch of grass was unclaimed 

Bradley had an expression of disgust on her face like she’d just witnessed Ed Sheeran running through the campus topless, mushrooms multiplying on his back like the fungal breeding ground that he is, and it only took a few strides for her to reach out and yank on his guitar by the neck. Rather childishly, she hurled it down against the grass, not actually doing much besides making a loud bang. “Just so you know, if this was X Factor, and I was Simon Cowell, I’d be tearing out my own chest hair live on television. I’d fucking quit the show.”

“Valid,” Max replied easily, exhaling as he let the anxiety of the night roll of his shoulders. He was good about not letting things ruin his mood, but lately, it was hard to stay positive. The life felt like it was draining from him little by little. “Don’t think he reads the newspaper… He usually reads true crime books on the sofa until he goes to work. Or obnoxiously fucks my stepmother,” he joked, though there was always a pinch of bitterness in his tone when he mentioned her. “This is a weird conversation,” he said, chuckling half-heartedly. “Talking about — Just like… like where we’re gonna sleep or whatever. It’s strange, right?” 

Billy’s blood had dried into every little crease in her skin, all over her fingers, and Bradley couldn’t help but stare at it. She fawned over her hands in what felt like slow motion, pulse still shuddering despite the fact he’d long since left. “Yeah. It’s strange,” she repeated his phrasing, suddenly feeling like she couldn’t move, not even if she wanted to. “It’s--...” Throat knotting out of nowhere, Bradley clenched her jaw and carried on staring at her hands. “I’m... sorry,” came like pulling teeth, visibly uncomfortable at uttering the word. “I didn’t really... I don’t know. Didn’t visit, when you were...” It felt a bit like she was zoning into the frequency of any nearby electronics, whenever she fell quiet, whining in her ear like the world’s most bloodthirsty mosquito. Her brain had been doing a lot of that, lately. Filling silences. Adding sounds that weren’t there. Words from memories that she’d rather keep locked. “I know it was probably bad, in there, but it was...” trailed off, throat closing like it wouldn’t allow it. It was happening, again. That childish voice that warranted a yank of the jaw, a leer like a boot heel to crush a milling bug. She couldn’t bring herself to stop staring at her hands: at red, and Billy, and the world that had become her own without her permission. “It was bad out here, too.”

“Asbestos…” Making a show of smelling the air, his nose wrinkled as he sat on the sink. Watching as Bradley worked, he laughed at her question. He found it difficult to imagine Bradley really cared about the answer, but he offered one anyway. “Um,” he began, smiling at the memory. Even if Bradley didn’t care at all, it was nice to say out loud sometimes. “He wanted to take a picture with me… Randomly. Don’t know. It’s Teddy, you know? And he was just a bit relentless and — and I didn’t have friends yet, so he just… demanded we be friends. And the rest is history, I guess.”

Slipping an ID card from her pocket -- not her own, apparently belonging to a man with a halfhearted bowl cut and grey, unblinking eyes, stolen off a coffee table -- Bradley started racking out the lines on top of the sink. She couldn’t help but hear Sawyer’s echo in the back of her head. Look at you, Bradley. You’re on more drugs than Michael Jackson in his final days. Her jaw clenched, and she tried to focus on her handiwork as Blake began his story, hands subtly trembling and making it difficult. It made her feel a little nauseous, not for the fact she didn’t like to hear it, but because she was sure she’d wear that same stupid smile of her own if she ever had to answer the question about Max. Milligans were hardwired to hate caring about people -- that’s what her mother said, anyway, tenderly thumbing Bradley’s jaw as the locked door rattled with her father’s fists. “Sweet,” she answered, as crisp as the gaze she lifted midway through plucking a straw cut in half from her pocket. Handing it over with a vague gesture to help himself, she did her best not to sound bored. Impatient was probably a better word. Distracted. “Something out of a movie. Bet Nicholas Sparks will buy the novel rights.”

Emitting a dramatic heave of breath, Elias shook his head in disbelief at the situation. He was beginning to think he’d actually committed the crime, but he was pretty confident he hadn’t. “Look man… Eli’s been in the kitchen for like two hours. Misunderstanding,” a man he’d just been speaking to piped up as Elias chortled. It was difficult not to, watching the movements of the man’s expression in front of him. “Fucking hell, I’m Elmo. Not Ernie. Get it right, bitch. Anyway, the doctor says I’m not allowed to handle razors until my violent streak lets up. Anything sharp off-limits, so you definitely have the wrong guy. It’s Bert you’re looking for. I know for a fact based on the state of her muff, she doesn’t use that razor for hygiene.” 

“You’re saying I have a dirty vag? Slander upon my precious little clam? My pearl and oyster?” Bradley mocked disbelief, vague monotone of her voice completely undermining it. Apparently sick of the back and forth, the eyebrowless man slammed the razor down onto the kitchen island, bottles cluttering it rattling as a result. “It’s not her razor. It’s my fucking razor. She shaved me with my own fucking razor. It’s my sister’s wedding, this weekend, you stupid bitch.” Taking a nonchalant sip from her vodka, Bradley shrugged a shoulder, trading Elias a glance. “I think we can all agree this is a bit of an overreaction. Right, Ernie?” Visibly set off by how little she was taking any of this seriously, the man stepped forwards and snatched her cup, crushing it within his fist and hurling it sideways with all of his might -- unfortunately for him, that meant it smacked full force into the head of Elias’ company. Bradley blinked up at him with all the captive fascination of a cat with a quivering mouse, amusement lurking in the crevices of her expression with no effort to hide it. “Wow. Bit rude. Let the bodies hit the floor, I guess. It’s an all out brawl.”

Letting out a gasp at the same time the startled girl let out a shriek, Rosa slapped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to hide her wide grin, however the laughter she blurted out in the next second didn’t help in the slightest, “Oh, jeez - this reminds me of the 3rd grade. Someone walked in on me peeing 5 times that year, new record. I was too scared to lock the doors. What if it broke and I -,” In the middle of her story, Rosa let out a grunt when the stranger shaved past the two of them quickly, pouting after her like they’d been long-time friends and the other had all but spat in her face to get her to stop talking, “She didn’t even let me finish. Rude and unsanitary. Cunt,” she huffed, leaning against the bathroom sinks and crossing her arms. Around Bradley, there seemed to be a tougher edge to Rosa that most didn’t get to see - she’d always managed to blend in with her company, a way to stay lowkey, anything that would make it impossible to stick out like a sore thumb, avoiding any reasons to make others not want to be around her. But she liked it, the freedom that came along with the tooth and nail sharpness that Bradley’s personality provided, something Rosa could get behind and made her want to spend more time with the older girl, “What’s up? Super secret gossip time? Didn’t really take you for the type.”

There was a hint of a smile perched on her lips with all the ominous presence of a cathedral gargoyle steeped in shadow, as Rosa verbally spat on the floor with their company’s exit. She sounded a bit like a toddler plodding around in her mother’s heeled pumps, dismissing someone like that, at least to Bradley, and she couldn’t help but admire the way she’d tried to say it with her whole chest. It reminded her of being ten, so angry at everything but not quite knowing how to express it, just yet. Only being equipped with a knife in a gun fight. Turning back to face Rosa after watching the girl storm out, Bradley unfurled the fist she’d clamped tight, about to speak before a shout from the hallway outside had her lurching to fast action. “Bradley! I know you’re fucking in there!” Stepping forwards, Bradley glanced around as her mind worked a hundred miles a minute, eventually reaching to gently tug at Rosa’s chin. “Quick, open your mouth.” Doing it for her, regardless, Bradley somehow managed to cram a whole eight ball of coke in there before suddenly turning, facing the door just in time for it to come slamming open. Schlepping inside, a man in a Letterman jacket ran a hand down his mouth. “Do you fucking mind? Ladies room, Troy Bolton. Rosa was just about to help me put in my tampon. Hashtag feminism.” Visibly not amused, he shook his head. “Cut the shit, Bradley. Where is it? Did you fucking flush it, huh?” His eyes flew to find Rosa. “Did you? Did you help her?” Shaking her head, Bradley dismissed his interrogation. “She’s deaf, you stupid cunt. Way to be problematic, verbally throttling a disabled person. He’s cancelled, your honour.”

“Kangaroos aren’t evil, they’re misunderstood.” Max was entirely ignorant on this subject, but he chose to believe his bullshit anyway. He was good about that, peppering fiction into his reality to make everything seem a little better than it was and choosing to believe it despite being the one behind the creation. “My dad would love you,” Max declared. “He’s not — He’s a cop, but he’s not judgmental. I don’t know if he’s even mad I went to jail, he’s just mad I fucked up my sobriety for one stupid night.” Exhaling, Max ran a hand over his face, laughing into it as he did. “Yeah, we talk every day. It’s a rule. I have to call him and check in or he’ll be pissed.”

“Weird,” was all Bradley could think to say at Max’s declaration, split second urge to smile torn into shreds. Nice thoughts tended to survive in Bradley’s head like a severed foot in a fish tank of starving piranhas. It was difficult, twenty minutes after stabbing a switchblade into Billy’s thigh and enjoying it, to imagine anyone’s parent looking at her and seeing something they wanted in their child’s life, something they admired. Blinking over after realising she’d been staring into space, Bradley couldn’t help but watch him. It was one of her worst habits, a clinger with claws that didn’t retract, and she could never seem to shake it until she was already ten seconds in -- sometimes not even then. “Think I like your dad. Sounds pretty stern. In my head, he puts his hands on his hips, a lot. Always wears a belt, and reads the newspaper.” Realising she’d just been holding the joint, she held it out, promptly standing once he’d taken it. She was by the window before she even realised she’d walked there, peeling down the struts of her blinds to check the spot Billy’s car had been parked. Strange enough, it was still there, but there was no-one inside it. No Billy anywhere. Bradley gnawed at the inside of her cheek. “You can stay in here,” she suggested once she’d turned, doing her best to play casual. “I’ll take Ford’s. Sick of my ceiling, anyway. His has better cracks. One looks like a lizard’s eye, so. Pretty fascinating stuff.”

“Oh boo-hoo, sleep when you get home, then,” he said, just as nonchalant, looking back and forth between the two as he was upsold.  Chase struggled to pay attention, raising a brow at Stanley.  “I tried to shove Glee in the recesses of my mind, but thank you for the reminder,” he said, before shrugging.  “Usual, sounds good to me.  I’ll take that shit.  And I know you don’t pre-roll, I’m talking about just needing joints, period.”  He didn’t bring too many papers with him, just the one, so he could light up and experiment here, plus the one joint he still had left over.  “The orphans are the ones with the food, and they’re telling me they can’t starve,” he said, shaking his head.  “Capitalists.”  He fished out his cash, their usual rates, and deposited it into Bradley’s hand.  “My usual amount, please and thank.”

Stanley thrust his hand out expectantly, once Chase started fishing in his pockets, and it only made Bradley smile when he deposited it into her hand, instead. “Thanks,” she breezed, fairly out of character, balling it up like you would an old wrapper only to stuff it into her pocket. Apparently put out by this, Stanley let out a disgruntled mumble below his breath. “Fucking joke, yo.” He’d just about retrieved the eighth of an ounce from the recesses of his glove box when Bradley lifted her eyebrows, eyes cemented on his in cold assessment. “What’s a joke, Stanley?” The air seemed to stagnate, at the crispness of it, and rather than provide an answer, Stanley simply shrugged, wafting the baggy as he sheepishly avoided her gaze. “That’s what I thought, Limp Dick.” Reaching out, she snatched it off him and turned back to face Chase. A light toss saw it sailing over to land in his lap. “Wanna get dropped with me, somewhere?” It was fairly rare, this kind of Bradley, a snake having shed it’s skin to birth a vibrant new set of scales underneath, gleaming in a way that just begged for touch -- Bradley without all the barbs. Blink and you miss it. “I know a place. Better than sticking in this van. Smells like farts and used toothpicks.”

The water in the bathroom sink was stained pink, Ford staring at his reflection, fingers gingerly touching the bump he could feel on his nose from the night’s altercation. “Brad? Come in here for a sec.” Turning when he felt her presence, he angled his face a bit more towards the light. “Be honest, would I still be pretty if my nose gets broken? I think one more direct hit is just gonna make it go sideways forever and I’ll be stuck looking like Owen Wilson.” @brvdleymilligan​

Bradley schlepped in still wearing her boots -- she didn’t tend to take them off, always a flight risk -- and limply dangling a burnt piece of toast. The crust was half torn from how savagely she’d stuffed and yanked it from the toaster. She didn’t have the appetite to eat it, but her stomach was gnawing itself and the room was close to spinning. “Sweet, you made soup,” she commented of the bloody water, skimming a finger through it without a grimace. Afterwards, she flicked it at him. “You’re never pretty, Ford. You’re actually kind of disgusting on the eyes.” Bradley crunched a bite from her toast, butter mixing poorly with remnants of vodka. “Children cower when they see you on the street. I’ve seen it.”

“excuse me? i will have you know that i picked this name, all by myself from the discount bin of bland, all-american white boy names!” he snapped, suddenly feeling very defensive. “i would say better than pigeon crap, but you are certainly acting like a crapping pigeon! it’s tuesday?” oh no, this was bad, this was very, very bad. “what happened to the weekend? also i wish i was, maybe then things would make sense!”

“Well, that’s... I mean, whatever. Fuck it. Greg’s fine,” Bradley shrugged off, fingers moving to her cheek before they dropped entirely -- it had the sluggish pace of a bird that had just hit a window, sliding down the glass before it fell into the bushes. “I don’t know. Feels like a Tuesday. Is it a Tuesday?” Glancing around like that would provide some form of clarification, Bradley came up empty. “I won’t lie, I never keep track. Sometimes I wake up and a week’s gone by. Just how life is. Time isn’t real,” she announced, moving on. “What’re you losing your shit over, anyway? Feral hog you bought at the market gone missing?”