cigarette daydreams

is that a joke? i mean for starters, i sure as hell didn’t deserve lydia’s love. everyone knows it, too. in general i’m not really someone who needs to be loved, though. being loved creates expectations...responsibility, and i’ve never been much good with those, if i’m being honest.

he turned a corner and found himself just a few strides away from the church. normally he wouldn’t have thought much of this, but there was a smiling young man stationed out front who looked ready to proposition him to do something church-related. for a moment he considered just turning back the way he came, but it was too late; the holy roller was already extending a flier in his direction. as dean came to a stop in front of him, he realized that he knew this guy — well…knew of him. reggie jr, aka mr. perfect; dean had always considered himself lucky that their paths hadn’t crossed much, as he didn’t have a high tolerance for moralizing (something he kinda just assumed that all religious people did constantly). before even looking at what the flier said, dean held up a hand, “look…reggie, is it? i’m sure you’re doing the lord’s work and all, and that’s great. i’m happy for you, really i am. but the whole god thing? not for me. so, i think maybe you should save that for the next poor sap who walks this way.”

he was pouring the amber liquid down the hatch when the new guest came into view. ‘oh, this is delicious,’ he thought to himself, sneering at august, waiting for him to notice whose company he was in. however, his foe was too focused on ordering his drink...so dean decided to help him out a little. “hey tough guy! is that how you greet your friends, then? what, no kiss? no hug? no nothin’?” he was shouting fairly loudly so that everyone in the bar could hear him. but that was exactly how he wanted it. it was his turn now to make a scene, to poke the bear. drunk dean was always one for confrontation, after all.

a very LYDIA + DEAN moodboard

a very AUGUST + DEAN moodboard

a very DEAN LOMBARDI moodboard

dean was just pulling his phone out of his pocket in order to find some clues as to where exactly he was and how he got there when the door to the barn began to open. his heart started racing a bit until he recognized the tiny blonde entering his makeshift sleeping quarters. with nowhere to hide, he simply flashed a smile and said, “mornin’ farmgirl.”

WHEN: middle of the day WHERE: flea market WHO: open to everyone

As someone who could afford anything she wanted at any given time, it was kind of surprising that Cyrelle was drawn to the quirky one-of-a-kind knickknacks that popped up in the flea market. And so were other Darkwood residents, which was made apparent when Cyrelle reached for an item at the same time someone else did. How awkward. “Not to be ‘that guy,’ but I’m pretty sure I saw this first.”

.

dean squinted in the bright may sunlight, his cornea’s needing to re-adjust to daylight after being cooped up inside for...a week? two? he couldn’t be totally sure, as it was all a bit of a blur. he simultaneously felt like shit and never felt better; the alcohol-induced stupor was like a warm blanket, numbing all the paranoid anxiety he’d felt since returning to this godforsaken year. everyone he’d ever known could’ve perished in a fire and he wouldn’t have the slightest idea — it was better that way. the only reason he wasn’t still drowning his sorrows in whiskey was because his stash had run dry the previous night. the sobriety was just starting to sink in and it was so unbearable that he actually got out of bed to brave all the overstimulation of downtown darkwood. 

as he approached the liquor store, he couldn’t help but notice the commotion going on in the square. he was momentarily confused, before he remembered that his mum had mentioned something about a flea market coming to town in an effort to get him excited about something, anything. she should’ve known better than to think he’d get excited about a flea market, drunk or sober. still, her birthday was coming up in a few weeks and it would be better to grab something quick here than have to go out again later. he crossed the street and stopped at the first booth he found, browsing the selection of used goods. his eyes immediately landed on a slender, vintage vase with a small hand-painted rose and he instinctively reached for it. before he had a chance, though, his hand almost collided with another patron’s and he retreated quickly, as if the vase had suddenly caught fire. dean wasn’t at all in the mood to interact with other people, so he just shook his head and muttered, “don’t worry about it. s’all yours” before returning back to browsing, never once looking up during the entire interaction.

catering chaos | dean & mx

 what were they supposed to be doing? that was a big question and it was unlikely the two of them had ever banged their heads together and got a good result in any life they’d lived so far. in the broader scheme of things they were probably meant to be trying to put the world right and stop a million disasters including the death of their own friends… he wasn’t exactly the type of superhero that swooped in and saved the day, the bar was very low and mx had a feeling that even so the lot of them would end up doing the limbo beneath it before it touched the ground. have faith, luca would of said… luca was a fucking IDIOT.

“other than saving the world?” he muses, a grin on his lips that says that he’s up to no good, an objective joke about the state of their current lives. there’s no malice there, just a commentary on the impending doom that everyone keeps telling him not to talk about. it seems weird to avoid it. would you avoid discussing a meteor heading towards planet earth if you were the only one who had seen it destroy everyone? “planning some snacks - like, for real, because i don’t want to get beat up and meet an even earlier grave by rachel’s hand before i even figure out what’s going on here. that would be very uncool. it’s a barn so nothing extravagant… a buffet but make it sexy.”

dean just huffs out a small laugh in response to mx’s comment, holding his tongue because this is neither the time nor the place to have that conversation. these past few weeks he’d just been quietly seething while everyone seemed more concerned with planning community events than making real headway in stopping the fires — because that worked so well for them last time. normally alcohol and drugs would have done their part to put him in a ‘don’t-give-a-fuck’ mood, but for some strange reason he’d managed to stay sober despite all the hurdles he’d had to jump through lately. like literally crashing his fucking motorcycle.

Lillian: i'm...not sure. i think some of them like the painted eggs & getting to paint some themselves

Lillian: it's the thrill of the hunt! the competition 🥇 we're going to have a few special ones this year that get them even better prizes 💪

Dean: you make it sound like the hunger games

catering chaos | dean & mx

@deanlombardi

if mx had put together a list of people who shouldn’t have been in charge of anything that mattered then he would of put their names at the top, whoever had volunteered them obviously either delusional or late on their april fools joke. he was pretty much certain rachel was going to be his cause of death this time around when she realised what a fuck up he was when it came to trying to stay focused on organising anything. hot dogs from a tin and that vine hack he saw about spaghetti going through them… that was not going to cut it. it was a shame. sometimes mx was sure he had good ideas and yet as quickly as they came they LEFT his brain completely. he’d read online maybe that was some kind of drug induced brain damage but he couldn’t remember ever being that focused on one thing at a time. maybe that was why he had liked the drugs. 

waiting for dean in the middle of the square which was strewn with easter activities, screaming children and people that were all too ready to throw themselves onto the ground in search of a chocolate egg… he thanks god he’s not george. what fresh hell this would be in a hot sticky bunny suit. 

dean had forgotten until just about 20 minutes ago that this whole easter shebang was today. he had woken up to a few texts about it and hurriedly threw on some jeans and a tshirt and pat down his hair a bit on his way out the door. ‘it’ll do,’ he said to himself as he made his way downtown. he might’ve been a bit more worried about running late had his volunteering partner been anyone but mx. matter of fact, dean would be flabbergasted if mx had made it there before himself, tardiness and all. dean hadn’t planned on participating in the easter event at all, but he couldn’t really say no once he caught word that he’d been signed up. well, he could have said no (and he probably would have back in og 2014), but he wanted to get in rachel’s good graces. plus, he was always down to spend some quality time with mx, who he actually hadn’t seen much of since his reincarnation (speaking of, how very festive of mx to come back from the dead).

august narrowed his eyes at dean’s assessment of what riddles apparently were. “ that don’t sound like any riddle i ever heard – ain’t give me any indication that it is. just sounds like some weird short story, ” he responded, still baffled over how that was supposed to be a riddle when there was a logical – albeit extreme – sequence. and no question attached either ! maybe if there’d been a ‘why,’ he would’ve actually understood that it was somehow a riddle… or at least been able to offer his own insight into it. now, it would be a lie if he said he wasn’t curious over what the answer was, but… he still didn’t understand it enough, nor care enough about it, to ask a man he loathed. 

he scoffed at dean’s follow-up question. circling his face, he asked, “ y’ever get tired of wearin’ that resident bad boy mask 24/7 ? ” one of the many things that got under august’s skin about dean was his attempt at projecting that rebel without a cause vibe. ask august and dean looked like too much of a twig, body type of shaggy rogers, to even successfully pretend. “ ‘least i ain’t worryin’ about my image. ”

.

dean just laughed bitterly in response. maybe august wasn’t totally off base in identifying him as a poser; he did in fact play up the bad boy aesthetic without all that much substance to back it up. sure, he’d keyed the odd car, stolen the odd pack of cigs, and had his fair share of substance abuse, but mostly his ‘cred’ relied on a whole lot of sarcasm and confidence. hardly anyone ever questioned his self-identified ‘bad boy’ image solely because he looked the part — or, at least, a small town full of close-minded people thought he did. apparently all it took was a motorcycle and some tattoos and he might as well have been al capone (the italian ancestry probably helped in that department, too). 

all that being said, dean still felt that this was a pot calling the kettle black situation. you mean to tell me, he thought, that the guy going around picking fights for no damn reason isn’t trying to project a certain image to the world? “whatever you need to tell yourself, pal. but...some friendly advice? you might wanna worry about your own damn mask.”

“You look you know,” she commented, unsure if she had a right to bring it up, but judging by the injuries she assumed had come from a fight… he’d certainly seen better days. Her smile wavered at his answer. It was upsetting to know he’d felt so alone and she hadn’t sent him so much as a text. There were plenty addressed to him sitting in her message drafts, but those weren’t going to make him feel any less alone. She had abandoned him when his life was the hardest, and for what? Sure, what he’d done to Lydia was shitty, but he hadn’t cheated on her. She didn’t even give the boy an explanation. He was one of her dearest friends for two decades, and she’d cut him off and never looked back like it had been easy. God, it hadn’t been easy, it had been the hardest thing she’d ever done — but did he know that?

“I’ve been well.” It was all she could say. She wasn’t going to brag on her dream job in her dream city with her dream man in her dream apartment when he was sitting here telling her how pathetic everything had been for him. Life had almost been too good for the amount of people she’d lost. She had worked so hard to build it up, to make something she could be proud of and happy with. For what, though? It was all gone, now, and she had no idea if she’d be able to get it back. It wasn’t like she wanted to dwell on that, it wasn’t like it took away the good memories, but it didn’t make it hurt any less either.

“I’m sorry, Dean.” There was a long pause before she spoke again. Apologies weren’t usual for her; swallowing her pride, admitting she’d done wrong. It was something she struggled with even after all these years. She couldn’t even look at him as she said it. Did she have to offer an explanation? Probably not. He should know what she was referring to. He shouldn’t have had to find contentment in being alone. He might’ve done something to push everyone else away, but not her. She’d taken the easy route. Plucking a blade of grass, she rubbed it between her forefinger and thumb, just something to focus on other than meeting his gaze. “I don’t know if you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you, but… I’ve missed you.”

.

short of his jaw dropping, dean’s face flashed nearly every sign of confusion there was. “you’re sorry? i’m the one who should be apologizing here.” it was a complete shock to him that she had been harboring any semblance of guilt for abandoning him all those years ago, when he was the one who had pushed her away in the first place. he made a stupid fucking mistake and she had every right to be mad at him for it, even if she wasn’t directly affected by it. after all, he had seen the aftermath of the nik and penny debacle firsthand; seen how hurt she’d been. that dean could comfort her in that moment and then turn around and do the same thing to the person he loved…let’s just say he understood how fawna’s trust in him as a friend might have been shaken. 

“you did what you had to do. i never blamed you for that, only myself. but i…” he trailed off. dean had never been very good at this stuff. he didn’t come from a household that talked about their feelings, or showed affection in any way, shape, or form. but fawna and dean had known each other so long and been through so much together that it was a hell of a lot easier for him to bare his soul with her than it was with most other people. just spit it out, dumbass. “i really fucking missed you too, fawns.” as soon as he said it, he was mad for not saying it sooner. why didn’t he just text her that years ago? him and his stupid pride... he smiled at her, a goofy grin that communicated that he was just as happy and relieved as he felt inside. interrupting the seemingly important massage she was administering to a blade of grass, dean reached out and clasped one of her hands, giving it a gentle squeeze. “so…friends again?”

TEXT: dean → mx

Lillian: oh no. wrong number

Lillian: you definitely don't seem like someone who paints eggs for the joy of children

Dean: okay wait a minute do children actually like painted eggs?