* DUST / STAINED.

“ It’s… well. ” Jaerd opens his mouth, closes it again. It’s not often that he’s struck speechless, but this stranger has wrung him out to dry with a breezy question and innocent expression. He seeks brief comfort with a sip from his near-empty cocktail and avoiding eye contact. “ I don’t think about sex that often. It’s not important to me. ” Not wholly a lie – not wholly a truth. Jaerd shrugs and risks bringing his eyes back to the stranger’s, if only for a moment. “ What, like it’s bad? To be a virgin? I have two degrees. ”

          “uh,   those  churches  are  wrong.   not  everyone  is  a  sinner.   but  i’m  sure  i’ve  done  something  worth  a  stoning,   so  if  you  want  to  throw  rocks  at  me  i  don’t  really  care.” 

          “they  have  to  sin  first.   do  you  know  any  women  that  have  committed  adultery?   actually,   that’s  sexist.   do  you  know  any  sinners?” 

          “ do  you  want  me  to  throw  rocks  at  you? ”   he  raises  his  eyebrow  and  sighs.   

Jaerd frowns. Nothing to do with the glossing over of his family trauma, completely to do with the idea of oiling his hair. He reaches up, gently patting the back of his head as though inspecting the texture. “ Wouldn’t it feel wet and gross afterwards? No thank you. —— You don’t think I need to put it in there, right? ” A shake of his head. “ That’s where I draw the line. Coconut is for soaps and scents and sometimes flavored liquors only, never to eat. The texture is like plastic; I feel like I’m chewing it forever. All that work for what? A small endurance boost? Some extra manganese and copper? No thanks. ”

     “ No, like, a real date. Why do you think I’m here? I don’t know. ”

          “we  should  be  friends  then.   you  can  give  me  fun  scoops  and  if  something  comes  in  on  you  i  can  bury  it.”   not  that  he  really  thought  anything  would  come  to  the  paper’s  attention  about  her.   still.   the  offer  still  stood.   “i  wouldn’t  be  surprised  if  the  mayor  was  actually  a  vampire.   there’s  got  to  be  someone  from  over  there  that  will  talk.”   gleb  would  rather  not  talk  about  drama  like  that  though.   while  he  liked  his  job,   it  was  never  his  intention  to  report  on  something  unless  it  was  actually  hurting  people.   “somehow,   i  hate  puff  pieces  even  more.   no  one  really  cares  about  those  sorts  of  things.   people  complain  about  bad  news  stories  but  get  bored  by  the  happy  things  unless  it’s  some  happy  story  about  a  puppy  or  some  queer  rights  thing.”   really  that’s  all  he  cared  about  anyways.  

@duststained​ ( sofia ft SIENNA )

Pushing the door of the Charity Angel Thrift Store, Sofia discovers the unfamiliar place. It feels like she never really goes out shopping, ordering online instead to make it easier with her busy schedule. But after a deep - late - spring cleaning, it was time for her to make good with some of the old clothes that had been staying in closets for far too long. “ Hi, I have a bunch of old clothes, and I thought this was the perfect place to give them to. How do I process with it? ”

“ – What’s Deez? ”

“ You’re not very good at impressions, you know. ” Jaerd rolled his eyes. Why does he always get stuck with the stupid kids? “ And what education is that? How to be a Public Nuisance 101? You’re doing just fine on your own without the help of a library full of books you’ll never read. ”

“ I… don’t know either. How’d he even get on the team to begin with? It’s been so long I can’t remember. Hell, I can’t remember how that kid Henry got involved either. — I think once upon a time it might’ve just been you and me, man, but we picked up all these strays along the way. ”

“ I would not — I would never do something that lame. ” Paired with a forced scoff and eye roll? Yeah, Bobbi is totally selling this right now. To be fair to herself, she really hadn’t practiced objecting in the mirror. She’d practiced power posing, and she’d only done it a few times! “ I do things. … But I’m also super busy all the time. ” The black slacks she wears, identical to those in her hands, beg to differ. She stands a little straighter; the fact that Sienna would be wasting her lunch break supervising Bobbi’s clothing search does not weigh lightly. It also makes the back of her neck feel a little sweaty. 

“ It’s not that bad, is it? Like you’ve seen worse? Or is this a total case of ‘elderly substitute teacher under the impression she’s girlbossing it’? ”

     “ Yeah, you know me — fuck ‘em cats. He’s… I don’t know, Diego ‘n shit. Not to sound pretentious, but y’know, it’s not about the music with that guy. ”

      “ When was Leo gay?”

Jaerd snorts. She’s not completely wrong; his small friend group isn’t the most girl savvy bunch of guys, for a variety of reasons. Pippa’s only pointing out the obvious! — something Jaerd often gets himself in trouble for. Some might say they’re being mean, but that’s, in his opinion, a bit dramatic. Not mean, just honest. She’s not, however, completely right, either. “ Not gay. Not completely. Not… It’s just not hard to have had more sex than me, if you can believe that. ” Jaerd doesn’t sound all that disappointed. He’s not embarrassed to admit anything about his non-existant sex life; it’s simply the truth. “ But yeah, Mark is absolutely not a virgin by choice. ”