HOT / head !

                    * arón piper & he/him / cis-man‷ watch out , jude dempsey has crash-landed into roswell !! they look twenty-five years old and celebrate their birthday on 1st april. they are from rochdale, greater manchester, reside in tripps trailer park and are currently working as a photographer for the roswell record and a freelance location scout on independent film sets. one thing you should know about them is he’s really good at parkour, and used to scale buildings with a go-pro as a content creator for VICE. ‷  ( nora  ) +  lance cannon’s best friend connection & he has two stray cats he’s loosely adopted called smokey & bandit,  and a three-legged dog named barry.                              [ PINTEREST ]    [ PLAYLIST ]  

STATS.

NAME:    jude dempsey. AGE:   twenty-five. GENDER & PRONOUNS:    cis man, he/him. OCCUPATION: photographer, roswell record, location scout (when films and documentaries shoot near roswell) and ocassional bartender, the wild pony. ARCHETYPES:  the anarchist. the outcast. the going-nowhere-fast. the aimless. the hostile. the charity case. the juvenile delinquent. ZODIAC:  aries sun, aquarius moon, scorpio rising. RESIDENCY:  tripps trailer park with his older sister aoife, her boyfriend, their baby, a three legged dog and two cats. TATTOOS:  covered in them. for a few years when he was in high school, his sister aoife was thinking about becoming a tattoo artist and he was her walking canvas. after seeing how some of jude’s tats turned out, she decided against them, but they’re all super speciaal to him.  FACECLAIM:   arón piper.

AESTHETICS.

blood stains on a cigarette rizzla, a jovial whistle as you tend to a full english breakfast ( eggs served sunny-side up ), jamming screwdrivers into the tag around your ankle to sneak out of the house to boiler room dj sets, a stick-and-poke tattoo spelling ‘ACAB’ across your knuckles that you got at a house party while tripping on ket, rugby socks and porno mags stuffed beneath a single bed still laundered with spiderman bed sheets.

CHARACTER REFERENCES.

Ronan (The Raven Cycle), Daniel Dessario (Freaks & Geeks), Lip Gallagher (Shameless), Mercutio (Romeo & Juliet), Connell (Normal People), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Eggsy (Kingsman), whatever Channing Tatum’s character is called (Step Up).

halloween event @roswellstarters​

Rollo had attached their demon tail to the fanny pack they were wearing. It was currently hidden beneath the shirt of their outfit. Their face was painted red and black, and the rest of their body had matching colours. They didn’t think they looked perfectly the part, but in the dark nobody cared, as long as you played it well. And it was easy to scare people who knew they were going to be scared. 

“Hi, hello, Uhm, we’re closed for thirty so everyone can grab some food,” they said when someone walked up to the closed ticket booth.

A cringe as gloopy as honey smears down every single notch of Zibby’s spine when Jude takes to his little performance. His waving hand dips down into her line of sight and she swats at it. It’s always like this with them, the playful exchanges of derision and sardonic little quips, prods and provocations fuelling a bratty back and forth that’s not too far off from playground spats between preschoolers. Beth snorts, “yeah, not sure how much those lyrics apply to you, of all people.” After all, there was that one birthday Beth had gifted Jude a hot pink sash that read ROSWELL’S #1 SLUT in big, bold lettering. She’s pretty sure he’d happily “ lip any girl “.

The device’s undeniable robotic voice crackles through the Lapointe family home. If Jude’s bellowing hadn’t been enough to make Beth blanche, that certainly is, followed promptly by the sharp tinny of the tune’s electronic beat. “No–” Beth launches herself from the bed, yanks open her bedroom door and darts to the railing separating the upstairs hallway from a bone-crunching fall. “Alexa, shut off!” she yells. The song cuts off; Beth sags a little, shoulder blades kissing together as her grip on the balustrade loosens and her head drops forward in relief. The silence that follows is promise enough that the house is theirs for the evening. When she turns, Zibby’s stare is playfully livid. “You’re dead, Dempsey,” she declares, seconds before rushing back to where he’s laying against her mound of pillows. She launches herself atop him, ends up straddling a thigh as her hands clamp over his mouth.

       jude watches the scene with his arms folded behind his head, fingers locked, one knee propped up against the mattress ; he’s the image of dionysus unwinding in a vineyard, all cares stripped from his body. the nihilistic part of him says “ don’t threaten me with a good time, zibs, ” — to be murdered by her hand seemed like a pretty alright way to go — although the nickname is mostly lost in a grunt as the other hurls herself into his lap.  “ fuckin’ ell, beth, talk about throwing yourself at me...” jude starts, grin wicked. he’ll get punished for that.  “ if you wanted a shag, all you had to do w—”  the rest of his sentence is lost, muffled against the underside of her palm, eyes wide, breath ragged. he wonders if this is it, the moment she actually does him in, yellow tape around the bedroom and a do not enter sign.

Flora would’ve lied if she’d claimed not to be a little taken aback by the young man’s demeanor but she couldn’t hold back a snort at the rather straight to the point kind of attitude. “You think summer is overrated? Here? That’s a first,” she commented in a mumble, her expression puzzled in a way that was probably a little too obvious but she’d always been bad at masking how she really felt. A smile remained on her lips as her eyes followed the way he was pointing, landing on her drink. “Good question,” she admitted under a small laugh. “I told them to surprise me and I got – this…,” Flora mumbled. “It’s delicious but yeah, it kinda tastes like it, too,” she confirmed. “So a…virgin sex on the beach? That doesn’t sound right.” She shook her head. “I don’t know but I’m sure they can redo it if you ask though.”

Her eyes flickered back to the drink and then to the screen. “You know what? You’re right. Of course it should be orange…it’s a good one,” Flora confirmed, mostly to make herself believe that the choice was the right one for the design, especially now that she realized that she might’ve accidentally matched the color with the mixed juice in front of her. When the man spoke up again, Flora’s eyes scanned him for a moment. She assumed that he worked in some kind of creative field, too, and his question solidified the assumption. Flora shook her head immediately, always trying to be open to meeting people and it couldn’t hurt to have some company, especially since she seemingly couldn’t even make the simplest decisions on her own that day. Maybe he could help her kick her brain back into gear or, if all failed, he’d make her feel a little better about distracting herself with no reason at all at least, just by giving her a welcome excuse. “No, sure – go ahead,” she told him with a friendly beam. “You can be my coworker for the day. Sometimes that helps,” Flora agreed. “Because I definitely put too much faith into thinking this will fix me,” she said, tapping her fingers against her cup.

   “ yeah, man. i hate bugs, ”  jude responds, as if that settles it ;  this just in — summer officially sucks ass.  his lips break into something akin to a smile, though it doesn’t quite hit the mark. it’s smile-adjacent, eyes still quizzical when he looks between the stranger and their drink.  “ that’s a pretty baller move, just straight up asking a service worker to surprise you. ”   hospitality workers are some of the most overworked and underpaid professions, working long hours with little breaks, so on the occasion jude picks up a shift at the pony, cash-in-hand, when they’re desperate, if someone tells him to ‘surprise them’ he’d probably spit in their drink — how’s that for a fuckin’ surprise ? — or at least roll his eyes as far back as they’d go in his skull. that second one was less likely to get him fired.  “ virgins don’t have sex on the beach. that’s kind of prerequisite to being a virgin, no ?”  jude asks, an edge of something that borders on sarcasm in his question as he scratches at the furrow that’s appeared between his eyebrows. his eyes sink again to examine the contents of her drink. “ yeah, nah, i kinda feel like i’d develop some kind of health condition if i drank that shit, but thanks anyway. ”

she stares at him blankly for a moment, her own brows mirroring his confusion, which only worsens with his long-winded explanation. “what? i’m saying you can help me close out if you’re dying to, but i’m not giving you any money.” her voice has an edge, doesn’t warm to him an inch, though some of the rigidity in her body eases, tension and stiffness giving way to something softer, looser. the messaging is hardly subtle, you’re welcome here but not here, can have this but not this. in that sense, jude is easy—just another way to feel good and numb for a little while, no different than a bar of xanax or bump of coke. he’s low effort and even lower risk, and about as likely to fall for her as she is for him. it’s why she’s able to relax against him as he clumsily ushers them through the door, head hitching back from the yank against his fistful of her hair with a sharp intake of breath. “is this really how you want to play tonight?” comes the taunt as her arm snakes behind her back, slithering down between them to grab him through the front of his pants. “keep running your mouth and we’ll see who’s walking out of here mardy.”

      she’s got his number right. this is exactly how jude wants to play tonight — a quick and mindless fuck against the pool table with a girl who acts like she hate his guts to remind him that he has a body.  that outside of his thoughts, he’s still real. “ wow. i’m literally just bein’ friendly, ”   jude counters, her audible little gasp doing more to unsettle him than he’ll care to admit, nails raking over the scalp beneath the patch of hair he’s cradling. he hadn’t lied when he said he’d do the dishwasher.  he was willing — more than willing — to pitch in wherever he could, but any thoughts of grabbing a shammy and disinfectant dissipate the moment her hand snakes back to paw at him through his jeans. oh shit.  “ fuck, ” has barely escaped his lips, raspy and wanton, and he’s gripping her hips, turning her in his hands to back her up against the pool table, coloured balls scattering like m&m’s.  “ i’d like to revoke my previous statement... ”  jude starts, the phantom pressure of her hand between his thighs still lingering as he splits her knees, moves to stand between her thighs. “ i’m feeling decidedly less friendly. ”  and by that, he simply means he’s d.t.f. if that wasn’t already glaringly obvious from the tent rising in his jeans. his mouth falls to her jaw, where his teeth catch against the lobe of her ear and pull, something inherently animal in the action.  “ so yeah, do your worst. love.”    vic gets it, body parts exchanged like phone numbers in the dark. she’s like him, young, directionless, with nowhere to put all that restlessness except into insatiable need. no need to overthink it.

It’s purely out of provocation, but Beth grabs the opportunity by the neck as Jude’s confession– a begrudging one, a plaguing vision that she doesn’t suspect haunts him well into the night ( as nor do her own, of course ) –wrinkles her nose in unadulterated disgust. Ironic, given her own invasive thoughts had winked at her from the shadows of her childhood bedroom, the one she lingers in nowadays in a sorry attempt to reconstruct a life quite quickly thrown away. “Yeah?” she smirks, elbow denting the mattress as she props herself up onto it, laying on her side. Her high ponytail flops to the left when she cocks her head in that direction, all playfulness melting into an exaggeration of utter carnal bliss as her brows draw up, her mouth falls open and her eyes widen, as though incredulous in the face of just how much pleasure Jude can provoke, “fuck, oh, oh, oh my god!! You’re so fucking nasty!! Yeah!!” A fleeting taunt, the expression disappears, replaced by a cheeky glint in the depths of her eyes. “Something like that?” Zibby snorts.

Then there’s water landing with a light splat on her face, almost as if Jude were telling her to cool it, as if she’d been the one to start with the meaningless advances. Before she can even think to complain, Jude’s pinned her into place; Beth’s quick to retaliate. He’s giving her all the more reason to revolt– really, it’s all on him; Beth doesn’t feel one bit bad about an attempted elbow jab straight into his balls. She misses, bouncing the bone off of his hip instead, so they both pay the price with the resulting dull throb

“Jesus!” Flushed and a little dishevelled, Beth blinks only to find that they’ve finally settled. She’s halfway on his chest, her own jumping as her breaths hiccup out of her in jackrabbit pants. The arm he’d used to torment her lays easily around her shoulders now, welcoming and warm. Solid, like it knows its place is right here, holding her to him. Beth doesn’t think anything of it: They’ve grown used to sharing this casual closeness. Needing it, even. “Right, you’re the one with the big fat crush on— act like a what?” Brows furrowed in utter confusion, Beth cranes her neck back enough to shoot the look up at Jude. 

          expecting the unexpected with beth should be something jude’s accustomed to by now ; they split from the script, take the reigns, and improvise, dancing somewhere between amateurs and seasoned professionals when they play at deconstructing the parts they’ve been given, rewriting the scenes as they go. he should expect it when zibby lies back on the bed, melts into a performance of morbid desire, eyebrows hitched up in the outline of a mountain range. he wishes her eyes were closed — that way, when his tongue instinctively darts out to wet his lips, he could convince himself she hadn’t seen.  “such a fucking drama queen,”  jude dismisses, partly an attempt to convince himself that he isn’t rattled by her little brechtian performance. that he hadn’t felt the urge to slide his tongue along the indent between her eyebrows. what he really wants to call her is brat. “fuck off, zibs.”  he tries to push it from his thoughts, but he’s still thinking about it in the bathroom, and when he returns to her side, and when the tussle between them ensues. the shape of her face, contorted by lust ( however artificial it might be ) only slips from his mind when her elbow clangs against his hip bone, pain enough to jolt him back into himself, a split reality jude a la everything everywhere all at once off in a parallel universe still thinking of banging zibby while this jude is content to simply exist beside her. 

draped across his chest, the new found weight of her against him is not uncomfortable, but it feels like another unsaid weight exists between them, in the space where their skin touches. it’s just beth. still, when he looks down at her, flushed, dishevelled, panting and partially on top of him, he can’t help but think of other ways he’d get her to that point. jesus. his head’s really in the gutter today. jude tries to remember the last time he rubbed one out and draws up a blank. certainly not this morning, when he was ready to go and duncan the three-legged-dog they had brick to thank for came bounding in to slobber on his pillow. total mood kill. yeah, he’ll blame this itchy restlessness on the fact that he’s not had a wank and not read into it too much. it’s beth, for fuck sake. it would be like shagging soggy or lance. “ wait, what — who do i have a crush on ?” distraction had got in the way of conversation, but he latches onto that like a fish to a maggot, aware of his hand where it rests at the top of her sternum. an inch lower would be dangerous, but his hand’s likely to fall, and he’d rather avoid them both feeling awkward from another accidental tit graze. he shifts his hand to wrap over her shoulder, attempts to get his arm comfy, and then drops it to fall on her stomach instead. safer territory.   “nah... you’re fuckin' with me, zibs.”  jude scans her face for confirmation of his theory.  “you don’t know skepta? you don’t know fuckin’ skepta feat. JME?  act like a wasteman, that’s not me?  sex any girl... that’s not me?  lips any girl, nah that’s not me?” free arm cutting shapes as he raps his way through, it’s a miracle jude doesn’t laugh. “are you for real?  that shit’s a banger.   alexa ! play act like a wasteman.”  it’s a habit they’ve gotten into shouting at home despite not even owning the technology. jude can’t remember how it began. presumably, it started as a joke and now has just become a routine acknowledgement of an absolute tune.  somewhere in the house, a mechanical voice responds  playing results for skepta featuring j-m-e, that’s not me.   “ hoooooly fucking shit, no way !”  jude’s excitement is palpable, thrumming through his body, laughter bouncing in his chest.  “ you have an alexa!? zibs, you didn’t tell me you was rich. ”   

victoria fixes him a warning look, brow arched, lip curled slightly. cool, though. no heat behind it, no anger. not even annoyance. just the wariness that seems to follow any interaction with him to its inevitable close. “i’m not tipping you out,” she says automatically, finishing the last couple drags perhaps a bit faster than she’d like, her body rushing without consideration for her head, which hadn’t been prepared to deal with him tonight. “you didn’t say you were coming by,” though she’s not entirely sure if that’s true. her phone is forgotten in her bag somewhere, dumped under the bar with a pre-rolled joint for the walk home, her mostly empty wallet, and an old desani water bottle filled up with warm tap and maybe a splash of tito’s. “everyone else busy tonight?” she gibes around her last puff before making a show of putting the cigarette out in the standing ashtray just a few steps away with pointed eye contact that she can only manage a minute before her gaze turns upward in an almost eye roll. she could tell him to go. it’d be easy enough—bar’s closed and he’s not getting paid—though that’s not why he’s here and they both know she’ll let him in. and while that’s almost enough to force her hand, she merely clenches her teeth and begrudgingly ushers him inside with a shove against his back, the last bit of smoke curling around his neck as they go. “you know, you’re a pain in the fucking ass, jude. I swear to fuck.” 

         i’m not tipping you out. for a moment, his eyes glaze over, eyebrows knitting in the middle like flesh over an open wound, and it looks like jude might pass out.  “ wow. sorry, what ?  i heard that in nothern, like, not tipping you owt.... like you were talking about cash money tips an’ that. just had like... a mini brain aneurysm. why’s victoria from manny on the map?”  he extrapolates, feeling the need to explain his silence — not that silence is unusual for jude. her suggestion that all his other mate’s are busy draws a snort.  “ nah, jus’ wanted to see you, innit. ”  always a charmer. it’s probably the closest thing she’ll get to jude admitting that he likes her company,  “pain in the ass in more ways than one,”  rallied back like an innuendo ping-pong ball before he can consider his words. he blows hot air through his lips.  “‘pain in the ass’.   said i’d do the dishwasher, didn’t i, so what you bein’ mardy for?”   his hand pulls at a lock of her hair as victoria stalks ahead of him, and he hurries to catch up, thinking of sticking a boot out to trip her. he decides against it. “hey...”   jude’s behind her now, a fistful of her hair wrapped round his fingers while his other arm circles her waist, trailing her in a clumsy lolloping dance of trying to walk at the same time as her, pelvis to pelvis, surely detrimental to her ability to get anywhere, but instrumental in his need to be close to another body.   “ why you bein’ mardy?”

JUDE DEMPSEY as TYLER DURDEN from fight club.

“Fuck right off,” Beth mimics through a snort, the mockery muttered under her breath as her lips twitch up into a smirk. It’s a clumsy accent, a distorted echo of the thickness of Jude’s words, ones embraced by the smoky industrialism of northern England. She’s unimpressed, as is the default in present company, Jude’s perspective warped by a toxicity that oftentimes makes her wonder why she keeps putting up with it. But there’s an understanding between them that burrows deeper than their first few conversations might have clued them into. It had all begun with a film talk so pretentious even Beth had rolled her eyes hours later, shuddering around a cringe when fragments of memory had reminded her that, yes, she really does sound like that when she talks about the superiority of Italian cinéma vérité versus French new-wave (although she does occasionally enjoy the latter, too– particularly after a colourful strain of indica). Between Jude’s readiness to talk shop and the unexplored empathy shared between two straying souls, things had rushed into a camaraderie Beth wouldn’t ever replace– fuckboy-isms aside. Those she could do without.

She catches one of the chocolatey pieces in her mouth, the rest tumbling down the fronts of their shirts and landing among the sheets. A quick flick of her tongue tucks the popcorn into her cheek; Beth groans, reaching to swipe the rejects before they melt into her sheets. “Dude, you’re so fucking nasty.” It’s as easy for her to meet his comments with apt reproach as it is for Jude to breathe life into those undermining little thoughts. Beth’s never really been one to shy away from a head-butt, be it literal or figurative.

She looks at him now, lids lowered and lips parted around a dumb little expression. “This is what you look like when you ‘ chat shit ’ like that, see?” she points at her face now, then lowers the tone of her voice into one of unadulterated idiocy, “‘ me man, me dumb fuckin’ man. Me hate women. ’”

     fingers clamp at her nose part way through her sordid impression, rendering it pitchy and nasally under the pinch of his thumb. there’s not really much point in asking zibby not to do the accent. it’s a far way off from kaya’s level of accuracy, but it’s getting there, which is a testament to the amount of time they spend together. plucking popcorn from her bed before she can sweep it from the sheets, a hurried bite of    “ that’s what she said !”  comes crying from his lips  ( it’s to be expected )  like the decrepit old corpse of nana you wheel out on her stretcher for christmas dinner every year.  “ gross, i just had like, this disturbing, intrusive vision of us fucking, ”  jude starts, nose wrinkling, a crease between his eyebrows, “—and you calling me nasty in like, some mega porny voice. ”    he looks at her then, and he has to snap his gaze away, because now all he’s seeing is an open-mouthed zibby, writhing on top of him like a glamour model.  “ grim. i need to wash my eyes out. ”  he pushes off the bed, makes his way to the bathroom, zibby still parroting away behind him, and his eyes are rolling before he’s even had the chance to splash them with cold water.  

“ i don’t hate women, bee. ”  he just generalises, more often than not, because despite having three older sisters he’s still quite clueless when it comes to what women want, and tends to pigeonhole them in the ‘us and them’ way that teenage boys often do.  “ i actually love women... ” jude adds, taking a flannel to his face and catching his expression in the mirror. his curls are probably on their last day before needing a wash, and he makes a mental note to buy shampoo on the way back to the trailer park.  “ nah, i don’t think you get it, zibs... ” he starts, as he returns to the bedroom, fingers sufficiently wet with water that when he zaps them at her, their intention is met, water flying at her face. he catches her in a headlock as he tumbles onto the bed beside her, bodies melting into each other, a tangled heap of limbs.  “ when i say i love women i mean i loooove women. passionately, ” and his pelvis drives forward into the pump of his clenched fist, hip-thrusting against her side like a backing dancer in grease. it’s a crude playground gesture of sexual immaturity that he wouldn’t hesitate to perform with the boys, but he has to remember that zibby isn’t one of the lads. hips cease their grinding and he clears his throat, settling back down by her side a far more sombre jude.  “ i’m probably matthew lillard’s character... ” he decides, scrolling through the start menu of the dvd screen and setting it to play.   “ like, in an ideal world i’d be billy loomis, but act like a wasteman, that’s not me. ”  

her face gives nothing away, perfectly blank if not veering on bored, though her muscles are too engaged to pass for a resting bitch face. this look is deliberate, the newest mask to replace the forced smiles she used to wear, though still steeped in the same edge she’s always had—not stoic out of an absence of feelings but an abundance, boiling right beneath the surface. “as appealing as harrowing junk sounds…” she exhales with a puff of smoke that scatters to the breeze, drumming her free hand against the brick, then bouncing her whole body against it, then pushing off to kick around the dirt, buzzing too much to stand still. silences should be easier than making conversation, though her entire body recoils at the thought of standing here with only the sounds of nature and the last of the patrons filtering out the front to keep them company. so despite effectively killing the conversation, she can only handle the pause for a single prolonged moment before begrudging sparking it back up. “early night then, i guess.” 

      “ fuck off. you love my harrowing junk. ”  his statement errs at the edge of something agreeable. she won’t acknowledge the fact that she’s seen it — at least not out in the open — but as she so casually acknowledges, the bar’s basically empty now which means they’ll soon be slipping back into old habits, her thighs around his hips, her teeth at his neck. close downs were always his favourite part of a shift.   “ early night, indeed. ”   the gaze he fixes her with is loaded. taking the last drag of his cig, jude tosses the butt end down at the tarmac and stubs it out beneath his shoe.   “ right then. want me make a start on the tables ?”  strictly speaking, jude’s not even an employee at the wild pony, but he’s helped them out so many times when they’re short-staffed that it feels like second nature to make their lives a little easier, even when he’s spending his night there as a punter. and obviously, it’s nice to get time one-on-one with victoria, even if she is kind of dreary and miserable ever since the big ex left the picture. sometimes, jude’s hit with the shrinking feeling that victoria only fucks him because he sounds a bit like her ex ; that way she can close her eyes, and it’s almost like he’s back with her. and while that’s kind of fucked up, jude isn’t really complaining about it either. he’s happy to be someone else so long as it’s him she’s shagging.  “or i could do the glass wash if you want. whatever makes your life easier.”

Location: Juice-ton We Have a Problem 🍹

@roswellstarters​

Flora had never really been a people person, though that wasn’t entirely true - she liked her people, those she’d known for years and years on end. Those she’d grown comfortable and close with or at least knew in one way or another. Being an introvert in a small town seemed almost too good to be true and maybe that was why she’d never left for longer than a few days at a time and she liked that everyone knew each other while others hated that fact. She didn’t consider that a bad thing though, it was just how she functioned best. She liked being surrounded by things she understood and knew how to navigate. So there she was, sitting in her usual spot in the shop, a small table by the window with an half emptied glass of some tropical concoction standing in front of her - a delicious result of a nonchalant “Surprise me.”. 

She liked to come here for inspiration all the time. People watching always seemed to kick her creativity back into gear after it had seemingly hibernated out of the blue. But now, with the occasional rays of sunlight hitting her face through the window, she felt as content and ready as she could be. “Is it just me or are we all trying so hard to hold on to summer for a little longer while we still can? I feel like this drink will be off season before we know it,” she mumbled, looking back at the person nearby with the usual warm glimmer in her eyes and a friendly smile on her lips. “I like that the days are still longer, though…it helps getting some work done,” she added, nodding at the drawing tablet in front of her but bit back any more comments about the weather. “Speaking of…,” her lips twitched into a grin as Flora quickly dropped that topic, “green or orange for the background of this print? I’ve been switching them back and forth for an hour now so I think I need some help - in every way,” she joked. “I’ll even buy you a goodie, promise,” she added, almost a little desperate at this point. ”Anything to put me out of this misery.”

who: open  where: outside the wild pony 

the faded grey hoodie—plucked off the peg by the door where it’d been hanging for months, maybe even years before she claimed it—dwarfs her, with sleeves that dangle well past her hands and enough room to fit two or three of her within the zipper. it does the trick though, blocking out the slight chill as she fishes her box of cigarettes from the pocket and pushes outside. the weather’s shifting, only noticeable at night, though that seems to be the only time she finds herself outside. or awake at all, really. her body loosens with the first inhale, enough to notice someone else leaning against her usual spot, near a crack in the sidewalk that kind of looks like a face, especially when she’s been drinking. “what are you in for?” she drolls by way of greeting, taking up the space next to them instead and letting the smoke curl up to the stars. 

       jude has a habit of sizing up women at a glance — there’s always two types ; the one you fuck, and the one you fuck’s friend. victoria’s obviously the former. even the way she walks is hot. it’s kind of unnerving, but jude knows victoria’s type, and after a handful of shifts at the pony when the place gets rammed on a saturday night and they have to call him for back up ( he’ll take all the cash he can get ) he knows victoria, too.  “ public indecency, ” jude responds, off the cuff, taking another drag of his cigarette and resisting the urge to blow it in her face. instead, he exhales it over his shoulder, smoke curling at the wall. it isn’t too far from the truth. he’d been in and out of juvenile detention as a kid more times than he could count, mostly for something to do. the inside of a cell always felt warmer than home. at least the guards cared about where you were.  “ i’ve got twenty to life. my junk really is that harrowing. you should check it out some time. ”  chance would be a fine thing.

       “ nah, you can fuck right off.  everybody thinks they’re fuckin’ sidney prescott... it’s main character syndrome. ”  twitter discourse seeps into his dialect like pus from an open wound. he spends too much fucking time on the internet, more likely to be found on his phone in the corner of a party browsing through a collection of nudes saved from snapchat than engaging in conversation with actual human girls. it’s kind of toxic, actually. but jude doesn’t really see beth as a girl — she’s more like a genderless entity that’s good for a laugh and to talk shit on christopher nolan films with — which is probably why he hasn’t fucked up their relationship with his usual cycle of sex, ignoring messages, and becoming that prick. “ most of the girls i talk to, ”   ( read : fucks and chucks )  “ are such tatum’s. clingy, self-centred, annoying, and desperate for approval. like chill the fuck out, bro. ”  but beth isn’t really a tatum either. she kind of transgresses the binaries of all of the scream characters, making it difficult to pinpoint her. it’s almost as if she’s a living, breathing, human who can’t be reduced down to a few hastily scrawled traits, a wikipedia bio, and a bloodstained costume. weird.  jude tosses a handful of chocolate-covered popcorn at beth, which he might as well have thrown directly down his own shirt, since they’re sat elbow-to-elbow, knee to knee, and naturally he’s caught in the crossfire.  “ actually, on second thoughts... yeah, maybe you are a sidney prescott. i mean, you’ve got the whole baggy-shirt, converse, ‘not-like-other-girls’ vibe nailed.  ”