ASHES TO .. WTVR

Sometimes, in her sleep, Bradley took a kitchen knife to herself like a bruised peach, sliced off the dark, mushy parts in an attempt to present Xavier something to eat that wasn't so marred; every time, all that remained was a pit slicked in sweet juices, so deceptively sweet, in fact, that he'd promptly pop it into his mouth, swallow and choke. It wasn't feasible, the two of them. Not with the way she was raised. He was the type to be regimented into a strict rehearsal schedule for fucking, cello, or whatever else sounded best on his transcripts; Bradley had been made to examine the flinching fibroelastic of tendons in the flesh stripped arm of one of her father's squealing subjects of interrogation, sit through jokes about what kind of melody they might produce to play. She still saw human veins whenever the branches of trees shuddered stark and spindly against the white skies come winter. Sometimes imagined plucking her own strings in a bloody one man orchestra as her father smiled coolly from the front row. "Yeah, got a weeabo on our hands. Christ, can't believe what we're dealing with. Welcome to his twisted mind, I guess." It felt prickly, talking to Xavier like that, churning over a fistful of nettles, silently contemplating just how much it stung, the impossible urge to itch; one corner of her lips couldn't help but twitch, just slightly, before her eyes evaded elsewhere, reminded themselves to stick to the scheduled programming. "Pair of you are fuckin' twisted. Got somethin' fucked in both ye' noggin's." Bradley immediately pulled a face. "Oi, we got sumfin' fucked in both ah noggin's, 'av we? Fucking Oliver Twist in the building, all of a sudden, hello? Can't even hear him, smothered under Queen Elizabeth's big, sopping breasts, motorboating the shit out of her. She's dead, you sick fuck." An expert puff of a smoke ring. Bradley gestured up at it floating off with a jilt of her head. "Go on, I know what you are." Bit of a Twilight reference. "See a hole, have to try and fuck it. Scram, cock-eyed terrier. Minute of underwhelming fucking grunts awaits." Utterly gobsmacked by such a verbal backhanding, he spluttered momentarily as he gawped between the two. "I'd say good luck but you two -- fuckin'... deserve each other." He spat on the ground to bid his adieu. "Fuck, yum. Gonna slurp that up, later." Deserve each other. Deserve each other. Bradley steadied her molars. Scowling back at her, his retreating stomps meant that she had to confront their sudden lack of a distraction; shifting her gaze Xavier's way, blue-eyed as shark infested waters, invisible cogs whirred behind her irises like clockwork, dictating an appropriate strategy. It was unnerving, really; like her father, that way, an ill-fitting suit from childhood that she'd forced herself to grow into, seams that'd finally come to pinch. "Head's still square." Deflection. Another flick of ash from her depleting cigarette. "Your audition to star as one of the slabs at Stone Henge get rejected again? Rough. Showbiz is fucked."

xavier wished sometimes that he could see the world the same way she did. not out of a jealousy for her rough exterior - the wounds it kept tucked within - but so he could understand why she saw him the way she did. like something to keep at arm's length, like something unencumbered. it never occurred to him how unfathomable her background truly was to him. how counting hours on the wall in tally marks, blowing smoke into the bathroom air vent, meant so little in her wake. xavier wanted to shove the way she said our into his mouth, chew on it's single syllable until his jaw ached. let the sound of it reverberate through his head until it started to leave a bruise. "it's making me sick, b. like my stomach's churning and shit." and he leaned an arm on her shoulder. fuck it. before he could think twice about it. it took everything not to lean harder into her when she started mocking the stranger, not to grab her and throw her over his shoulder, laughing all the while. the weight distracted him from the twang and pang of piano chords filling his chest. how, if he was lucky, he might never know the tightness of a tendon, the sound of plucking muscle instead of ivory. instead, he knew the sound of bradley's voice when she was tired and the sun was starting to rise and he thought with sleepy, lovestruck delusion it could be her championing it in a carriage. snapping the reigns on her fiery horses, letting the flame lick her hands unscathed. even so, now he shifted his weight so he wasn't pressing too sharply into her shoulder. watching himself around her like she might break. he knew she hated it and he couldn't help himself. he turned to her, before the stranger had even stormed off, already wiping him from his mind like a salt scrub, "your accent's improved. you sound just like one of my shithead cousins when they used to come stay with us on .." and his nose crinkled with mock disgust, affected the accent himself, "holiday." bradley has been there one summer, when his cousins had bounded out of the airport taxi like labradors, throwing out soccer balls and tennis rackets and whatever other equipment his faraway aunt and uncle had sent them over with. he hated their clanging chatter, but more than anything he hated that they had each other to make the noise with. his house was always impossibly quieter when they left. his breath caught when she finally met his gaze, the one he'd had turned to her so long he'd stepped into the spit at their feet, only realizing it was there with a squelch. "fucking - god damn it, man. these are off-white jordan's. that asshole owes me a grand." throwing a hand out, sounding more angry than he felt, deflecting in his own way. the insult slid off his shoulders all the same and he finally stepped back from her enough to take a sip of his whiskey coke. the smell of her cigarette alone intoxicating. "i'm not taking the loss well, clearly. but we persevere. heard lego's got my number, so it's a matter of time before i'm out of here for good." he remembered the last time he left, wanting to burn everything that even remotely reminded him of irving to a crisp, let it ash on the ground like bradley's smoke. "you eye's are still creepy as hell. like a doll that's come back to life to fuck with me. nothing should be that blue." catching his lip between his teeth. "spare a cig? for an old friend? add it to my tab."

All Gunner could do, when Jack tried to come to a stand to reveal he was in nothing but his boxers, was stare - stupidly. A few years ago and he probably would have had an honest to God heart attack. But he felt far from scandalised now - that happened, when you’ve already seen each other naked, Gunner reasoned. Yet for a fleeting, futile moment, he was actually sad that he felt so numb to the whole situation, that he actually felt nothing. Nothing more than maybe a momentary swoop in his stomach, because he still had eyes and his brain knew what was objective. Jack was attractive, he’d always been attractive, even when Gunner tried to deny it for the sake of preserving whatever heterosexuality he tried to cling to desperately. Instead he just felt a little put out - it was hefty business, protecting your emotions from harm they had already familiarised themselves with, and Gunner hadn’t expected that he’d need to anytime soon. Leave it to Jack to swoop in just when he’d somewhat started to get things in order. “Relax,” he demanded, though he didn’t feel all that calm himself, “it’s fine.” With a quick glance to their surroundings, Gunner spotted Jack’s pants easily - somehow across the living room, but he didn’t feel like getting into logistics. Scooping them up, he tossed them at Jack quickly, before heading towards the kitchen on the opposite end of the hall, raising his voice so he could be heard. “He’s bringing Franklin by. Put your pants on so you don’t traumatise the kid.” Reappearing with a glass of water, Gunner held it out to Jack. He recognised the effects of a hangover on just about anyone, but it felt like deja vu, playing this out with the blond. Jack wore his ailments on his sleeve, right beside his emotions, though they had the habit of looking identical to each other. It was nauseating, that Gunner still recognised them like they were his own, even now. “Seriously - can you relax, please? It’s… it’s just me.”

it was a twisted sort of role reversal: gunner the one calm and in control, jack the one slipping over his sentences, stammer through huffing breaths and blushes. the thought crossed jack's mind that perhaps this more confident gunner was what happened when you stayed in one place long enough to experience personal growth, but the thought was as fleeting as he was. while he remembered little of his childhood - blocking out anything that wasn't sunshine and rainbows - jack wasn't used to not getting what he wanted. not having to share, even with dom, who would relent easily to jack's more assertive personality. he nearly didn't catch the jeans as they hit him in the hand, belt still looped through the waistband. "you still have that pitcher's arm," he nodded, moving as quickly as he could to shove both legs through their respective pant holes. "you ever thought about getting into coaching? it can be super rewarding, working with kids and all, too .. " and jack stopped himself, because though it would have once been so easy, so natural, he can't bring up wyatt. he would have to be blackout to make a mistake that careless. "thomas and mary'll be at the high school next year," and it's hard to acknowledge - measuring the lifespan of a relationship through an aging pair of siblings. ones that had once hung onto gunner like spider monkeys, pulling at his shirt sleeve's and holding onto his ankles. he's not sure mary would even be extroverted enough to say hi to gunner now. "franklin's coming? shoot, i had some tupperware i was going to give back to him -" like they're peers and not second cousins. the water that appeared in front of his face felt like being bestowed a cure all by a healing god, and he grabbed at it with both hands, too eager. "my tongue's like sandpaper," he offering before chugging nearly the whole thing and panting. "it's." and he felt everything catch in his throat, had to listen for the sound of his own breathing. "yeah, it's you all right." burying his face back in the blanket, jack spoke up, "i don't know what that means." he couldn't tamper the groan that followed. "i'm trying to be cool, here, gunner, but i don't know how to talk to you. i missed you a lot. i know that's not nice but i did."

will blinks. "fuck, right. yeah." strange, because he had known that. he can tell only now that there had been some other notion living under his skin - will does not think of himself as a being affected by anxiety, which means that when it exists in him it goes unnoticed.

caleb's been where will is. worse. sometimes, he can like things a normal amount. chocolate bars, malt liquor, feathers. sometimes, he's particularly incapable. men he shouldn't, marijuana, the color navy. "you do have other friends, right? this isn't like a groundbreaking development?" and caleb's snubbing out the butt of his smoke, twisting the filter between his fingers.

the truth is that adam only really drinks around sean. this seems a noteworthy piece of the puzzle to adam - and it is a puzzle to adam, just as most things are. this one is unique in that adam does not dread what will happen if he does not see the whole of the moment he is in. his eyes may dart around rooms looking for off hour disasters, but in those fleeting touches (and the extended ones) in which adam forgets the outside world, adam forgets that he is a creature of fear. his lack of omnipotence feels, in those hours and seconds, like a kindness rather than an oversight. adam is unused to trusting a person, but has found he likes it. it had to catch him unawares, but it caught him, and while adam's live wire nerves have not been totally domesticated - never will be - they are happy in their place.

sean doesn't know why when he hangs out with adam, he only hangs out with adam. he hasn't let himself think about it. how similar it is to the time he spent with nyla. he's considered inviting sutter, barnes, otis. magda, rowan, and sloane maybe, if he didn't think they'd be falling all over him; which, hey, sean's a considerate guy. he doesn't want adam to have to deal with that.

there it is. that horrid culmination of sins that lay sodden at her feet, hands wrapped against her throat: she tastes the bloodied ruins. how sean’s lips still carve into flesh. festering into the wounds that she had stretched open enough for him to climb inside. but she doesn’t regret it. still. even now when her sweet sloane falls at her feet, burning against the seam of her trousers. she hates them both sometimes. how they haunt in the pale moonlight. they are her damnation, pressing thorns into her skull - nailed against the entrance of the trailer park. she wishes that she were gentle. that if she was soft enough, she would brush upon the carvings that sloane had made when they were younger. when they would spend sticky summers digging fingers into thighs, tracing lips against the nook of her neck: intertwined. and there’s that sickening familiarity that flourishes when sloane comes like a wounded animal, leaves her blush stained and dimpled smiled. “slo,” she begins, a whimper fallen. “you don’t hate me,” she pleads, a hymn held in this chapel between them. tongue tied and wine soaked, she wavers,  “you can’t hate me,” though she is not so sure anymore, so instead she settles her touch against the other’s tresses. “you don’t want to know why.” she’s touched starved, ravenous to sink teeth into flesh. she doesn’t want to speak on this eulogy, she does not want to bury herself if it means without sloane. “i’m sorry,” calloused fingers slightly tug against her hair, “i’m so sorry sloane.” and she’s sick at the display, how her free hand traces sloane’s jaw - dipping and curling. god help and forgive me.

sloane doesn't know whether she wants the other to pet her hair or tug on it - hollowing out memories of mud pies, fist fights, scratches. when disputes could be handled like war rooms, girls born creatures with fangs. she'd bite flick's finger then, draw blood. they'd trade bandaids. hello kitty. hot wheels. monster's inc. by starlight, they'd be laying in bedsheets on a neighbor's trampoline, laughing themselves to pieces between failed horror story attempts. here in her room, two glow in the dark ceiling stars churn pathetic neon. it's all that feels left of her childhood, suddenly. she reaches and rips one down, tosses it onto the other side of the room. "don't call me that," she grunts. head buried back in the other's lap, she's holding a hand over her exposed ear. flick's words ring impossibly close to her head, like she's got lips planted directly over her eardrums. "i can hate you. i do. you fucked me over." because even now, even with what she can bring herself to admit, she can't speak the deed aloud. sloane doesn't remember the last time she cried around someone else, even fia. doesn't remember the last time sobs wracked her entire frame. it feels like someone died, the way she's clutching her teeth so hard she hears them grinding, the way her chest is bubbling up her throat. "i can never be with you now," she adds, like it matters. like it won't push flick farther away. good. let it. "i'm not like him-" but she is, oh, if she could see how she even cried like him, losing her whole body to it- "i actually give a shit. i won't get over it." she doesn't know if it's true, just that she wants it to be. wants to be the one saying no. run before being left for her own brother. her dad picked sean, too. her mom. she bets fia would, if forced. who wouldn't pick sean over her? sloane's cries sound again and she hiccups, smearing snot on flick's pants like a tissue.

closed for @juvinile

naomi took the candy, letting it hang limp in her fist for a minute before taking an aggressive, albeit thoughtful, bite. she heard more than felt her own molars grinding against each other as she sucked on her own cheeks. the couch they were spread out on was one naomi had purchased an a university estate sale when the library had been redone - the crumbs beneath the cushions remnants of perhaps decades of sleep-evading study sessions. she liked when gunner came over, kept her company while she fiddled with equations and philosophy and whatever other academic considerations presented themselves. she wasn't usually able to offer much but a couple of jabs in repayment. "i know this," she merely grinned, pursing her lips to keep from pushing her own luck. "you've got yourself in quite a situation, haven't you! is it piper? no .. let me guess. it's not ducky or dominic is it? you know i can't be objective where dominic's concerned. i'm riddled with guilt. it makes me sentimental." she shuddered, her manicured nails clacking silently against gunner's shoulder, the fabric of his shirt. naomi liked how solid he felt, needed the reminder occasionally. he was softer than most people she tended to find herself in the company of. it refreshed her, this quiet time with him. "you're turning over a new leaf? gunner paxton? consider me scandalized." a pause, a sharp toothed grin. "i don't like it. you're supposed to stay angry, like a deranged garden gnome from a goosebumps book. no, okay. i do like it. you impress me. you amaze me in new ways every day." she leaned forward to press a licorice scented kiss to his cheek, her perpetual blushed nose hot to the touch. "i feel like you have a deeply fulfilling inner life i am not privy to. tell me more, and i will walk you through how this genius would navigate things." two thumbs towards herself, one clicking a pen over and over.

closed for @juvinile

the newman's plot of land drops to ocean water dramatically. no beach, like the sand and shore were cut and stitched away. greer grew up standing above the cooler breeze there, wind whipping their hair and carrying with it an aquatic smell. the newmans always smelled like outside, artie with a tinge more wool, one sister like pollen for all the lazing in meadows she was always doing. it was the memory of that woolen, mothy smell that had greer taking off wordlessly, slight surprise dotting their expression. they'd forgotten, again, how they'd promised to meet artie right after work - how long had he been waiting?

Gunner had felt shaken up since Jack texted him the night before. It gnawed at him, like it always did - already calculating the math of approximately how much time he had with Jack still before he was off again. Every time was meant to be different, and it really could’ve been, if Gunner had actually tried. This run around he did feel a shift, but it wasn’t something Gunner could name. He’d always been terrible with his emotions. Too busy soaring away in his own world, he’d completely missed an entire human being to his right - sat up and staring, disheveled as ever, but still the exact same. “Jesus -! Murphy… fucking Christ, Jack!” If Jack was still the same Jack - he always expected some dramatic change, in either looks or personality, but neither ever occurred - Gunner was still the same Gunner. Still easy to startle and fragile-hearted. Clutching at his chest with one hand, Gunner used the other to clutch at his knee for support. “What’re you doing?!” He wasn’t actually mad - adrenaline made him snippy, and he was awash with. Something. Another thing he couldn’t really name, but it made him grumpy and loud, glaring at Jack while he tried to pull himself together. “Fuck - he said he’d be home in five minutes. Shit.” This was painfully awkward. As adrenaline seeped away reality set in. Gunner felt so exposed his skin might as well have started to burn right off - fidgeting while glancing everywhere around the room that wasn’t Jack. “Hi. You look rough.”

if he'd been awake longer than a few mere minutes, jack might have made some sort of effort to calm gunner's rabbiting heartbeat. instead, he felt it echo in his own chest, like gunner being so close scared him. it had never before but .. maybe something changed when jack was gone. maybe his body could tell. looking at gunner was almost disorienting, like everything shifted into extreme sharpness when he did. "i'm just sleeping!" he snapped back, pushing the blanket he hugged off his legs before realizing he was in his boxers (the white ones with the hearts that his dad bought him every christmas). immediately he yanked the blanket back, eyes darting from gunner to the space his legs had been exposed back to gunner. "i did not just mean to flash you. oh my god." had gunner been right that seeing each other could only spell bad news? why, then, did jack still want to kiss him? feel like he had every right? "do i?" and he looked as hurt as he felt, pulling the blanket up to his chin, gritting his teeth. "i'm sorry, i'm so rude," and he scooted against the other side of dom's couch, finally relenting space for gunner to sit, as though that was the only thing keeping him a safe distance away. "sit. i'll just. hang out right here in this exact spot until dom gets back. and then i'll put my pants on. and we can forget that they were ever off. yeah?" he was blushing, stumbling over his own words. jack was never so knocked off his game. was he still high from the tab the night before? dreaming?

closed for @juvinile /

the memory is nearly enough to elicit a sob from her wine stained mouth, purple teeth. no one gets sloane as wound up as the other, sets her off spinning like a top. right now she feels like she's been dropped in a too large, too dark room. has to claw to the open stream of light at the top. "i still have the scar," her chest feels shredded, there's a breeze blowing straight through her. sutter had been one thing. sutter - the one sloane thought she might one day love, if she could ever pull her gaze away from flick. the one who was supposed to soften the blow, was always there to plug up pain. sloane might have forgiven her for sutter. it almost made a cruel sort of sense. but sean. her brother. her fucking brother. sloane hated sean sometimes. hated him more than she hated anyone. hated how he could stand to be in the same room as their father. hated how he acted more and more like him every day, bulldozing everything that could be good in his life. hated that he was so much like her in so many ways - always loved flick almost the same. "why." it's not a question, though she is falling towards the other already, burying her face in flick's legs, hugging flick's knees to her chin. sloane feels so small .. like a crumpled origami swan. "i hate him." she doesn't know what else to say, presses her lips to the other's pants, forces her mouth closed as she lets out a loud, cracking groan into the fabric. "i hate him, i hate him, i hate him, i hate him. i fucking hate him." she's crying, has been all along, she realizes. "what comes after this, then? kiss and make up?" it sounds so nice. so, so nice. "i think i hate you, too." but she doesn't move, just shifts farther into flick's lap, holds her legs tighter, like a buoy. "why?"

will refuses to look gift vyvanse in the mouth. "let us go forth and crush." said mock imperiously, though there's an entitlement in the way he gestures - beckoning to the drugs like they're a foregone conclusion as opposed to a football caleb could technically pull away at the last minute. caleb is right. will is tired. will doesn't care, or rather cares less than he usually doesn't care. though the will that cares less than usual is closer to admitting (due to not caring) that he may, in fact, care more than he is usually capable of realizing.

caleb knows he doesn't sell drugs to survive. he knows this, and yet sometimes the realization that he puts himself in danger for nothing dawns on him heavily. a reaction to an entitled childhood? bad decision making from childhood neglect? different therapists had fed him different psychoanalyses. he'd cancelled further appointments with them all the same, though. "you know we're like. actual friends, right?" he hums, flashing a bemused smile will's way as he settles onto the bench at their sides. it's a bus route, but he's pretty sure the bus doesn't run this direction this late anyway. the rest of the world, it feels, is contained inside the bars at their backs. caleb and will are the only people breathing fresh air, feeding it smoke back. "you're not a client tonight. i bask in your presence for free." and he's teasing, but he feels like will might need to hear it.

the touch is a little painful because adam likes it. sets off further humming beneath his skin. the casual nature of it. the laugh that holds no violence - though adam can guess at its curated quality, this is a case where the suggestion that something might be hidden doesn't unnerve him, which is odd, because adam tends to view the hidden as he views himself: understandable given the circumstances, but still worthy of a wide berth.

sean doesn't stop to think how his schedule has become so like his father's own. how, with a work jacket thrown over his coveralls he even looks like him, too. instead, he's imagining what adam's furniture might look like, blinking himself out of the thought before it's even had time to solidify as desire. adam's couch. adam's bed. sean wished he could make it mean more than it did - always wished things could mean more to him. maybe if he gave a damn about anything, he wouldn't act so much like his father.