happy thursday

Korra: yo are you not a sick person anymore?

Korra: u kno what i mean 😂😂

Sasha: im always a sick person bby

Sasha: but nah i getchu im good

While he processed all of this holding onto her, he thought about his own life. Childhood hadn’t been a cakewalk but from thirteen onwards, it had been particularly rough. The things he had witnessed in those years, sleeping in underpasses, stealing from the local liquor store just to pawn it off again for food, to meeting Dom, and the things they went on to get caught up in together, all the fights, scrapes, the dead body that haunted him some nights…it was a lot, and if he wasn’t so clueless mental health issues, would understand that there was trauma on trauma accumulated in those life experiences. And yet, somehow, this feels like one of the hardest things he’d had to face. Because at least with his own life, he’d always had choices — the choice to fight or to flee, run or run down. Here, he feels like he hasn’t been given any choices — just a situation that’s shittier than shitty. He pulls away from the embrace for space, though they stay connected, her hand inside his shirt. He looks down, nods at her words, like he’s at a funeral paying his respects. 

But he doesn’t know what to say back. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he’s really stuck here. “It’s my fault too,” he nods, still looking down some space between them. “’Cause I started thinking, and hoping. And making plans.” He doesn’t mean to make her feel bad, worse than she already does, sometimes he says things out of spite but this isn’t one of those situations. He was just stating the facts here. “Gonna drop all that now, though.” No plans, hopes, ideas or expectations. Just whatever next date she had open on her calendar for him, and wished to see him. Just those days, dotted around all the rest, until he up and left Silverlake, he supposed. And that would be the end of that, the nameless thing over before it began. The next is mumbled, in quick succession, the words nearly tripping over each other. “Not my place to tell you how to live your life.” So he was going to do what he always told others to do with his, and butt out. 

He pulls away and Sasha winces at the lost contact, the cold that’s surging where he just was pressed up against her something other than physical. Heart sinking all the way down to her stomach at his words, the rush of panic enough to at least get rid of the hiccups. Or replace them with the shakes.

Taking that trembling hand out of his shirt, she squeezes her eyes shut, just for a moment. He hoped. And made plans, whatever that means. She doesn’t want to know. She’s dying to know. Gonna drop all that now though, he says and Sasha believes him. That’s always been plan A anyway, all the way from the beginning, whenever that was, when she was into the thought of being his whore. Whatever their equivalent of that would be, she still could be it. It could be fun, hot, safe for everyone involved until he found his somebody. She can, yes, for sure. As soon as she stops shaking she’s good to go.

I kinda see where you're coming from.

So he can be dick brothers with half the neighborhood how my dad was with my mom? Or have to deal with my boss and his minions until he says or does something and gets into shit because these people are criminals?

I kinda wish I was sometimes because

I mean that's neither here nor there but I never drink it and don't have a backbone anymore so.

Honestly... you're not wrong there.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

juni: ooooh there we go. you don't have to sound good to rap, just have to talk fucking fast

juni: got that covered

juni: can i twerk while kazooing?! what kind of question is that!!

juni: i could twerk it on a boat and i could twerk it with a goat or however green eggs and ham goes. i know theres a goat in there somewhere

juni: i don't know what i'm saying.. maybe lets not talk about baby stuff

juni: love youuu tho 💖💖💖 thinking im a cute monkey vibe rather than a demon devil drag queen or whatever they're supposed to be. the highest compliment lol

sasha: true tbh perfect job for agent green

sasha: oh my god juni

sasha: look at you already rapping

sasha: fine w me

sasha: highest non-insult more like

He’s holding her, shaking his head when she mumbles her apologies, Tyson’s wordless way of letting her know not to be sorry, that none of this is in any way her fault. How could it be? Was it her fault her father died and she up and moved as far from home as she could imagine — only to land in the city of supposed Angels and have her money stolen by the one person she trusted? Anyone would have given up for less. He remembers that specific chain of events, remembers literally everything she’s told him up until now, actually. He’s surprisingly good at that, filing away information about the people he loves, the things they’ve said, texted, hell, uttered half-whispered during calls. His mind’s a computer filing system for that shit and she’s no different. He remembers the most offhand things, like the fact she traded a bottle of cough syrup to get her nipples pierced in high school. When you added all of it up, the facts of her life, he understood the position she was in, how she ended up here. Not her fault.  He feels hopeless, sad, angry, mostly angry about all this. Doesn’t know what to say. Just that he wants to kill everybody involved in her miserable line of work starting from Frank and ending with that ugly ass motherfucker who found them in bed that morning. Silent, shaking his head still, holding onto her still, because he feels too helpless and inept to do anything else. But hey, at least he can say this much. “You got nothing to be sorry for.” 

They start out gradually and then come all at once, the tears. He doesn’t know what to do here, has never been good at this part of consoling someone, whether they be friend or lover or something in-between. The manly way to deal with things, to suck it up, to not acknowledge it’s happening, all the terrible ways he’s learned to compartmentalize — tears won’t help here. Because shit, seeing her cry? Makes him want to do the same. Makes him all but go to pieces right there. 

He gets up, stands to his full height of 6′4, pulling her in with lanky arms. “Shhh,” attempts at consolation, not sure if he’s trying to soothe her as much as himself, maybe both. “I gotchu.” It eats him up inside to see her like this and knowing it’s partially or wholly because of him, that doesn’t sit right with Tyson in the slightest. “It’s okay.” No, it isn’t, none of this is, but what were they supposed to do? Die? He has no answers for what the hell to do about the situation they’ve found themselves in, but there’s got to be something, right? Got to be.

Here they go again, Tyson pulling her in and Sasha just going with it, finding her breath somewhere within the spaces of his body as he holds her through the sobs. Stomach churning where it’s pressed against him, not knowing what to do with herself when the rarity that is full-on sobbing actually happens, when anything surges through the cracks from beneath the numb concrete to where she can feel it. Face buried in his chest, holding onto him for a minute longer, for another, “I’m so sorry, baby, so, so sorry” repeated like a mantra before pulling back to look at him, gaze travelling from his face to the mess she made of his shirt. “Shit”, she chokes out between marginally drier sobs. “Your shirt.”

juni: i’m in because you couldn’t actually hear me lol

juni: i could totally have the nicole shkddjhdk whatever her last name is vibe but you’d want me to lip sync 🎤

juni: if i can be your nicole with a kazoo, you can be in the band too! 🥺 purdy please sashaaaa

juni: what’s nellie doing?

juni: i could not imagine raising a babe like that but gotta do what you gotta do i guess

juni: ANNOYINGLY CUTE

juni: that guy is so cute with his brain helmet

juni: i think he’s a monkey

sasha: maybe we should start a rap collective thing instead

sasha: girl brockhampton

sasha: i hella see it man

sasha: can you twerk while playin the kazoo

sasha: idk vocals? shed be better than me at least she does karaoke

sasha: agreed but also idt id keep a baby if i wasnt done w the scene yakno

sasha: wild world

sasha: you sayin that in a good or bad way

[2 mins later]

sasha: i just googled and youre right lol

Maybe he made a mistake coming here today. He brushes off that thought with her hand on his face, leaning into it and simultaneously wishing he hadn’t because he notices her eyes watering up. If his own emotions were closer to the surface, instead of buried deep, deep beneath an ice floe somewhere in the Arctic, he might be doing the same. But he just looks at her through dopey, impossibly sad eyes that tell much of the same story hers do. Unable to stay still in one place as usual, he finds himself leaning on the kitchen table, tugging on Sasha’s wrist to bring her in between his legs. This is way they’re a bit more eye level. More equal. He can’t bring himself to say a word of those texts but they’re on his mind. At least they’re both here, right now, at least they have each other in this moment. Or something like that. He looks down at the space between them, whatever there is of it, teeth biting into lip. 

“There’s a new pizza place opening up on Sunset,” he says and looks at her like it’s the most routine Saturday they’ve ever had, and this is the most important news he’s had to break all day.  He smiles, and his fingers brush her long hair to fall behind her shoulder. His wrist stays there on her neck, limp. “Saw it on the way here.” What else could he say? A heaviness is present, a demon on his back he can’t shake off, and it’s the worst kind of feeling there is. And yet, he’s smiling and talking like nothing out of the ordinary is happening, chewing on the inside of his cheek because the unsaid things are eating away at him. “Looks like it might be a good one.” He doesn’t follow up with his usual offers, plans made, a let’s go there when it opens. Plans are for other people, people not like them. He’s learned that by now. 

She thought she knew everything there is to know about helplessness at this point, and with good reason, but Tyson’s face, the things she sees in his eyes as they lock on to her own teary ones are a whole other dimension of it, a place she’s been before that never gets old. This is the parking lot all over again, it's Dungeon, it's the day they were woken up by Dave, and most importantly it is her fault. Blinking once, twice, more and more tears trickling down her cheeks that she’s too drained to really feel any way about, too busy staring into his eyes.

He tugs at her wrist, pulling her closer and Sasha goes along with it, arms reaching to casually wrap around him, resting in places along his spine with a defeated sigh. His words take a moment to register, but when they do all she can do is stare through her tears, wondering who is he going to invite there. Here we go, feelings about another girl in his life and with them an involuntary sound, part laugh, part sob.

“Oh yeah?”, she asks in the most casual voice she can muster, like nothing’s going on, like there aren’t new tears still running down her face and the beginning of the hiccups somewhere in the base of her lungs. “Is it one of these that have like, special themes? Garage shit?”, managed out through sobs and hiccups.

Now he feels like shit. Mostly. He pushed, but she didn’t push back, and it’s not supposed to go like that. More than that, she’s standing there, in absolutely nothing, and it feels like an unequal fight on all accounts. If you can even call this a fight. But he also doesn’t want to relent or back down, so it’s a bitch of a situation. Mostly he wants his head to just explode. His hands drop what he was doing, only three of the buttons from the bottom done up and the rest still undone. “Don’t be,” he says, somewhat reluctantly. “Not your fault.” It’s only five words, to say what he really wants to, but somehow saying them would feel like pulling each of his teeth out one by one.  I appreciate what you did. He can’t say it, so he swallows it down, shoves it aside, and continues buttoning up his shirt. “Really am late for work, though,” he adds, in case she thinks he’s coming up with an excuse to dash. “Or I’d stay. Or…dunno, got the fuck out of here together.” Where? He doesn’t know, anywhere but here was better. If they were ‘normal’, hell, he’d ditch work entirely, Lisa be damned, and they could go to the nearest diner and order food and talk shit and laugh and all that. But they weren’t normal, and this right here was a reminder of that.