#alooo

dhgdsbvhjdfv f you have no idea what you just unleashed onto the world you just dont this idea

this idea

how did you know flamingos are my all time favorite animal i want a lanky flamingo dragon right now

but also??? this idea??? is just????

absolutely perfect im sorry this response got out of hand

he is sixteen and fresh on the streets, hitch hiking and couch surfing his way across the states to stay at one of Asher’s friend of a friends brother’s place because no one in town will take him. the whole wide world is an angry red raw wound and Skittles is desperate to find something to cling too. desperate enough to look when he hears the clang of a trash can topple over in the alley behind the bus station, while he’s out lighting up a smoke. desperate enough to look at the matted, messy dragon inside and think he he’s not so bad.

there are pink feathers around his neck, always, and even if the makeup isn’t enough to really hide his age, the sharp ever present fangs are enough to dissuade them from looking. a lanky serpent twists around Skittles neck while he bellows out the lyrics to his newest hit and the whole crowd is filled with people clutching faux pink feathers of their own.

in fifth grade the whole class had to read a book called The Outsiders and it might be the only thing about school Skittles is grateful for. there was no teacher cheering him on - it’s not a Hallmark movie, you know - but from that very first page the words curled up in Skittles chest, his mind, and they’ve stuck with him, stay gold, stay gold, so he sits on the cracked tiles of the last dirty motel he can afford with a lanky flamingo dragon that has seen better days cowering in the shower and says, “c’mere, Ponyboy. yer okee, now.”

“hey,” asks Tony, because he’s never had any tact. “where’d you even find that thing, huh? aren’t they, like, bad luck or whatever?” 

a glass bottle cracks against the side of Skittles head and the world spins and a dragon snarls and Eric shouts and it’s like being home again but worse because this is the place after home and what happened to soft nights on the couch, to playing matching guitars just after midnight with too much red wine in their blood and Skittles grabs a knife off the kitchen counter, one of the good ones that Eric loves so much because, “don’t you dare feckin’ touch him!”

Poneyboy thrives in the limelight, feathers soft and plumage bright. the first time he sees himself on the laminated cover of a magazine, he burbles and chitters happily, fluffing himself up to twice his size, and Skittles laughs, giddy, because he feels the same way. they might have been trash once but that was so long ago and now they are climbing, they are stars, they are Honey And Vipers with fangs and feathers and friends and fans and a giddy sort of relief that sits heavy in Skittles bones.

tag list -

Welcome to the pre-precursor to how Skittles takes up yoga. While it’s not actually mentioned in this particular short, he actually ends up being very very good at it later in life.

  Skittles shouldn’t be kissing Tony.   The band has been broken up for three weeks and he’s so red-raw inside it hurts, so drunk and high that he’s not sure if this is really happening or if it’s a dream – except it has to be real because Tony reeks of Menthols and has hair spray stiff hair and is warm pressed up tight against Skittles.   It’s the sort of bar where no one gives a shit what goes on, and the corner is so dimly lit that it’s hard to see anything. But the piercings in Tony’s ear still glint and there are lights flashing in Skittles vision, floating, pulsing orbs that shouldn’t exist but do. Tony laughs into Skittles lungs and the whole world swims sideways, or maybe it’s just Skittles that’s leaning.   I miss you, thinks Skittles, tries to gather up those angry, dizzy words and push them out through tongue and tooth and painted red lips. I miss you so fucking much.

  Lips on the back of Skittles shoulders, butterfly soft. Big hands threading through his red, red hair, pulling it back, pushing it out of the way, and those kisses move up, over the curve of Skittles neck. He yawns, stretches, leans back into Eric’s hand. “Wha’time is it?”   “Late,” says Eric, voice morning rough. “I’m hungry.”   “Den go git yerself somethin’.”   “Skittles.”   “What?”   “We’re going out.” It’s not phrased like a question. Chapped lips brush against the back of Skittles neck and then Eric is up, pulling away, nails making one soft-jagged line down the curve of Skittles spine and – he supposes they’re going out for breakfast.

  No one else is at the gas station, or at least they aren’t in the parking light. It might not even be open anymore. Skittles can’t tell. He’s more focused on the way William rubs a calloused thumb under one eye, trying to get off the last of the make-up from the gig Skittles had two days ago. “You’re dishgusting.”   Skittles laugh is warbling. He catches William’s wrist in one hand, lime green painted nails pressing lightly against heavily tanned skin. “Says the guy wit blood all over’is face. Dood, ya don’t got no room ta talk.”   “I got plenty of room,” huffs William. He licks his thumb again, starts wiping at a different spot on Skittles face. “How did you get covered in glitter?”   “Part’a the act.” Skittles shrugs, runs his hand up the length of William’s arm. “Hey, Willie.”   “Don’t call me that.”   “Can I kiss you?”

   They’ve been in Europe for almost two weeks and Skittles is tired, and wired, and living the life that he’s always dreamed of. Bass echoes in his ears even when the band isn’t playing but right now they are, and the music echoes in his brain and vibrates in his bones and hums in his heart – and the people in the crowd scream out along with them even though they don’t know the words and this – this – this is where Skittles belongs.   He reaches out, grabs the hand of someone in the stage, sweaty palms sliding together as he bellows out the lines of their hottest song yet, Meet Me On The Wayside. “I’m having fun and ya know I can’t conceal it, I’m living large and I know you feel it! Got a laugh in my lungs and a name on my tongue and hard liquor in my ve-ei-ei-eins!”   Tony hits the back up vocals right on cue, voice deeper than Skittles is ever going to be. “We’re living life on the wayside! We’re living life on the wayside! We’re living life on the wayside and I’m running down, running down, running down on – “   It breaks into a drum solo, hard, heavy, the beat matching the one in Skittles chest and he staggers left, saunters even, all red thigh high boots and glitter caked skin and too much everything crawling under his skin. Even with the boots on Skittles is still shorter than Tony, has to use the guitar strap and a fistful of dyed blue hair to pull himself up, up, crash their mouths together the same way Snazzy goes down on the cymbals and the crowd goes wild.

  Teeth bite hard at his lower lip and Skittles shoulders hit the wall and there are fingers in his glue crisp hair and he thinks, thinks, thinks that this isn’t what he ever thought it would turn out to be, where he’s got all his jagged pieces on display and Eric is so good at gathering them back up, water in his hands, sweat on the back of his neck, only to prove that he’s even better at tearing Skittles apart all over again.   There’s still an argument on the back of Skittles tongue but he’s too tired to try and bring it back to life and Eric is so good at dismissing them anyway and – the radio is playing and All We Are comes on and Skittles thinks it’s so ironic he could die.

  William pulls back, doe eyed and quiet. He looks utterly ridiculous with pink smudges on his lips and Skittles smiles at him, laughs, says, “damn, I’ve been wantin’ to do dat fer ages.”

 Skittles is fourteen years old pretending to be sixteen while he crashes a part on the outskirts of town. He drinks cheap beer and smokes cheaper cigarettes bummed off of Cathy Maes, who tries to pretend she’s better than everyone, but the whole town knows that her daddy’s stolen credit card is what’s funding this place.   Everything is dark and loud and Skittles loves it, the way the bass crashes over him and speaks to something deep in his soul, the way Tommy’s cousin from out of town keeps glancing his way, smiling with crooked teeth and crow’s feet and wavy dark hair.   Skittles smiles back at him, chip toothed and freckle faced, saunters across the crowded dining room like it’s gold on his nails and not a sharpie marker that he stole from the Quickie Mart on the way here. “Hey,” he says, leans right up close in Tommy’s cousin’s face. “Ya wanna ditch dis place?”

  Tony runs fingers over the bruise circling Skittles neck, is more quiet than he usually gets.   “Don’t think dat hard.” Skittles bats at Tony’s shoulder, because this isn’t a conversation that he ever wanted to have, ever thought he would get to have. “Yer gonna bust somethin’.”   “Lucky I don’t bust his head,” grumbles Tony. The opening act is still on stage but it sounds like maybe this is their last song, because it’s loud and slow and a build up to a ballad no one wants to hear - Skittles life spilled out in words about small town kids and big dreams and sour clouds of smoke that suffocate, suffocate, suffocate me.   The next touch makes Skittles jump, just a little, when purple stained lips press against his forehead. It’s chaste in a way that Skittles doesn’t really know, like his mother catching Asher on the way out of the house, like pretty Sarah Lee smiling at him from across the cafeteria right before she asks Linda White out for the Wolf Moon Dance.   “You’re staying at my house,” says Tony and it’s a nice thought but they both know it’s a lie.

  “What did he do?” Marcello is draped out across the worn sette that’s been shoved in Skittles dressing room. They’re one show away from leaving for Europe and it feels like there are bees under his skin.   Skittles is nervous like he hasn’t been since that first time he walked up to Eric’s front door, knowing him only as the friend of a brother of his own brother’s friend, and that whole trip went south so why wouldn’t this one?   When he doesn’t answer Marcello tilts his head up, dark bags under his even darker eyes and it must be written plain as day on Skittles face because all he says is, “oh.”   “Yeah,” echoes Skittles. “Oh.”