#atticus 001.

"Have you got eyes on Angel?" Dallas says to his other coworker as he cranes his neck to try and spot their mutual friend in a sea of stetsons and the odd cow print. He had made a mental note to keep an eye on him but that note had floated right out of his head when he had been hooked into a round of shots with a group of tourists who had no idea what was going on but were doing their best to vibe any way.

location: oasis

Mavis's eyes narrowed as she heard the door to the club open — she swore she'd locked that after she arrived for pre-opening cleanup. "Hey, man, we're closed!" she called from behind the bar as her hands idly dried a glass. "I won't judge you if you're looking for a drink this early, but you'd have better luck at the Four Leaf."

location: atticus & mav's apartment

"Oh, sick, you're home."

Astrid letting herself into Atticus and Mav's apartment wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence. She'd like to say that there had been a ramp up into her intrusions on their space without any warning, especially since she and Atticus hadn't known each other well beforehand, but she'd basically started to treat it as a second apartment as soon as she was given a spare key. It stood to reason that she'd treat him kind of as a second roommate. Anything resembling a 'hello' when she arrived had flown out the window a long time ago.

She kicked off her slides at the door and joined Atticus on the couch, but not before tossing him a bag of Nerds gummy clusters, typically her one and only cheat snack. She'd already torn into her own bag on her way to their place, and her hand was buried in it. She sunk into the couch and kicked her feet up on the coffee table as she gazed up at the TV. "What are we watching today?"

location: the arcade

"Hot firefighter!" Sola called from across the arcade when she spotted the familiar face down the way. She was standing in front of Street Fighter, her large slushee placed protectively on the console to stake her claim on it for the time being. She'd been getting her ass handed to her by the computer and figured having a real person to play against might actually better her odds, and hot firefighter — what the fuck was his name again? — seemed like a better opponent than any of the brats milling around. "You down for a game? I need to kick someone's ass, like, right fucking now."

location: leo's apartment

"Uh," Leo said dumbly as he froze and watched a fire grow and start to lick the edges of a pan he had on the stove. Maybe he'd looked away for too long to return a text to Paxton, maybe he'd only been half-paying attention when he threw ingredients into it in the first place. Maybe he was just a terrible cook. All three could be (were) true — all he knew was that he had a problem he didn't know how to fix.

When his brain finally started to work again, Leo quickly pocketed his phone and tore through the cabinets below his sink, looking for the extinguisher that had to have come with the apartment. When he couldn't find it, he took a step back, eyes wide, and considered his options.

He knew, at least, that he shouldn't throw water onto a grease fire, but that didn't exactly leave him with more options. Think, Leo, think.

Didn't he go out with a firefighter? Didn't that firefighter live in the building?

Pulling his phone out of his back pocket, he found a long-abandoned thread with "hot firefighter atticus (bumble)" and shot off a couple of harried texts.

Leo: okay idk if you still have my number but this is leo we went on like two dates Leo: are you home? if you are, could you come to apartment 10F and bring a fire extinguisher ASAP? Leo: i'm so sorry i promise this isn't a prank

location: tidal wave

Felix had meant to let a couple more weeks go by, to relax and lean into being home for the first time in so long before getting back to work, but he found himself getting antsy almost immediately. He'd taken a break to get away from all the deadlines, but here he was, imposing them on himself instead of letting the magazine do it. But it was different, he told himself — nothing was solid, no plans, no editor to report to immediately.

He stopped into Tidal Wave to pick up something new, something he'd never heard before, just to do a full listen-through and get some words on a page. It didn't have to amount to anything, necessarily, he just didn't know what to do with himself when he wasn't writing.

He was considering a Penguin Cafe Orchestra record when he looked up at the wall, scanning over the new releases. Caroline Polachek, maybe? Jennifer Lopez, no. Jason Derulo, definitely not— his eyes fell on the middle, then refocused until the person on the other side of the stacks was brought into relief. Atticus?

"Atticus?" And then, before he could stop himself, he said the first thing that popped into his brain. "Holy shit. You're still here?"

Nora's favorite thing about her childhood home was the small, private roof just outside her bedroom window. When she was a kid, her father regularly painted over the bottom, between the sill and the lift, so it wouldn't open. By age nine, she was keeping an exacto knife in her desk so that she could make quick work of his attempts to keep her inside. Now that she was home, she was spending more and more time out there with a beer or a joint or a cigarette or a book or some combination of the four, laying back and watching the clouds roll by.

Her phone was sitting behind her on the sill (she'd finally learned better than to bring it out, after accidentally losing two of them to the slope of roof and then the gravel below), softly playing a Durutti Column mix so she could really feel like she was in an 80's teen movie. Flat on her back, she smiled up at the sky as she heard a car roll into the driveway, but didn't move other than to put her joint to her lips. Atticus would know where to find her.

She closed her eyes and blew out smoke, her eyes glossing over the John Grisham book she'd picked randomly off the shelves of her dad's study but not really processing any of the words on the page. She heard her bedroom door open and sat up, turned. "God, can you even fit through this window anymore?" she asked, smirking at Atticus. "If you can't, I'm still gonna need you to pass me that six pack. You brought it, right?"