Like The Stars Say

Everyone Deserves the Flames

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:38:30 GMT

everyone deserves the flames

“You should seriously just get some balls and ask him out.”

Pete licks a mouthful of foam off his spoon. He’s on his third latte in as many hours, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to hurl on the next one, but he thinks it’s pretty much worth it because the barista is—something
else. “I will,” he sighs. “Someday.”

“Seriously, I can’t spend my life in this café.”

“Sure you can. They have soy milk,” Pete says distractedly. Distracted mainly because the barista is chatting to a customer and trying the free samples of whatever-whatever-complicated name coffee cake and liking his lips and his fingers and just generally trying to make Pete need a cold shower.

Pete’s not even sure what the deal is; this kid is not a supermodel. Pete certainly knows hotter guys. He’s *fucked* hotter guys for that matter, yet he has still found himself at this café every day for the past few weeks.

This kid, though—he has this fucking face, this *mouth*, this beautiful voice that Pete hears snatches of when the radio’s on, and that’s the extent of Pete’s explanation.

“I think you need a glass of water,” Pete says decisively, getting up from the table before Andy can point out his full glass. He goes up to the counter and waits for the kid to turn from where he’s slicing cheesecake.

“Hi, Patrick,” he says when he turns towards the counter.

“Hi.”

“Your nametag says that’s your name.”

“I—know that. Can I get you something? Another latte?” Patrick asks with a slight smirk.

“No, um, I think my heart would explode. Can I have a glass of water?”

Patrick pours him a glass and slides it across the counter.

“Thanks,” Pete says, picking up the glass and swishing the water around. He licks his lips and blinks a little dazedly when Patrick does the same.

“Um, can I get you something else?”

“Um, no, I, you know, I… I’ll just go…over there,” he says vaguely. “Andy,” he says when he sits down at the table. “It’s hopeless.”

“Pete, if you don’t ask him out, I’m not giving you a ride home.”

“Whatever, your car’s a piece of shit anyway.”

“It’s a piece of shit you can drive, though, isn’t it?”

“Okay, fine. I can do this. I can.” He takes a sip of his latte and grimaces. “Yeah.”

***

“Hi, Patrick.”

“You realize it’s a little weird that you’re standing by my car, waiting for me, right?”

“Um, yeah, I do. Sorry.”

“Just don’t kidnap me or anything.”

“Oh, I wish.” Judging from the look on Patrick’s face, it’s the wrong thing to say. “I mean. Will
you--I mean, do you wanna go out with me sometime?”

And Patrick, Patrick leans back against the car, takes a long, slow sip of his drink and sizes Pete up. Pete doesn’t get sized up a lot, at least not by chubby little baristas, and he can actually feel himself blushing a little.

Finally, Patrick shrugs and says, “Give me your number and maybe I’ll call you.”

“Maybe?”

“If I get to it.”

Pete frowns, but writes the number down when Patrick produces a pen. He says he has some paper, but Pete just scrawls it on the pale, soft skin of his arm and wonders what it tastes like under the ink.

“Will you call me?” Pete asks and has to stop a wince at how anxious he sounds.

Patrick shrugs. “Guess you’ll find out, huh?”

***

“So you said you’d call?” Joe laughs later that night after Patrick tells him the story. “That’s so mean, you’re not really gonna call him, are you?”

Patrick shrugs a little and glances away at the numbers on the inside of his wrist. “What can I say, breaking hearts is my favorite past time.”

Joe kisses him softly and says, “Only on the weekends, right?”

***

That should be the end of the story. Patrick *wishes* is could be the end of the story, but he has this problem, this need to get more, always more that whatever he’s got. More than he can ever get and definitely more than he deserves.

He still has Pete’s number, transferred onto a scrap of receipt paper.

He calls.

***

Pete answers after three rings, sounding a little hurried. “Hello?”

“Hi, Pete,” Patrick says with a smirk to himself, pitching his voice low and rough. “It’s Patrick.”

“Oh--oh, hi,” Pete says. Patrick hears noises and thinks Pete is probably sitting down. He can’t help
the laugh that slips out.

“Hi.”

“I’m glad you called.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Patrick can hear the smile in his voice and he mirrors it even though he’s alone. “I wanted to get to know you.” Patrick thinks that’s a pretty delicate way of putting it, but okay. “I’ve seen you there at the café for awhile.”

“Stalking me?”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“Just to give you fair warning, I have the cops on speed dial. Also, I carry mace.”

“Do you get stalked a lot?”

“I’m irresistible,” Patrick replies, deadpan.

“I fucking noticed, dude. So, what I need you to do is tell me everything about yourself, starting with, like, kindergarten.”

Normally, Patrick would roll his eyes, but he just settles back in his chair and says, “Okay.”

***

“I met someone this weekend.”

Bob just makes a non-commital noise because, yeah, Patrick meets someone every weekend. Bob usually hears about them once, maybe twice depending on what happens. Sometimes he hears about them a second time because they’re following Patrick around, calling him, declaring their burgeoning love for him, and Patrick usually laughs about it, or because they’re pissed off and have started spreading rumors (most of them true) and general trash talk, and Patrick usually laughs about that too. The only person who usually merits much mention is Joe, Patrick’s friend whom he happens to hang out with and fuck on a regular basis, but who is not, repeat, not, Patrick’s boyfriend, as has been impressed upon Bob several times.

Bob is in over his head with Patrick; he accepts this, but never lets it show, or at least he likes to think he doesn’t. He hadn’t been Patrick’s first therapist after his parents divorce; his first had been a general family therapist, but it had only been a few months before he had realized that Patrick was a little much for someone whose training with children basically went to ‘it wasn’t your fault, kiddo’ and not much farther. So the Stump’s had been referred to Bob, and okay, Bob was a little young, but he wanted to help people. Only problem is that Patrick *really* doesn’t seem to want to be helped. He tells Bob all the very very graphic details of his very very active sex life, but with no emotion or explanation, no introspection, and Bob’s attempts to raise questions or make observations are usually cut off at the knees. He never stops asking though.

“Go on.”

“He’s been coming into the café for a few weeks. He gave me his number.”

“Do you think he’s been coming to see you?”

“I don’t know…maybe…probably heard I was easy.”

“Do you think that’s a fair thing to say?”

“Guess if the shoe fits.”

“Do you feel comfortable being called that?”

“I called him,” Patrick says abruptly. Bob frowns. Patrick is usually willing to waste an hour going around in circles on questions like that. “We talked for a few hours.”

“Okay…”

“He’s nice.”

“You like him.”

“I--yeah. I shouldn’t have called him though.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s not really fair. I think he really likes me and I already know he’s just gonna get hurt.”

“You never seemed to think it was unfair before.”

“Pete is different.”

Pete. Bob made a note of the name. “How so?”

“He makes me feel--” Patrick cuts off abruptly and glances at the ceiling.

“He makes you feel?…” Bob prompts, pen poised over his notepad.

“Nothing,” Patrick says. He lays back on Bob’s couch; Bob has learned to really regret putting it in his office since he started seeing Patrick. Patrick runs his hands down over his hips and up his thighs, glances at Bob, all with a casual air, but Bob knows enough to know this is Patrick’s calculated move to get him to shut up. “I went over to Joe’s before I came over here…I was blowing him and he kept pulling my hair and I seriously thought--”

“Why don’t we just cut it a little short today?” Bob says quickly, setting his notepad down. Patrick always wins this game.

“You don’t wanna hear about it?” Patrick asks, sitting up.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” he smirks. “See you next week.”

***

“Tonight. I wanna see you,” Pete says, and his voice is low and raspy in Patrick’s ear over the phone line.

“I’m busy,” Patrick says absently, switching the phone to the other ear and closing his bedroom door.

“You’re not. Don’t be.” There’s a brief pause, and then, “Please.”

Patrick hesitates, then says, “What did you have in mind?”

***

It turns out that what Pete has in mind is some ridiculous diner in the city. He orders a strawberry milkshake with two straws. Patrick sort of feels like there’s no way Pete can be for real with this, but he’s so for real it’s sort of painful to watch. He definitely wasn’t expecting Pete Wentz to be so earnest. He’s heard plenty of stories around the scene about Pete, but he mostly figures they’re exaggerations. They might not be exaggerations. He suspects Pete might stand outside his window all day with a boom box. Unironically.

The conversation is weird and stilted and Patrick fantasizes about being at home messing with his drum kit. Pete seems totally perplexed that this is not going well. Finally he says, in the middle of eating a cheese fry, and how smooth is that, “You know, for a scene kid, you don’t seem very impressed that I’m…I don’t know, the guy from Racetraitor. I guess that sounds pretty conceited, but.”

“But you are conceited?”

“I guess so,” Pete concludes with a massive grin.

“I guess I’m just not that easily impressed.”

“What would you be impressed by?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says blandly. “How good are you at rim jobs?”

Pete chokes on his Coke and the silence that ensues goes through being awkward to being unbearable to being physically painful before Pete breaks it by pretending to be amazed that it’s all of eight-thirty and suggests that he take Patrick home. Patrick smirks and says okay and thinks that if nothing else, this will be a really fucking funny story to tell Joe later.

But when Pete asks if he wants to do something on Friday, he says yes without even thinking about it and they both look surprised afterwards. Pete kisses him goodnight awkwardly, pressing him against the wall next to the front door with the porch lights out.

***

It’s a Friday night, so they go to a show. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to plan. Patrick hasn’t actually gone to a Friday night showcase in a few weeks. Fridays have been devoted lately to renting movies with Joe and scarfing pizza, usually followed by fucking on Joe’s couch in the basement. Patrick isn’t looking forward to trying to make up an excuse for why he can’t hang out, but Joe doesn’t even call, so he’s off the hook.

What he comes to realize pretty fast, however, is that there’s someone he’s fucked everywhere he looks, which he thinks should make him feel bad, but it really doesn’t, especially since Pete seems to think being out with the scene slut is awesome. (To be fair, he thinks Pete probably doesn’t know he’s out with the scene slut, or he probably wouldn‘t bother with actual dates.)

Pete is most of the way normal when he talks about music, so they have a surprisingly good time. He gets a lot of glares and a lot of sad faces though, so by the time Patrick sees Joe, he’s already in a bad mood. Also, Joe is already coming over with a big smile and there is no way is this going to go well.

“Hey, this band sucks,” Joe says without preamble. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

Patrick tries not to make a face, not a *guilty* face, because what does he have to feel guilty about? Joe should get it. Joe *will* get it, he decides.

“Can’t. I’m here with Pete.”

Joe doesn’t look like he gets it. “Oh. So. You called him?”

“Yeah. We got dinner the other night.”

“Oh. So are you on, like, a….date?”

“I guess you can call it that,” Patrick mumbles, shoving his hands in his pockets. His breath catches
a little when he sees Pete coming over to them from behind Joe, and Joe must see something his face because he turns and sees Pete just as he brushes past and slips an arm around Patrick’s shoulders. Patrick sees Joe’s eyes get big, like he thought Patrick was probably just fucking with him.

Pete puts an arm around Patrick’s shoulders and pulls him in close. He says, “Hey, Joe.”

Joe says ‘hey’ back, in a normal enough voice, but he’s looking at Pete like he just came from another planet, sort of dazed and clueless and unhappy. It’s his ‘freaking out’ face.

Pete frowns and asks, “Is something wrong, dude?”

Patrick really expects Joe to either get mad and start yelling or smile and say ‘no’. He’s in favor of either one, really. He’ll know how to feel if Joe causes a scene (embarrassed and a little pissed off) or if they pretend this is nothing (probably a little shitty, but mostly relieved).

Joe doesn’t do either. He seems caught in some unhappy medium between the two because he says, “Um, nothing,”, but in the least convincing tone possible and still staring at them. Then he starts to make his ‘I’m about to say something I don’t wanna say’ face and Patrick pulls away from Pete and says, “Get me a Coke.” Pete takes one look at Patrick’s face and goes.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he snaps as soon as Pete walks away.

“Pete?”

“Yeah, that’s his name. You know the guy.”

“You didn’t think--like, you should have told me you were going on dates with people? With Pete?”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know, common fucking courtesy?”

“Why? It’s not like,” Patrick pauses and steps in a little closer even though he doubts anyone can
hear them. “It’s not like we’re dating. I’m not your boyfriend, dude. I come over, we watch a movie, we have sex. Don’t make a big fucking deal out of it.”

And Joe doesn’t even look mad, just hurt. “I’m still your friend.”

Patrick has to really fight not to cringe at that. This conversation needs to be over ASAP. He
crosses his arms over his chest and says, “Well, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Joe gives him a look that is kind of disbelieving, but he finally looks mad instead of hurt and he crosses his arms over his chest as well. "So how many people in here have you fucked?"

Patrick isn’t really expecting that, and he flinches before he can stop himself. “A lot,” he bites out. "You knew I was - I don't know, seeing other people. Don’t act like you didn’t.”
"Yeah, but I've never had to watch you do it,” Joe points out. “There’s your date,” he adds, pushing past Patrick. Patrick turns to see Pete coming over with a precariously full cup of Coke. He takes it and sets it on the bar and points to the back door of the club.

He pulls Pete outside with the single-minded determination to stop thinking about Joe. He pushes Pete against the grimy wall of the club and kisses him hard enough to bruise, hard enough that his lips sting and tingle. Pete’s hands come up to frame his face, to turn the kiss into something soft and sweet, but Patrick just kisses back harder and starts undoing Pete’s belt. He gets to his knees and the wet gravel of the alley soaks through his jeans almost instantly, but Patrick really doesn’t care as he peels Pete’s jeans over his hips and his mouth literally starts to water as he pulls Pete’s cock out.

Patrick leans forward and wraps his mouth around the head with no preamble, tilting his head back and letting Pete slide in until he hits the back of his throat and Patrick has to fight for breath. Patrick moans around him with a shiver even as his eyes tear. He pulls back just enough to catch a breath and sucks hard, savoring the feel of it on his tongue, the taste, and the feel of Pete’s fingers digging into his shoulders.

It’s perfect—perfect—until he hears the scrape and slide of gravel at the end of the alley and Pete’s fingers tighten on his shoulders, pulling him back. Patrick looks up and there’s Joe, of course it’s Joe, standing at the end of the alley with a look on his face that Patrick can’t even put into words, and he’s amazed that he can put that look on anyone’s face, let alone Joe’s.

He wants to say something, an ‘I’m sorry’, or maybe a ‘wanna join me?’ that Joe may or may not take as a joke, but he just turns back and swallows Pete down again and Pete groans and it sounds completely obscene even over the noise of the city that drifts in from the street. Joe looks stricken and walks away without a word.

*

Patrick, for the record, had not actually been planning on going home with Pete when the night began. He kind of likes Pete, in spite of how Pete he tends to be (that Patrick feels entitled to make such statements should be telling in and of itself), and that is a sure indication that he should end this before it gets started in earnest. It’s probably a result of all of Bob’s psychobabble crap; it must have seeped in despite Patrick’s best attempts to make Bob’s job impossible. Bob’s theory about what makes Patrick tick is not especially unique and definitely not new: kid of divorced parents latches on to others to seek approval while simultaneously sabotaging own efforts. Thought of like that, he can almost pretend it’s someone else and not his own life, his own relationships that he’s systematically destroying.

In any event, he hesitates, picturing himself in a textbook, as a case study much later in Bob’s career, and he hesitates. He thinks Bob would probably be thrilled if he knew.

Best intentions aside, that’s how he ends up skipping half the show to go to Pete’s apartment and get fingered for fifteen minutes until he’s almost begging--almost, still not quite, and he can tell Pete won’t make him--naked in Pete’s lap on the bed. Pete is laying a string of hard bites over his collarbone, harder than Patrick expected, and it’s driving him crazy. Foreplay is great, but seriously.

“Seriously,” he grits out, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to roll with the movement of Pete’s fingers; somehow it’s always jarring from this angle. “Any time, Pete.”

“In a minute,” Pete replies. At least he’s panting too. “I want you to be at least half as desperate as I am.”

Pete spreads him out on the bed and leaves the lights on and looks him in the eye as he pushes inside him and Patrick can’t breathe. He draws great, gasping breaths of air that he loses as soon as he catches them and Pete watches him the whole time. Pete watches him squirm and moan and come even while Patrick has his own eyes squeezed shut.

Pete’s arms come around him afterward, winding around him in an overheated embrace, but Patrick pulls away and gets dressed while Pete asks him what’s wrong and what did he do and will he stop and stay, please?

After he gets out of Pete’s apartment, Patrick feels a little desperate and a lot stupid, because only now does he realize that he doesn’t really have anywhere to go. He doesn’t wanna go home because he knows Adam and his girlfriend will be there, watching a movie, crammed together on their tiny futon. They’ll stop making out long enough to say hey and ask if Patrick wants to watch the movie, because Adam isn’t a complete asshole, but it’s a courtesy thing more than a real invitation, so he’ll say no and when he gets into bed, they’ll have sex across the room because they’ll think Patrick is asleep, and also deaf.
He knows a lot of people in this city, sure, but he’s pretty sure he’s worn out his welcome with most of them. The one place he wants to go to, he knows he can’t go to without being a complete asshole.

Then he realizes that he’s already a complete asshole, and goes anyway. This is how Patrick finds himself standing on Joe’s doorstep and realizing very belatedly that he barely cleaned up before he ran out of Pete’s bedroom and that in all likelihood, he probably reeks like sex and now’s he showing up on Joe’s doorstep and expecting to not get punched in the face, and yeah, he’s definitely hit a new number on the
prick scale.

When Joe opens the door, he looks somehow unsurprised to see him. He leans against the doorframe and doesn’t say anything, just setting a level gaze on Patrick. Patrick opens his mouth to say ‘hi’ or ‘I’m sorry’ or something other than what comes out, which is,

“Can I use your shower?”

Joe huffs out a laugh and shakes his head like he can’t believe his ears, which is probably fair, and he steps back to let him in. Patrick sets the water to as scalding as he can stand and scrubs until his skin is pink like sunburn, but he thinks the damage is probably already done. When he gets out, though, there’s a pile of fresh clothes on the counter next to the sink. They’re a little snug, but he’s sure not going to complain.

He goes down to the basement, which is mostly dark save for the light from the TV, and finds Joe sitting on the table underneath the window, lighting a joint. Patrick goes over with only a little hesitation to stand in between Joe’s knees. He leans in after a moment of silence, but Joe leans back and says,

“You can’t seriously think I wanna kiss you right now,” his voice is low and rough and Patrick is hit instantly with a wave of sick guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

“Were you with Pete?”

“Yeah,” Patrick replies after a moment. There’s a long stretch of silence as Joe leans back a bit and takes a hit off the joint, shrouded in shadows and a few stray rays of moonlight. “Let me make it up to you,” he says, leaning again. Joe brings a hand up and slides it into the soft, damp hair at the back of his neck, and for a moment Patrick thinks he’s pulling him in for a kiss, but he instead pulls his head back slowly, back and back, far past the point of discomfort, until Patrick is biting his lip and blinking up at the ceiling and at Joe as much as he can manage. Joe doesn’t really do anything for a long moment except look at him. Then he brings the joint up and pauses and for one seriously dizzying, fucked up moment, Patrick thinks he’s gonna put it out on the soft skin of his neck, and for one even more fucked up moment, he wonders if he’d like it.

But Joe just sighs and says,

“I don’t know what to do with you anymore, Patrick.” He pulls him in and kisses him hard, and Patrick just clings to him and kisses back until he’s breathless. Eventually, Joe pulls away and asks if wants to watch a movie and hops off the table, and Patrick thinks that he could really really be off the hook. If so, then Joe is really really too fucking good for him.

*

He’s not off the hook.

Joe puts in Spinal Tap, and they’ve both seen it at least a dozen times, so Patrick just leans into Joe and let’s the exhaustion that’s been creeping up for the past few days wash over him and lull him into sleep.

Patrick wakes up some time later, about a half an hour judging by the movie, and Joe’s on the phone. Patrick has somehow ended up lying on the couch with his head in Joe’s lap. When Patrick looks up at him, he’s just a soft blur, so he figure’s Joe must have taken his glasses off after he fell asleep.

Joe’s mumbling into the phone with a scowl,

“No….of course I’m not….what, like I owe it to you?…whatever….uh-huh, okay, fuck you,” he snaps, and tosses the phone aside.

“Who was that?” Patrick asks drowsily, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Joe doesn’t answer, just pulls him close and kisses him hard, hard enough that Patrick knows his mouth will be swollen all the next day. His fingers are tight on Patrick’s jaw when he pulls back, and his face is probably as serious as Patrick’s ever seen it when he says,

“Get up,” in a tone that leaves no room for questions. Patrick frowns, maybe shivers a little, but he gets up.

Joe pulls him to the end of the couch and gives him a hard push, bending him over the arm. Patrick glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t move.

“Joe?”

Joe doesn’t reply, just shakes his head and gestures for Patrick to turn around. Patrick turns away and breathes out against the upholstery. The TV is on mute, so the sound of Joe’s zipper is screamingly loud in the dark room, and like some kind of conditioned response, Patrick starts to squirm and sweat as soon as he hears the sound. Joe’s hands slip around his waist and make quick work of the button on his jeans, shoving them halfway down his thighs before his fingers are pressing against him and slipping in, two, like he really needs it. He’s still slick and so *open* from Pete, not even three hours ago, and Joe must realize it because he snorts and twists them sharply before he pulls them out. Patrick hears the tear of foil and shivers when Joe’s fingers grip his hips and pull him back.

It’s almost like normal as long as Patrick ignores the way Joe is completely silent behind him, not murmuring or moaning or whispering like he normally does, and Patrick tries to relax and enjoy it even though the way Joe has him pinned on the high arm of the couch isn’t the most comfortable and he feels like he should be holding his breath to keep the uneasy silence.

Yes, it’s almost like normal until Joe leans forward and starts *talking*.

When he leans forward, one hand on the back of Patrick’s neck, the shift in angle tips them forward and forces him in deeper, deeper than Patrick thinks he’s ever felt, and he can’t stop the ragged moan that tears it’s way out of his throat, breaking in the center and turning into a whimper.

“So,” Joe breaths against his ear. “How was it?”

“How was what?” Patrick gasps out.

Joe rolls his hips slowly and asks, “How was Pete?”

“How was--how was?”

“Pete. What did he do?”

“He--I don’t know,” Patrick mumbles, breathing hard as Joe twists his hips and thrusts and the couch actually moves a few centimeters. “I don’t know,” he moans.

“How many fingers did he use?”

“Um--he--three,” he chokes out. “He was--” Patrick sucks in a breath and lets it out in a rush, biting his lip. “Gentle.”

“Bet you hated that.”

“It was something different,” he pants. Patrick is starting to suspect that this whole arm of the couch set-up is totally intentional because he can’t move in any direction, not back, not forward, can barely keep his feet on the ground when Joe shoves into him, just this side of too hard. He can’t do anything except *take it*, and fuck, he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to enjoy being helpless this much.

“Something different,” Joe scoffs. “Guess he doesn’t know how much you can take.” His fingers curl in the soft tips of Patrick’s hair and Joe pulls him back, kisses him hard and steals the little breath he’s getting. One arm slips around him, fingers brushing his hips, the still-soft curve of his belly, and down to his cock. Joe’s fingers rub roughly over him at the same time as he bites down on Patrick’s lip, hard and harder, and Patrick comes with a harsh shudder and a harsher moan.

Patrick is still shaking when Joe comes, still shaking when Joe pulls out, still shaking when Joe walks past him, zipping his jeans up, and sits down on the couch. Patrick pushes himself up and almost falls over when he gets back on his feet. He sighs, tired, so fucking tired, and pulls his jeans up. He sits down next to Joe on the couch, leans in, totally prepared to fall asleep again, and Joe leans away and says,

“I think you should probably go home.”

Patrick jerks back in surprise and frowns. “What?”

“I think you should go home,” Joe says, not looking at him.

“I…um…okay. Okay, if you’re sure.”

“Oh, I’m positive.”

Patrick gets up stiffly from the couch and stops for a minute, waiting for Joe to say something else, to sigh and tell him to stay, but he doesn’t say anything else. Patrick pulls his clothes into place and tries,

“Joe--”

“Just *go*, Patrick, go.”

He goes.

***

The next day is Sunday, and Patrick’s mother knocks on the door at eight and tells him he’s coming to church. Patrick sits up, feeling like arguing (getting out of bed sounds like too much work, never mind actually dressing up and going somewhere), but he can’t get up the energy, so he just sort of moans from under the covers. His mother hovers in the door for a few moments, asks him where he was the night before, but Patrick doesn’t answer, doesn’t say anything save for ‘is my gray shirt clean’.

He takes stock of the damage when he gets out of the shower. There’s a string of bite marks halfway up his neck and all way down his shoulder and across his collarbone from Pete, bruises on his hips from--well, anyone’s guess, really, and a vicious stripe of friction burn across his hips from the couch that stings when he touches it. The only thing he wants to do is get back into bed, but he puts his clothes on and goes down to the kitchen, forces down a piece of toast. His mom keeps giving him concerned looks, but he doesn’t say much.

***

It’s kind of absurd to be in church, however. That’s how Patrick feels anyway. He’s still sore as hell from the night before, and he’s wearing a *turtleneck* to cover up the bruises on his neck. He gets about four hymns into the service before he puts a hand over his stomach, nudges his mom and says he’s feeling sick with a grimace. She gives him a look, but hands over the keys and tells him to have some tea when he gets home.

***

His phone tells him he has eighteen missed calls, seven voicemails, and thirteen text messages, and he knows who all of them are from, but he just turns it off and changes into a t-shirt and hoodie. He already knows where he’s going, where he wants to go because he’s tired and confused even though he knows he should probably just do Joe a favor and leave him alone. It’s not too long before he finds himself walking up the drive to Joe’s house.

There aren’t any cars in the driveway, so he goes around to the backdoor and lets himself in. It’s only nine-thirty, and when he opens the door to Joe’s room, he’s sound asleep in the bed. Patrick sits down on the edge of the bed and whispers,

“Joe. Joe, wake up,”, pokes him a few times until Joe grumbles and opens his eyes. “Hi,” Patrick says softly. “I went home,” he says, looking down at the bed spread.

“And now you’re back again,” Joe sighs. Patrick looks up at him then, and there must be something on his face that Joe can read, because he sighs and again and pulls the covers back a little.

“Well? Are you getting in or not?”

Patrick breathes a sigh of relief and pulls his shoes off, climbing into the bed and settling into the warm spot next to Joe. Joe slips an arm around his waist and moves closer, but he’s still frowning.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says quietly.

“For what?”

“Name off the list…”

“So it’s a blanket apology?”

“I guess so. I know I have a lot to say I’m sorry for.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just stop doing it.”

Patrick shakes his head, can’t say anything but, ‘I’m sorry.’

“When did you get to be so fucked up, Patrick?”

“I don’t know…I’m--”

“Sorry, I know,” Joe says. He gives Patrick a serious look, and god does he wish things could be simple and that he could just be in love with Joe and have that be the end of the story, because he knows Joe cares about him and all he can do is fuck things up over and over again. “What would make you happy?”

Patrick swallows hard. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to figure it out, because I can’t keep doing this forever.”

“I know,” Patrick replies, and his voice is small and tired. “I just wanna go to sleep now.”

“Okay,” Joe sighs. “I think you need it.” They don’t speak for a long while and Patrick is almost asleep when Joe says, “Pete really likes you.”

He says it like he doesn’t want to, and like he doesn’t want Patrick to hear, but he does. Patrick doesn’t respond though, just closes his eyes tighter until he falls asleep.

***

[MAYBE PATRICK AND BOB SCENE]

***
Patrick wakes up at 1:13 in the morning when his cell phone starts ringing. He throws one arm out blindly to shut it up and peers at it in the dark. One new text message. He flips the phone open. It’s from Pete and all it reads is ‘want 2 c u’. Patrick sits up, runs a hand through his hair and sighs into the dark. He thinks about saying no or just ignoring it, but after a few minutes, he texts back ‘ok’. He’s barely gotten out of bed before he gets a reply that says ‘outside ur house’. A few weeks ago, Patrick probably would have thought it was creepy that Pete was outside his house at one in the morning, but for Pete, this is pretty tame on the weird behavior front.

He doesn’t stop to think, just gets out of bed and pulls on a hoodie and a hat. He goes out to the idling car as quietly as he can and gets in.

“Hey,” he says softly, reaching up to shimmy the brim of his hat. “Thought you weren’t talking to me.”

Pete is turned away, looking out the windshield, and he doesn’t look at Patrick for a few moments, his jaw tight, but then he turns to look at him. He says, “I didn’t say I wanted to talk to you.”

They drive down the block to an empty parking lot and Pete fucks him in the back seat, one hand on his shoulder and one hand braced on the cool window. He drives Patrick back home afterwards and kisses him, once, hard, with teeth, before he starts the car and says ‘goodnight’ so softly that Patrick has to strain to hear him over the sound of the silence.

***

That seems to make Pete feel better—showing up in the middle of the night to fuck Patrick and then leave—because he does it again and then asks Patrick if he wants to come over and watch a movie. Patrick doesn’t really get how Pete’s mind works, but he says okay.

Joe starts talking to him again too, actually answering when Patrick calls, and Patrick breathes a sigh of relief that he still hasn’t hit Joe’s bullshit limit. He’s starting to think it doesn’t exist. They hit a weird sort of stalemate, the three of them, in which Joe and Patrick just never mention Pete. They never mention Pete, and when Joe sees Pete, he never mentions Patrick, and Pete never mentions anything because Pete is still out of the loop. This works for five weeks.

Patrick spends one night a week studying, three nights a week on Joe’s couch, and three nights a week at Pete’s apartment. They both order take-out, they both talk about music, and they both like to leave the lights on when they fuck him, no matter how many times Patrick complains about it. He goes to therapy every Friday and talks circles around Bob because he can’t figure out how to just say, ‘okay, let’s talk’. He fights with Adam over stupid shit like whose socks are in the corner and barely passes a few tests. Pete calls him at three AM pretty frequently and Patrick has to talk (and sometimes) sing him to sleep, but it’s always after he leaves Joe’s house. He’s always tempted to just stay in the bed and let Joe’s totally healthy sleep patterns put him to bed, but he doesn’t think even Joe could ignore him getting up in the middle of the night to talk to Pete. He ducks into the lounge down the hall and tucks himself into one of the windows and stares at the same sodium lights that Pete sees out of his bedroom window twenty minutes away. He falls asleep there a few times because he does not feel like listening to Adam bitch about his late night marathon talks.

So he stays at Pete’s apartment and squints against the downtown lights and he goes to Joe’s, where the basement kills most of the traffic noises and makes him feel safe and quiet, and for five weeks, things are not perfect, but they’re good. Patrick thinks he could probably continue like this for as long as he can get away with it, and that they might even let him.

On week six, Patrick has a paper and three tests, so he spends three nights studying and two nights with Pete, so by Friday night, he hasn’t seen Joe in almost a week, which hasn’t happened since he started at Colombia, and even then it was pretty infrequent. He and Pete had gone to a show to see Pete’s friend’s band, but they had cut out early because Pete had actually claimed to be tired. Patrick guesses he shouldn’t be so surprised that Pete hasn’t slept much since he hasn’t been there.

They went back to Pete’s apartment, where enough of Patrick’s stuff had accumulated that it was starting to feel like home, and Pete pushed him back against the door as soon as he gets it closed. He slipped his arms around Patrick’s waist and Patrick leaned in to kiss him, but Pete just pressed his face into Patrick’s neck and let out a long sigh. They stood there for a long time, long enough that it got weird and then stopped being weird, and then Pete took his hand and said, in the serious tone he always used when he wanted people to think he was joking, “I’ve never felt like this before.” And Patrick had said, “Me neither,” because it was true.

Pete falls asleep soon after they get into bed, which makes Patrick surprised but happy. Pete usually sleeps when he’s there, but never without some struggle, a lot of tossing and turning and waking Patrick up when he’s on the verge of sleep by asking him if he knows who invented pancakes. (Patrick hadn’t, and Pete had used it as an excuse to get online and look it up, which meant another hour passed before he lay back down.)
It would be more accurate to say that Pete passes out cold with his arms around Patrick, the sleep of someone who’s tired beyond any physical level. Patrick curls himself around the edge of the bed and closes his eyes, but he can tell as soon as he does that he’s not falling asleep so easy tonight. Pete would probably say something about how Patrick is taking his sleeplessness from him because Patrick is an angel, or something else ridiculous; even imagining it makes Patrick smile reluctantly. Neither of them has to get up in the morning, so he doesn’t stress too much about being tired even though his eyes feel gritty.
For whatever reason, he starts thinking about Led Zeppelin, and it only takes three minutes for Led Zeppelin to lead to Joe and Patrick has the sudden need to talk to him. He rolls over to the side of side of the bed and reaches for his phone in his jeans.

‘wuts going on?’ he taps out, leaning over the phone to block the light out.

He gets a response in less than a minute. ‘n2m frat party. theyre thkng of mking me an honorary bro’.

‘cool. is it fun?’

‘okay but the music sux. needs moar cowbell’

Patrick snickers in the dark, putting a hand over his mouth to keep it in. He hesitates, then taps out, ‘can I come over? havnt seen u all week’

This time, the answer is a little slower in coming, but it’s still a yes. He slips out of the bed as quietly as he can. Pete curls up harder in the mass of sheets and blankets and makes a soft noise, but he doesn’t wake up.

It’s still early enough to take the bus, but the walk isn’t too far and it’s not too cold, so Patrick walks the ten blocks to Joe’s house even though it takes a little longer. He figures that Pete usually sleeps hard when he sleeps at all, so he shouldn’t wake up anytime soon. He’ll go out and see Joe—just to talk because Joe is still his friend and he is capable of hanging out in Joe’s basement and keeping all his clothes on—and be back before Pete wakes up and they’ll have breakfast together before Patrick goes back to campus for work.
Joe is sitting on the porch when he gets there, staring at his phone with a frown. He snaps the phone shut when he looks up and sees Patrick coming down the sidewalk.

“Hey,” Patrick says happily. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Joe says. He holds a hand out. “Come here.”

Patrick takes his hands and lets Joe pull him up the stairs. Joe leans in and kisses him, long and soft and thorough, pushing him against the cool brick pillar of the porch. Then he leans away, licks his lips, and says, “So where did you come from?”

“Just the dorm. Adam was with his girlfriend, so,” Patrick lies.

“Really? It was just you and Adam and his girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“At your dorm? That’s where you’ve been all night?”

Patrick pauses, but it’s too late to change stories now. “Yeah,” he says.

“And you’re not lying to my face right now?” Patrick swallows and wants to say ‘that question seems like a trap’ but Joe continues without waiting for an answer. “Because Pete just texted me and said he woke up just now and you weren’t in bed and it’s so late and he’s so worried about you, Patrick, what the fuck?”

“I just wanted to see you!”

“Well, I’m fucking sick of sharing you with Pete, dude!”

“Well, we’re still fucking friends, aren’t we? I can’t just wanna fucking hang out with you? Christ.”
“This is bullshit, and I’m not dealing with it anymore,” Joe says, holding his hands up. “Go be with Pete, if you love him. But for fuck’s sake, just make up your mind, fuck,” Joe snaps, going up the stairs. “Don’t get mugged on the way home,” he adds before he goes into the house and closes the door on Patrick.

*

He takes the bus this time, the last bus that’s running that night, and prays he can get into Pete’s building. He doesn’t even make it that far because Pete is leaning out of his bedroom window and he starts yelling as soon as he sees Patrick coming down the street. Pete screams until he’s hoarse and his neighbors come to their windows and listen to Pete detail the great future they would have had together if Patrick wasn’t such a stupid fucked-up whore. Patrick stands on the sidewalk and listens to him scream for ten minutes before he leaves. Pete is still yelling when he starts walking back to campus. It’s late now, late enough that it isn’t really safe to walk home, but Patrick just walks through the city with his head down, braced against the impact of the wind.

*

Three weeks pass. Patrick stops sleeping and never goes out, but his grades get a lot better since he has so much studying time, even though his only study partner now is Adam, who studies drunk most of the time. He goes to class everyday and he loses ten pounds because he’s never hungry. He texts Pete and Joe every day and never gets a response. It’s not the end of the world, it just looks like it when he tilts his head.

On Saturday, three weeks later, Patrick goes to a party. He isn’t sure if it’s actually a Columbia party, but he tags along when Adam tells him he needs to get out some. Adam disappears as soon as they’re in the door, which is fair enough because Patrick knows a lot of people at the party, just none that he actually wants to talk to. He parks it in the corner with a beer and wishes the music were different, and the time, and the city, and him.

Patrick is counting down the minutes until he can ditch Adam guilt-free when Mikey Way comes over and tells him, quite succinctly and with feeling, that he’s a prick. (Mikey Way is all about intense relationships, so of course he has history with Pete. It ended well enough that they ask about each other at parties, but not well enough that they’d ever go to the same parties. Mikey is apparently hooking up exclusively with this dude named Gabe, who Patrick had sex with one time at a bonfire. Between Pete and Gabe, he’s practically fucked Mikey, and then he realizes that by that logic, he’s practically fucked half the party.) He doesn’t wait for Patrick to reply, just walks away and disappears.

Adam appears suddenly and for only long enough to tell Patrick that he’s leaving with some girl who is apparently ‘seriously nasty’ and to request that Patrick hang out here for an hour or two before he comes home.

Patrick swears under his breath and wanders through the party until he finds himself in the basement. He needs another beer, so whatever. He can’t shake the feeling that everyone’s watching him as he fills up, filled with the same sense of unease, the same vague sense of dread that seems to permeate all of his social outings now. Chicago is a big fucking city, and there’s no way everyone here can know who he is, but seriously, he’s fucked half the party. He glances around, but no one’s looking at him, and he backs away from the keg with a sudden sense of fear, like they might all turn to him and demand to know what he thinks he’s doing at this party or in this basement or by this keg.

He turns away, looking for the nearest corner to lurk in until he can leave, and he sees a flimsy-looking door that’s partially concealed by a pillar. The door’s closed, jammed shut and slightly off-kilter. Patrick isn’t sure if that means it’s probably empty or probably occupied, but he’s willing to take his chances. He pulls the door open and leans in.

It’s occupied, three people on the futon and two in chairs, looking shadowy and beautiful in the dim, golden glow from the twinkle lights that are taped to the walls. Joe is sitting on the end of the futon, rolling a joint (Patrick isn’t sure how he didn’t realize this was the green room). Patrick has to lean back against the door frame, because he’s so happy to see him that his head swims. And he’s had six beers.

“Hey.”

Joe looks up. He doesn’t smile, but he says ‘hey’ back. His eyes look glazed when they catch the light, but he’s sober enough to be polite, at least. “Guys, this is Patrick, Patrick, this is guys.” Not that sober, though. The girl next to Joe gets up and stumbles, almost going face-first into one of the rough stone walls. Patrick happily takes her place. He sits next to Joe and laughs at all of his stupid jokes and Joe smiles at him after awhile and Patrick feels good for the first time in a long while. This is what Joe does for him.

The keg runs out eventually and everyone starts to filter out until it’s just Patrick and Joe left in the claustrophobic little room. “Where are you going?” Patrick asks, biting his lip and turning towards Joe on the shabby little futon when the last person is swaying through the door and closing it behind them.

Joe is slumped down in his seat, looking half-asleep. His eyes close and his mouth stretches around a
yawn. “Nowhere?”

“Not now, I mean, after you leave.”

“Oh. Home, I guess.” Joe cracks an eye open. “Why?”

“Can I come with you?”

Joe treats him to a derisive snort. “I don’t really think that’s a good idea.”

“Come on, man, I haven’t seen you in, like, weeks. How long are you gonna keep punishing me? I haven’t seen Pete since that night, okay?”

“Yeah, only because he won’t talk to you! You think we don’t see each other? You think you aren’t the first fucking thing he asks about? Christ,” Joe says, getting up and going to the door. “Seriously, Patrick, I’m fucking done. We’ve been friends for a really long time, so I’m not gonna tell you off in front of a bunch of strangers, but I don’t really think we should hang out anymore and I definitely don’t think you need to come home with me.”

“But—“

“Patrick, seriously, don’t make this harder,” Joe says quietly, running a hand over his face. “Think about someone besides yourself for once.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but whatever it is doesn’t make its way out. Joe turns and leaves.

From the sounds of silence from the floor above, the party is over, but Patrick doesn’t get off the futon. Getting home alone sounds like too much depressing work right at that moment. Eventually Alex Suarez from his poli sci class wanders in. They chat, though Patrick forgets what they say as soon as they’ve said it. He zones out and has to keep asking Alex to repeat himself until Alex just rolls his eyes and asks if Patrick wants to come back to his room. Patrick agrees immediately because Alex is nice, and a sure thing, and he might as well give Adam a little extra time with his girlfriend. He lets Alex do all the talking on the train ride back to campus and just nods at the appropriate places.

Alex isn’t as nice as he seems. He pulls Patrick’s hair hard enough to pull a few pieces out, but Patrick doesn’t complain. He still swallows, but the taste makes him feel a little sick. Actually, the whole night is making him sick, so he waves Alex off when he goes to unbuckle Patrick’s belt and says he’s going home. Alex just shrugs and lets him leave.

Patrick makes the short trip back to his building and finds Adam in the lounge. “Hey!” Adam says. “I felt bad about ditching you at that party, so I was coming back to get you…but then I got distracted, sorry.”

“No big deal. I’m going to bed.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“A blast,” Patrick mumbles, already headed for the stairs.

*

[PETE AND JOE MAKE AN ARRANGEMENT AND HAVE SEX SCENE]

Joe really doesn’t want to answer the phone when Pete calls, but he knows the only reason Pete could be calling is because of Patrick. He feels a brief flash of what would be panic in anyone else, only a mild distress in himself since he wake and baked today, and also because it doesn’t seem that likely that Patrick is dead in a ditch, but he frowns anyway and picks up the phone. Pete could actually need something.

He answers, but doesn’t say anything, and after a few seconds, Pete sighs, a whistling rush of static, and says,

“Hey, Joe.”

Joe can hear the overlaying note of tiredness in Pete’s voice and he knows, knows instinctually that Pete has been sitting around his apartment and being obsessive for the better part of the week. Probably not eating or showering or shaving and just writing pages of weird, possibly bad (Joe can never really tell) poetry, and Joe sighs himself and says ‘hey’ back.

“Still pissed at me?” Joe makes a face to himself, but shrugs and makes a vague noise that comes out affirmative because, yeah, fucking Patrick. “Well…I was thinking I could maybe stop by? I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay, just, like—hear me out, okay?”

***

This turns out to be a fair warning.

Pete looks as bad as Joe expected him to, and a little worse, but still not as bad as he could. Joe is relieved because it kind of means he can be pissed in good conscience.

“So. I have this idea,” Pete says, sitting down on the edge of the couch in the basement. Joe thinks absently that he should probably get the couch cleaned or something because he can’t even count the number of times he and Patrick have had sex on it, but he guesses it’s kind of fitting that Pete’s sitting on it now.

“Lay it on me,” Joe says mildly, lighting a joint and leaning back on the couch.

“This Patrick thing.”

“Uh-huh. I’m familiar with it.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Seriously, Pete? You’re fucking my—“ He has to stop himself from saying ‘boyfriend’. “—My Patrick,” he says, for lack of a better term. “And now you’re in my house, telling me not to be a dick.”

“Look, I’m just—okay, Joe, I’m telling you, I really like Patrick. And you like Patrick, and Patrick likes you, and I’m guessing or hoping or whatever that Patrick likes me, but this isn’t really working, is it? I mean, things are pretty fucking shitty right now, right?”

“Uh-huh, yeah.”

“Well, I was thinking. I mean, we both want to be with Patrick or whatever, and that’s obviously not really gonna happen, but I think there’s a way where we can all be happy. If we, like, split him.”

Joe gives him a long look and eventually says, “Sounds painful.”

Pete snorts and punches him on the arm. “Don’t be so literal, you fucking stoner. I just mean, if it was, like, the three of us.”

“Oh.”

“So what do you think?”

“Mm, probably the worst idea you’ve ever had, really.”

“Nah, I’ve had way worse ideas than this.”

“Not really the convincing thing to say, Wentz.”

“No, come on. It’s a great idea. One of my best.”

“That’s really not saying much, Pete. You drink your own piss.”

“That was one time!”

“One time on camera, anyway.”

“Okay, Joe,” Pete says, sitting back and then sitting up a moment later, shifting restlessly. “If I
had known about you and Patrick, I never would have—“

“Yeah, you would have,” Joe interrupts, not meanly, but because he knows Pete and he knows how Pete gets when he decides he’s in love.

Pete hesitates for a moment, then says, “Okay, I probably would have, but Joe. I’m telling you that I really like Patrick. And I’m telling you I really think this could work. What do I have to do to convince you?”

Joe considers for a moment and then leans back on the couch, slouching down and spreading his legs a little. “I think you should blow me.” Joe expects Pete to call him on his bluff or bullshit or whatever it is, but Pete just chews his lip and gives him a slightly skeptical look. “I mean, you know, because it’ll be you and me at some point and…I don’t know if you’re any good.”

Pete gives him a look. “I haven’t gotten any complaints.”

Joe shrugs. “You asked me how you could convince me.” He waves a hand imperiously. “Convince me.”

Pete bites his lip again and nods slowly, giving him a look that has Joe fighting a blush. “Fair enough,” he says, getting to his knees between Joe’s legs.

It might be kind of stupid, but Joe thinks it’s pretty awesome that he has Pete—Pete from Racetraitor, and even though they’ve been friends for a while (not to mention that Pete is fucking his whatever-Patrick-is), Joe still thinks of him that way sometimes—on his knees in front of him mostly just because Joe says so. He crosses his arms behind his head, the picture of nonchalance, while Pete pulls his jeans down over his hips. Nonchalance doesn’t last long though, doesn’t stand a chance in the face of Pete licking his lips and leaning over Joe’s lap to suck him in.

Joe rolls his hips as soon as Pete gets all the way down, testing how much he can take. Pete gags, but Joe has to hand it to him, he doesn’t back off, even before Joe puts a hand in his hair.

[DBL PEN AND HAPPY ENDING SCENE-UNFINISHED]

"I have an idea," Joe says. He leans in, his fingers skipping over the ridge of Pete's hip while he whispers in his ear, glancing at Patrick.

Pete gives him a wide-eyed look. "Can you even DO that in real life?"

Joe shrugs, glances at Patrick spread out on the bed. "Guess we'll find out."

Ten minutes later, while Joe is working three fingers into Patrick alongside Pete's cock, Pete shakes his head, panting. "I don't think this is gonna work."

Joe just twists in a fourth finger. Patrick jerks and whimpers and Joe says, "I don't know, do you think you can take it, Patrick?" He moves them a little, as much as he can with Patrick so tight around them.

Patrick shivers, nods hard. "Yes, just hurry the fuck UP already."

Joe pushes in, slipping all over the place before he finds the right angle and just shoves past the resistance. It's way too close for comfort, too intense to really feel good, just feels raw and burning down to his bones. Three pairs of hips bumping and trying to be still and Patrick's shaking between them now, breathing so hard that no sounds even make it out of his mouth.

Joe has to rock his hips, and they all make a noise when he does. Pete swears and thrusts up and Patrick lets out a harsh cry, pushing back against both of them.

[PATRICK IS NICE TO HIS THERAPIST SCENE]

That's all over now

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:26:04 GMT

I've noticed that most of the people I used to talk to and be friends with here or from here don't seem that interested in talking to me anymore since I'm not involved in bandom anymore. That makes me sad, but whatever. I've made a new journal under highaskites. (It's a quote from a Cure song, not an indication that the whole journal is about smoking pot.) It's mostly going to be about movies, music, literature, pop culture, sociology, and my adventures and encounters with them. That will probably include some bandom discussions, but that's not the scene I'm exploring right now. Minimal emoness, maximum intellect, median level of neon. Reviews and uploads....you know, you know.

If you don't friend that journal, I'll just assume our time together is over. No big deal. Only friend if you really wanna stay in touch.

I'm not gonna delete this journal because of nostalgia and posting access reasons, but I probably won't be updating it anymore.

However, I do wanna post the last thing I wrote in bandom in terms of fanfic.

This is the unfinished, annotated version of Everyone Deserves the Flames, a Pete/Patrick/Joe college AU I started a long time ago in which Patrick bones everybody, Mikey Way is disapproving, and Bob is Patrick's psychiatrist. It ends with double penetration. Might be a good read if you're bored.

Here it is!

Au revoir!

It's been real.

Try as I might, I can't get that high

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:35:39 GMT

Summary of my activities (c&p'd from Fbook, sorry, LJ):

Did anyone do anything cool or artistic this summer? If you went on a fabulous vacation, don't tell me, lol.

I wrote a bunch of songs,

worked on my robot screen play with my boyfriend,

visited Chicago a few times,

danced in a cage in Las Vegas,

got a tan at a topless pool in Vegas (baby!),

finished my 'Happy Marine Life' painting series,

and started a new series that I like to call 'Animals & Rainbows',

started a new children's fantasy novel,

and started a new novel about the joy of discovering love in unexpected places, and being addicted to drugs (PLEASE don't ask why I always want to write about cokeheads, I don't even know any),

I also bought more leopard print clothes (and zebra print, and cheetah print), and am planning on bringing back the words 'rad', 'bitchin', and 'trippin' next year. Dream big!!!!!!!!!!!

:D Et tu?

Been listening almost exclusively to the Cure, with occasional lapses into the Pixies and the Smiths. I think I 'get' Morrisey now.

Going back to school this Friday to spend a little over two weeks at Dave's new house in Rock Island. Gonna see these kids:

these kids:

and most importantly, this kid:

Uhh, sorry, for the overlap, I don't have THAT many friends, guys, okay.

Seriously, tell me what you've been up to. I feel like I'm blogging into a void sometimes.

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:28:39 GMT

"But eventually, at some somber and sobering calendar date, most of us lose our looks and likewise one of our charms—and I will lose mine. At which time, for me at least, there won’t be much point to life anymore at all."

"Sex and sexuality, at least for me, are not some segment of life; they are the force majeure, the flood and storm and act of God that overtakes the rest. Without that part of me, I’d rather be dead."

"Now that I’m in my forties, people say, I think kindly, She still looks good. This is to be followed by a phase of …for her age, which is hot on the trail of handsome, and then—then who knows? I think it deteriorates from there, enough so that the vain among us start to look forward to death, or at least stop resisting its horrific pull."

Jesus fucking Christ, Elizabeth Wurtzel. Check out how bitchin' this tool's life is:

"And I can get what I want in so much of life. I can sell sand to the Saudis, tea to the Bengalis. I get fired from one great job and then hired by a better organization. I decide in my thirties to go to law school and get into the very best one despite some questionable credentials. It’s what you would call not a bad life, even a good one."

And she wants to DIE because she's gonna get old and not be hot and not be able to fuck whoever she wants. She got the most prestigious education you can get in America basically (Harvard, then Yale), she failed the Bar exam TWICE and STILL got a job as an attorney, she had a great boyfriend who loved her and she got bored and cheated on him with every guy she met, but she writes bullshit essays whining about how sad she is that she's gonna get old and die alone because she fucked up every good thing in her life.

What a TOOL.

PS) And she said this about 9/11:

"I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought: 'This is a really strange art project.'...I just felt, like, everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me."

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Even if you feel that way (and if I'm ever an adult and can produce no more human emotion than ANNOYANCE when 3000 people die, I'll be really disappointed in myself), you don't SAY IT OUT LOUD.

I've composed you a song...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:15:30 GMT

http://drop.io/fnksvwq

Weird techno.

Chrome Box Alpha lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whooooooa, nelly

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:17:40 GMT

http://community.livejournal.com/fbr_trash/2591374.html

Whoooaaaa, Panic At My Disco is breaking up!

Grief counselors will be availiable during this difficult time...

Strange as angels

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:56:52 GMT

Have been:

1) Recovering from Vegas (small sample of things we did: danced in cages, got bitten by a stripper, went topless in a public place, got drunk and ate chicken strips, got hit on A LOT)

2) Getting ready for Chicago (Wednesday to Monday, call me at 309-370-3913 if you wanna hang out)

3) Getting a new phone (nothing fancy, but pretty sexy)

4) Working on a new book (young adult fantasy)

5) doing more art

6) soldifying my opinion that the Cure is the best band of the 80s (sorry, Pixies, go back and write 'Just Like Heaven')

7) still not finding a job

8) No 8, just hate uneven numbers.

Update

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:58:58 GMT

My life sucks completely and I feel like everyone is working against me. I'm alone almost all the time, never have anything to do, can't find a job, and am taking five sleeping pills a night so I can sleep as much as possible. Every good thing about my life is absent right now. There is nothing positive happening in my life AT ALL right now and it's gonna continue for months.

Annnnnd I don't get any responses to this post because I still don't have any internet, so I can't apply for any jobs, although applying for jobs is clearly a WASTE OF TIME anyway.

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:55:24 GMT

1) Why does Adam Lambert look so weird, though?

2) No one hung out with me in Chicago. I think bandom and I broke up when I wasn't paying attention. LJ will be the next thing to go...

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:40:41 GMT

I didn't even know Gerard and Lyn-Z had their baby >:( I don't have internet guys, I NEED INFORMATION LIKE THIS ON MY PHONE OK

Update

Sat, 30 May 2009 19:02:00 GMT

Finished junior year of college and first year away from home with a lot of new friends and a 3.7 GPA.

Do i really have to graduate, or can I just stay here for the rest of my life?

Sun, 17 May 2009 02:40:00 GMT

Quick post before I go out...

Just wanna say that time's not wasted when you're getting wasted

and that

I love college

I wish I could stay in college for a few more years...

But I think Asher Roth is kind of a douche.

Bye y'all.

What I've been reading lately...

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:03:43 GMT

Honestly, it's just about the most offensive thing I've ever read. It's like every squirmy, nauseous, dreadful feeling you can think of distilled into a novel that lures you into a false sense of security by being boring and pointless and excessively detailing people's stupid fucking 1990's yuppies clothes and the differences between kinds of mineral water and then unexpectedly ambushes you with lurid bordering on pornographic descriptions of things including but not limited to:

killing a bum
killing a small child at the zoo
torturing to death several prostitutes (in ways ranging from electrocution via a car battery (with electrodes attached to the nipples, NATURALLY) to a nail gun to a throat slashing, which is what passes as a humane death in this thing)
torturing to death several small animals
cannibalism
necrophilia
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh more torture

Watch the movie and frankly avoid this book.

PS) I suppose I should mention that at the end of the book, the main character becomes more and more insane and it turns out that he may have imagined everything that happened and not done any of it in "reality" IF that is a consolation.

A Cause Des Garcon

Mon, 11 May 2009 23:25:49 GMT

Yelle-Pop-Up

Beautiful beauiful French goddess.

Look @ her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

French techno-style club pop...imagine Gwen Stefani, but French.

Fri, 01 May 2009 03:30:50 GMT

Friends ~~cut~~

Yes, NO

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:54:01 GMT

The makings of a great weekend.

Also great? I GOT INTO THE ROME 2010 PROGRAM SO I GET TO GO TO ROME NEXT SUMMER.

FUCK YEAH.

Don't you want me?

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:10:44 GMT

Uggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

If I may give some advice to those on my flist who are younger than my 21 years: you know how in school, they always tell you to be involved and do a lot of stuff on campus? Well, that is a lie, you should get less involved. I started ~getting involved~ this year and while it's nice to meet people, a lot of people, in my experience, you don't really get to know that well. I've gotten to know maybe three people in each organization I'm in, but only well enough to say hey and chat between classes, no BFFs or anything.

In comparison, the amount of stress and annoyance has been absolutely amazing. I'm the director of PR for PRISM (Gay/Straight/Etc. Alliance) and the president is power-hungry and unhelpful and treats me like I'm five. It's infuriating. They don't understand how to schedule things either, so I had to ride my bike all the way across campus to audition bands for Day of Silence/Night of Noise.

This was at 4:30. The first band was scheduled to be auditioned at 4:30, then another at 4:45. The first band never showed up because they broke up yesterday. (Really.) Then the singer from the second band showed up and told us that since no one had made arrangements to bring their equipment there, we would have to walk through the pouring rain to his house. Awesome.

The band was TABS. I had seen them before at that elitist hippie party I went to and they were really great. TABS is a very popular band on campus. If we got TABS, people would actually come and then we could trick them into caring about gay issues while they were dancing to awesome swamp rock.

Instead, they wanna split the money and stage time we have between TABS and some fucking bullshit acoustic band called SEXY POMEGRANATE. Why the fuck would people wanna listen to an acoustic band after Day of Silence? Wtaf, just hire TABS because that makes SENSE.

I didn't even get to hear Sexy Pomegranate because the tool in charge of the auditions scehduled TABS at 4:45 and the other band--the only other band-- at SIX THIRTY AND THEN WANTED ME TO WALK THROUGH THE POURING RAIN ACROSS CAMPUS AGAIN TO AUDITION THEM. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, NO.

So I made up some bullshit story about having a study group and ran away. It was still raining. 'Fuck my life,' I thought to myself as I walked uphill in the rain with the bike and no umbrella. 'Fuck my life.'

And we will probably have to cancel Exclamation Party on account of how only three people listen to it and we can't figure out a convenient time. That's super annoying, but like I said, no one even listens to it half the time.

So, yeah, ugh.

The Sun Also Sets...

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:03:35 GMT

Original Fiction!!!

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:05:53 GMT

A little noir piece I like to call Salvation and Other Myths. My teacher said it felt like being in the hands od an experienced writer and everyone said it had a great voice. :D

He was a strange character, Johnny. He spoke in rhyming couplets sometimes, like an old-time bard. Someone told Christian once—someone high, to be fair—that Johnny had traveled through time to sell drugs, and that he was actually from Ireland, sometime right before the potato famine. She had sounded pretty knowledgeable about the topic. Probably a college student who was snorting away the ‘best four years of her life’.

Anyway, Johnny didn’t do it all the time. Just enough to always make you pause. Christian always stopped and looked at Johnny to see if he had been joking, but he never gave any indication that he realized he was doing it. It wasn’t worth mentioning; Johnny was the type of guy who’d get mad if you mentioned it, and making Johnny mad was never worth it.

Johnny was mad now, though. Christian had a lot of explaining to do, but he couldn’t explain, and Johnny didn’t want to hear it anyway. When someone made off with Johnny’s money or Johnny’s product, all Johnny wanted to hear was the crunch of broken fingers.

“I don’t find it funny right now,” Johnny said, frowning seriously and shaking his head. “I want my goddamn money right now.” He uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his narrow hips, which was Johnny’s ungraceful way of reaching for his pocket knife. You’d think he’d have found a cooler way to do it after all this time. People expected a certain level of unattainable, effortless cool from a crook of Johnny’s caliber. People hated being disappointed.

Not that Johnny would be going down in history as a notorious criminal or anything, no matter how many times he watched The Godfather. He was too quick to cut, never wanted to negotiate. He left a lot of messes behind him. He didn’t look too intimidating either, tall and scrawny with hair that didn’t get washed, teeth that didn’t always get brushed, and a smile that would most accurately be called ‘sociopathic’. Most people probably wouldn’t fuck with him anyway, if they could help it. The drugs just helped out the image. “Really, Chris, you seen this happen enough times to better men, you’re really gonna try to fuck me over now? After all we’ve been through?”

Christian wasn’t sure what that meant, but he shook his head, leaning back against Johnny’s kitchen table, getting a few possibly vital inches closer to the door. Christian didn’t think too hard about what would happen if Johnny took a dive at him and he ran. He’d be a wanted man in a city that could never be big enough to get lost in. Not from Johnny, anyway.

They hadn’t been through a lot together, though. Christian had only started selling for Johnny a few months before. It had only been to get book money and cover his lab fees, but dealing led him to Rochelle, and Rochelle led to big bills. He had to keep her rolling in style or he’d lose her. Of course, he had lost her anyway, but it wasn’t the time to think about Rochelle. Thinking about Rochelle was what had landed him here in the first place.

“I’d never do that, Johnny. You know I’m an honest man.”

Johnny scoffed at that. “Yeah, whatever. You’re just lucky you have a good track record, and that I’m so forgiving.” It was only through months of practice that Christian kept from making a face at that. “Or else you’d be on the floor right now. And it’s…not a lot of money. I mean, what’s a couple hundred between friends, man?” Christian held his breath for the catch. “So, say you run some errands for me. Got a lot of money floating around out there, debts not making their way back to me, you know? Why don’t you go find out what that’s about?” Johnny asked, smiling his stupid, manic grin.

There goes Friday night, Christian thought. “Yeah, man, whatever you want.”

*

Johnny gave him a list of names, the key to his car (the crappy one, not the new one), and told him to be back sometime before sunrise. Johnny would be awake. Christian had never seen Johnny sleep. He went outside and stood in Johnny’s shitty little front yard, not much more than a few patches of grass that refused to die and an abandoned attempt at a flower bed. He was just a few blocks from the house he grew up in, but he knew he wouldn’t go to visit before he started on the list. He had gone to college so he would never have to visit this neighborhood again. At least Johnny’s house was a crucial few miles closer to the nice parts of town.

Christian lit a cigarette and leaned against the side of the house. He hadn’t had big plans for the night, just a vague idea that he might see Rebecca, trot around at her side all night like her puppy. Funny, he kept upgrading women, each girl richer and haughtier than the one before her, and downgrading everything else. It was going to be a lonely night now. Of course, he could call Rebecca up and take her with him. Rochelle had come on these little trips with him before, but Rochelle and Rebecca were cut from different cloth. Rebecca was sheltered, babied. Rebecca was horrified by things like registered Republicans. She’d be more trouble than she was worth. Still, one of the names was bound to be on the college campus. Maybe he’d stop by and see her.

He tossed the cigarette on the ground and took out the keys to the dirty little Celica parked in the driveway and breathed in as a warm breeze rustled the trees overhead. He hoped he wouldn’t have to hurt anyone tonight, but it was a nice enough night for it, if there was such a thing.

*

The first name on the list took him deeper into the bad parts of town. This guy was a repeat offender, always late to pay but impatient to buy. Christian had never sold to him before, never came this far into the slums if he could avoid it, but he could tell by the untidy scrawl on the page that Johnny had been angry when he had written in, and he could tell by the guy’s face that he knew it. That went smoothly, though. The guy broke open an honest-to-god piggybank stuffed with fifties. Christian didn’t bother asking.

Name two was uptown, where all the young professionals crowded the streets in their best dark, glimmering clothes on their way to the overpriced clubs that were always being advertised on the radio with women moaning in the background. The guy’s building was nice, swanky, hard to get into if you didn’t have experience with getting into places you didn’t belong. The guard didn’t look too concerned when Christian strolled through the lobby and to the elevators. He didn’t look like he lived there, that was for sure, but an unearned sense of entitlement went a long way.

The guy, Roger Axley, lived on the fifth floor, close enough to the top that a fall from a window would probably kill you, or at least make it pretty hard to run. Roger Axley was probably a nice guy, though. High-powered, lots of stress, had to relieve it somehow. Forgot about his bill, was all. Christian knocked. The guy came to the door wearing a snarl that dropped off his face as soon as he saw Christian. Christian smiled, glancing briefly into the apartment behind him. Well-decorated, dimly lit. There was jazz playing softly in the background, not the normal stuff that made you sway, but the jarring stuff that never settled into a rhythm. Someone was sitting on the couch. This was all he saw in the short hesitation before the guy said, “Can I help you with something?” Playing dumb, then.

“Seven thousand,” Christian said shortly. “Have it?”

“Oh, I—“ The man leaned in, glancing around the hallway nervously. “I have part, man, is that okay? Give me a break here.”

“You’re overdue.”

“I have company.”

“You owe Johnny seven thousand dollars and you’re worried about getting laid?”

The guy shrugged again and said helplessly, “I have company. Come in and we’ll figure something out real quick, yeah?”

Christian rolled his eyes. This guy was dodging and he didn’t have time for this, but the apartment would be better than the hallway if he had to do anything that he didn’t want seen. He waved a hand at the guy and stepped into the apartment, swinging the door shut behind him. The guy was off and rambling, disappearing into the bedroom while saying something about the stock market. Christian tuned him out and focused on the guy’s guest, who was focusing back. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen, but his eyes were shrewd. He understood the situation. Either a pro or just a kid who was growing up too fast. The glass table looked cloudy. There was a bottle of expensive wine on it. This kid wasn’t gonna tell anybody about anything that happened tonight in this apartment.

Christian followed the guy, this Roger Axley, into the bedroom. True to his word, he had the money. He was taking hundred dollar bills out of a little metal box. He had a gun, but Christian could tell he wouldn’t know how to use it even if he had the balls to pull it on him. Christian had a gun, Johnny’s gun, but it was in the glove compartment of the car. He knew how to use it, but he wouldn’t need it. One good swing and a few rough words were enough to light a fire under most people, people a lot tougher than this guy.

Roger Axley handed him a stack of bills. Christian counted them and said, “This isn’t half.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s all I have right now, man. You know how it is. I’ll have it next week, I swear.” He sat down on the edge of bed and leaned over to the bedside table. He pulled out a little plastic bag full of fine, white powder and asked, “You wanna do a line? You look tense, man.”

An audible crack came from Roger Axley’s jaw when Christian hit him. He was still on the floor, holding his face, when Christian took out his switch blade. He must have still been in shock because all he said was, “What the fuck, man?” Christian hit him again and held up the knife, though it was hardly necessary since Roger was huddling himself into the corner made by the night stand and the bed, swearing he would repay the money.

“Forty-eight hours. That’s what you get. Man.” Christian said. He knocked a few things off the dresser on his way out, just for good measure. The chime of broken glass echoed in the quiet apartment. The jazz was finished. The kid was still sitting on the couch. He looked a little paler now, a little more troubled, but he didn’t say anything, he just gave Christian a look that was pleading, cautious, curious, and frightened all at once. ‘Is it bloody?’ Christian shrugged. ‘You know how it is’. The kid made a face and shrugged as well. ‘I’ll deal with it.’ He raised his glass to Christian. A conversation in gestures that couldn’t have been understood by anyone else, only by people who were used to dealing with unpleasant situations.

Johnny called while he was on his way to the next name. It was Jesse Porter. Jesse was nothing more than a familiar face on campus, but Christian hated working where he lived when it came to the nastier side of the business. People tended to hold broken legs against you.

“Hey, Chris,” Johnny said when he answered the phone. “How’s the list going? Hit the campus yet?”

“No. Just got done with Roger Axley. I’m driving to the campus now.”

“Axley? Did that prick have my money?”

“Half.”

“Half? What did you do?”

“Not much. Hit him a few times.”

The noise Johnny made at that was pure disgust. “That’s it?”

“It’s hard to hit the bank with two broken legs,” Christian said mildly.

“Didn’t you find the gun in the glove compartment?”

“I’m not gonna shoot some/one over seven k!”

“You know, you’re lucky you only work the campus. You’re not cut out for this shit.” When Christian didn’t reply, Johnny sighed, a whistling rush of static over the line. “Okay, hit the campus, shake some people down. You’re making me look like a clown. Do the job right, Christian. You owe me, and don’t think I wouldn’t send someone after you. You lost my money and my product, and over what? A girl? A rich girl who wouldn’t give you the time of day if you weren’t dealing for me?”

“Rochelle,” Christian mumbled into the phone.

“A rich girl who wouldn’t you the time of day named Rochelle, whatever. Just get my car and my money back to me before morning. I won’t bother threatening you,” Johnny said, and hung up.

Thinking about Rochelle would be a waste of time, Christian thought, and thought of her anyway. Maybe he would see her when he got to campus. He hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, didn’t know if she was doing okay, if she was still doing coke, if she missed him. She was practically a stranger, then and now. He probably wouldn’t see her anyway.

*

Christian drove to the college campus and parked by his dorm even though Jesse Porter’s frat house is on the other side of campus. He didn’t bother stopping by his room. Nothing there to look at but bills. Rebecca didn’t answer when he called. No mixing business with pleasure tonight.

The frat was having a party. It was crowded and claustrophobic, packed like hospital waiting rooms are sometimes packed, with a level of desperation only slightly lower. He knew everyone, got high-fives and hellos and invitations, but he stopped to talk to no one, just tucked the feeling of being popular away for a later time. He cut through the crowd and up the stairs. He knew enough about Jesse Porter to know he’d be upstairs, coercing some drunk freshman into his room if he could. He found the right door and pounded over the ‘occupado, bro’ and the ‘go the fuck away’ and the ‘fuck off’ and the door was still closed and locked. Annoying. It was a cheap house. The door was flimsy. He’d never had to bust down a door before, but this seemed like a good enough night to try. He stepped back and kicked. The door splintered apart at the knob and swung in, sprinkling pieces of itself on the floor. Christian stepped in and flipped the lights on.

The girl was on the bed with her dress, a pretty scrap of bright blue fabric, hiked up around her waist. She was crying. Jesse was on the floor with his pants unzipped, frantically trying to pull them up while also listing the myriad ways he was going to kill Christian. The girl was still crying, sitting up and looking woozy, dazed, glassy-eyed. Drugged. Christian was on top of Jesse before he even thought about it, swing after swing landing, sending little tremors of impact up his arms. The girl was screaming now. When he got up, Jesse’s blood was streaked across the dirty carpet, but it wasn’t anything he wouldn’t recover from, given a few weeks. Might need a hospital. None of his concern.

Christian got up from the floor, cradling his bloody knuckles. The girl was quiet now, looking almost catatonic as she stared past him at the wall, still with tears streaking down her face. It was a sorry sight. The whole room was a sorry sight. “You have forty-eight hours to get Johnny’s money, you piece of shit,” he said to Jesse. Jesse groaned. He tossed his head and his face left an impressionistic blot on the floor. Christian left the bedroom door open when he went out. Someone would find them soon.

He left the frat house shaking with adrenaline. He hadn’t gotten the money, but his bloody knuckles would be enough to appease Johnny. Only one name left on the list now. Josh Evans. Josh was a friend, so this could be awkward, but Josh also had friends with broken bones because they hadn’t paid Johnny. Josh would understand the gravity of the situation and go to get the money as soon as Christian said the name.

Josh’s house was on the edge of town, and he was having a party. Maybe he would see Rochelle tonight after all.

Christian gave him a manly hug when he found him in the crush of the living room and said, “Hey, man, Johnny wanted me to see about that money you owe him.”

Josh’s eyes went round and he said, “Oh, shit, man, I totally forgot about that. Okay, six hundred, right? No big deal, no big deal, I’ll go to the ATM right now. Hang out and have a beer or something, I’ll be back before you know it.”

He had a beer. He wondered where Rebecca was, then he wondered where Rochelle was, then he had another drink. He didn’t want to think about Rochelle, but he was, so when he saw her, he thought he might be imagining things, going crazy, too tired to focus and letting his mind blur things. But there she was, dancing in the corner with her eyes closed while everyone around her kept talking. There she was. Her little pixie face with her big wet eyes set over her snubby, pointy little nose and her pink, bitten mouth. Her hair, cut short and dyed a violent shade of red that gleamed dully under the dining room lights. Her little wisp of a body, as delicate and insignificant as a strip of silk, barely covered in the thing she was calling a dress. And she had seen him. She was beckoning him over. Josh wasn’t back. He wasn’t talking to anyone else. He had no excuse, in her eyes. There was no excuse, in her eyes.

“Christian!” she exclaimed when he drew close. “I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said, talking as if they were mere acquaintances who had once lived in the same building. She gave him an appraising, hungry look. Dangerous. “Let’s catch up. We can go upstairs.” She held out a hand. It was trembling. Still a cokehead, then. “Come on.”

He looked at her, this rich girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day if he wasn’t a dealer, this rich girl who had disappeared when he ran out of money and drugs, this rich girl who had spent all his money and stolen all of Johnny’s coke and made him so happy for a brief time. She would devour him, destroy him, and not think twice of it. Her love was fake, and he knew now that it couldn’t save him. Nothing could save him. The love of a good woman and the love of a bad woman were equally useless in the face of real life. The only thing that could save you was knowing how to play the game.

Rochelle’s hand was shaking in front of him. Her face was impatient and cruel and she was so beautiful and so expensive. She was one of the finer things he had wanted when he had moved out of the slums and into the dorms and onto a life with some promise. She could be obtained, he knew. People could be obtained like pets, like drugs, like cars if you knew how to do it and had the money to keep them smiling and stupid and satisfied.

He took her hand, and no one was saved.

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:23:44 GMT

I'm still alive!!!

I haven't had internet at home, so I've had to go to the cafe, which neccessitates me borrowing my mom's car because mine is no longer in working order and never will be again. Spring break has been pretty terrible and we all can't wait to go back to school. Disgusting, right?

Anyway, I've been trying to take care of business and do some painting and writing and so on. I'll try to update more often next term. Be back on campus with wifi on Sunday.

Most disturbing development in my life: I now find Mikey Way sexually attractive.

God help me.

PS) I may get to see Watchmen early since my best friend queenc0bra works at a movie theater and they have to preview it before it starts playing on Friday. BE JEALOUS.

WHAT DON'T YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:24:26 GMT

Download the last episode of Exclamation Party here.

It's split into 2 parts. The first five or so minutes is audio from 'Oz', so don't be alarmed by that.

Me and Anna look up hot dates on a dating website and I accidentally find an old family friend, we dicuss the myriad reasons we hate Augie, get spyed on, have a guest caller, and discuss reasons why 'Rod' is a weird name.

Tune in tomorrow at 6 right here.

PS) Do you want me to trash your fucking lights? Then listen.

Mix Tape

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:11:14 GMT

Two bands that kick ass largely because of their hot and brilliant front women...

Jack Off Jill with Jessicka Fedora:

And the Distillers with Brody Armstrong/Dalle/Homme:

Sadly, both bands are broken up now. :( Jack Off Jill is some sort of weird goth metal riot girl, deal, hard to explain and a little off-putting at first. They're sort of like your Marilyn Manson* or your Mindless Self-Indulgence in that they try pretty hard to be offensive and inaccessible.

The Distillers is a lot more straight-foward. It's pretty much straight punk, especially their earlier stuff. They're pissed about poverty, people, and politics! Amazing stuff, can't lie.

RiotGrrl: Jack Off Jill & The Distillers.

First half is Jack Off Jill, second half is The Distillers.

Jack Off Jill
1. Fear Of Dying
2. Cumdumpster
3. Angels Fuck, Devil's Kiss
4. Supersadist
5. French Kiss the Elderly
6. Nazi Halo
7. Girlscout
8. Poor Impulse Control
9. Strawberry Gashes
10. Nutopia

The Distillers
11. Desperate
12. The Young Crazed Peeling
13. LA Girl
14. Sick Of It All
15. Idoless
16. Seneca Falls
17. Old Scratch
18. Young Girl
19. Sing Sing Death House
20. I Understand

I intentionally chose Distillers songs that were pre-Coral Fang because that album is too good to pick and choose from.

Enjoy!

PS) And of course, a few pics of Brody, because she is fine as hell in a scary way.

*Marily Manson and Jessicka Fedora are both from Florida and used to be friends. They made a deal once to see who could stay up the longest and the winner got to be the rock star; Marilyn Manson won by 45 minutes. It was also his idea to call them Jack Off Jill rather than Jack In Jill, which was Jessicka's idea.

ETA: What the hell, here's more Distillers.

Coral Fang as well as some other songs from earlier albums.

It's time to let go, time to let it go

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:29:47 GMT

Okay, guys, METRO STATION IS NOT THAT BAD. I would much rather see Metro again than fucking Hey Monday. DNW Cassadeeee and her two-tone hair and her mediocre talent. Also could care less about All Time Low, but w/e, w/e, HEY MONDAY >:( I am going to DL their album so I can say with total confidence that they are terrible, except people will still insist that they're not because they did when I didn't like Paramore (I continue to not care for Paramore though). Cassadeeee, like Fayley Williams, just annoys me and a visceral and possibly irrational way with her cutesy blandness and her mediocre music. But Hayley is a better singer than Cassadeeeee.

Holy shit, I should play Parabore and Fuck Monday back to back on the show tomorrow!!!

Speaking of, Exclamation Party is coming back tomorrow! Listen here!!!!!!!

In reference to the FOB tour, people who should attend the Allstate Arena show in Chicago include, but are not limited to: Lola, Steph, Other Steph, Allison, Gina, Rosie, Catie Kay, Lizzie, Nistasha, Anthy, and Brendie. I am already absurdly excited for this tour!!! Cobra and FOB together again eclipses all other issues.

As far as this thing goes, both icedmaple and Pete need to sit the fuck down. However, I am very upset that Pete referred to the Hush Sound in the past tense. D: I love you, Hushies, don't quit pleeeeease.

Today was sort of lame. Last night, Anna and I had people over and were social, and we had a bit to drink and went to bed pretty late. There was a lot of drunken swaying and singing along to MGMT. So I woke up this morning and did not want to go outside in the 16- weather. I kept hoping my Psych Dept. meeting would get cancelled, but it didn't, so I just didn't go. Then I got back up at 1:45, checked my email in the hopes that my class would be cancelled (it wasn't), and took a shower while Anna made me oatmeal. I dashed to class, was bored, gave my stupid presentation, then almost froze to death walking back. Also, the Anna and Andrew Drama Hour continues and Anna is now probbaly going to the police station tomorrow to request a restraining order and Andrew is alternating between yelling at me through Twitter and telling me not to get involved.

But when I got back, Anna bought me dinner and had cleaned the dorm. Now I have a pretty big deal assignment due next Wednesday (thesis and bib for my art history paper) that I'm gonna maybe think about pretending to start tonight. But mostly I'm going to write Kayne/Pete fic and re-watch Merlin episodes.

How have you guys been?

ETA: Here is a link to DL Fuck Monday's album.

Fic: Everyone Deserves the Flames

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:56:34 GMT

I just realized I never posted my ridiculous 'Pete goes to boot camp and sets shit on fire' fic. This is a travesty.

Gabe is in this as well as Pete's cokehead roommate from Florida.

His knuckles are already bruised from the day before but they split the skin over Pete’s lip again today and then grind over the hard curves of his ribs when he’s doubled over. Pete spits out a mouthful of blood and licks his lips, not wincing at the sting. His lip has been bloody for the past week, and the strip in the middle where the skin gives out over and over is not even red anymore, but a muted purple. The guy leaves and takes his entourage with him and Pete is left in the bathroom with his whole body aching as he hits the floor on his knees.

Pete gets up off the floor and thinks he can hear his bones creak, but that might be melodramatic. Pete go to the sink and gives himself a grim once-over in the unforgiving light of the bathroom. Whatever. No one here cares what Pete looks like except that his teeth are too straight and too white and a few of them need to come out. He’s not so pretty since he got here, though, eyes bruised from what feels like a thousand sleepless nights and skin that’s fading like an old photo.

Pete touches a finger to his lip and now he winces against the sting and leaves the bathroom. Pete keeps his eyes on the floor as he walks back to his room because he knows the guards are eying him closely, like they always are. This place is for dangerous kids who set things on fire and crash cars and throw chairs at their teachers. Pete feels like there must be another level before you get to the kind of boot camp where they actually have barbed wire on the fences, but Pete went straight from detention to this place.

Skipping class, smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and passing out in his mom’s car on the outskirts of town where the sky seems bright even at three AM. Staying out all night. On the phone at four AM when he couldn’t get through the night. His first tattoo carved into his wrist with India Ink and a sewing needle in detention. Two-tone hair. The bottles in the liquor cabinet going down in tiny increments every weekend and then every day. Less pills rattling around the prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet every time they’re checked.

Pete thought he was being a rebel in comparison to his friends, his little homogenized group of cheerleaders and varsity soccer players. They drank and they popped mommy and daddy’s Vicodin, but they didn’t do it because they needed to, they did it for fun, and at the end of the night, when everyone else was making out in the nearest dark corner, talking about the future, grinding to whatever shitty rap song was the biggest hit that month, Pete was in the corner. Sometimes on the phone, sometimes trying to keep dinner down, sometimes just staring at the carpet.

In retrospect, this might have been a melodramatic period in his life.

A 2.0, fourteen unexcused absences. Boot camp.

His roommate Gabe was tucked into the tiny strip of space between their beds, crouched over the cheap old tape deck that he’d smuggled in, listening to The Smiths over the weird, ever-present static that always seems to come with cassettes. He doesn’t even know where Gabe had gotten an actual cassette, but there are a lot of things about Gabe that are a mystery.

What he knows is that Gabe is a Jew from Florida with a coke problem and Gabe probably actually needs to be in rehab, but he has been through what he estimates to be seventy percent of the rehab programs in Florida and none of them took, so Gabe has the either very Zen or very stupid outlook that he was destined to do twelve lines of blow a day. (’Spread out over the day, dude, not in one sitting. Come on, I’m not crazy,’ Gabe had laughed at his horrified look.) He’s been here for almost a month and a half, and by appearances, he should be getting the shit kicked out of him at least as much as Pete, but everyone likes Gabe. Everyone likes Gabe, including the guards, and that is why Gabe has managed to smuggle all manner of things into their room, from a seemingly endless supply of coke to razors to cut it with to his random collection of cassette tapes.

Pete squeezes into the spot next to him and shifts in place, his stomach rolling over uneasily. He can already tell it’s going to be a sleepless night, but he’s hoping Gabe will stay up with him, maybe play something soft on the tape deck that will give him weird dreams, if he can dream.

“Your mouth looks weird. Did you get punched again?” Gabe asks. Pete doesn’t respond, just kicks the side of the bed idly and lays his head on his knees. Gabe hits his arm and grins. When he doesn’t get a smile in response, he reaches out and rubs his thumb over the raw seam of Pete’s lip.

“You look like shit, Pete. You need to get some sleep,” he says. His tone is as serious as Pete’s ever heard.

“I’d get some sleep if I could,” Pete groans, shaking his head. “It’s never going to happen tonight.”

“Maybe you need to call Mommy and Daddy,” Gabe replies with a smirk. Gabe hasn’t seen his parents in almost a year and doesn’t seem too bothered about it, so he thinks it’s pretty funny that Pete calls his parents every night and begs them to let him come home.

“Your nose is bleeding,” Pete says blandly. Gabe reaches up and wipes a hand across his face, smearing vivid crimson across his face and grinning in surprise. He ducks his head and comes up looking like a madman with blood streaked up to his hairline like war paint. “You’re so fucking weird,” Pete mutters, tossing the book of matches that have made their way into their room since that afternoon.

Gabe just punches his arm and turns the volume on the tape deck up until the static is almost drowning out Morrisey.

***

At six past nine, he picks up the phone and dials home four times until his mother picks up. As he waits, he imagines his parents and his brother and his sister having desert and watching TV together with the kind of clarity that only comes with incredible masochism. Never mind the fact that they haven’t all sat down and done anything together since he was thirteen, aside from the family meeting they’d had to tell him he was leaving.

The line clicks and his mother is sighing before she even says ‘hello’.

“Hi, mom,” Pete starts, and he’s already fighting to keep his voice even. He hates her and he wants to come home and his hand is shaking as he grips the phone.

“Hi, baby. How are you?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what, honey?”

“Talk to me like everything’s fine,” he snaps. His voice comes out strained and hard on his next words. “When can I come home?”

There’s a long, loud pause. “Honey--”

“Mom! Do you have any idea what it’s like here?”

“Pete, baby, it’s can’t be that bad. Your father and I did a lot of research before we picked this place.”

“It’s boot camp.”

“It’s a juvenile delinquincy--”

“It’s fucking boot camp, Mom!” Pete screams into the phone and before he even has a chance to hear his mom screaming back, the guard has grabbed the phone and slammed it down on the receiver. He tells Pete to go back to his room with his fingers tight on the back of Pete’s neck and only an extreme and embarrassing amount of begging buys him five more minutes.

He takes a few deep breaths and dials when his hands are steady and he thinks he can sound like someone who just happens to be at boarding school.

The line clicks again and Patrick answers, sounding soft and mellow. He can imagine Patrick, too, laying in bed, probably messing with his guitar, a big honey-colored acoustic he’d gotten from his father before his parents divorced. The lights would be low and Patrick would have a hat pulled over his eyes, spacing out while staring at the ceiling and thinking deep thoughts about the history of hair metal.

"Patrick,” is all he can get out.

“Hey, Pete. How’s school?”

Pete takes a shaky breath and switches the phone to the other hand, leaning back against the wall. “Hey, Patrick. School is shitty, everyone here sucks,” he says, forcing a laugh.

“Yeah, it’s pretty boring here without you.”

“I wish I was there and not here.”

“Whatever,” Patrick replies. Pete imagines him rolling his eyes as he sets his guitar down on the floor and sits up, glancing at the framed picture of them on his dresser that his mom had gotten Patrick for his fourteenth birthday. At the time, it had been so embarrassing that he hadn’t spoken to his mother for two days, but now he feels grateful. Patrick will remember him every time he puts his pants on. “You’re probably getting into a ton of trouble. I know you, dude. You must be doing something since you’re not calling me at two in the morning anymore.”

“I’d be calling you at two in the morning every night if I could, dude.”

“Pete, are you okay? You sound really weird.”

“I gotta go, Patrick,” Pete says thickly. “Don’t forget about me, okay?” he says, and hangs up the phone.

***

Gabe gives him a knowing look when he comes in and turns out the light even though it’s barely nine PM and they have another hour before lights out. Gabe spends twenty minutes telling him a story about a time he overdosed in a club in Miami when he was thirteen, which Pete thinks he made up on the spot, but you can never tell with Gabe.

Eventually Gabe slips into the easy sleep of someone who’s snorted their cares away, his breathing deep and raspy and even in the dark stillness of the room. Pete lays in bed, seeming to thrum with an energy that lies under his skin, making him shift on the plasticky mattress while Gabe’s mellow mood seems to ooze across the bed like honey. Sometimes it makes him calm and he gets pulled into sleep before he can think about it, but not just yet.

He thinks about how soft and raw his mouth feels, and he thinks about his parents, and he thinks about Patrick with his guitar thinking Pete is at boarding school in Canada shot gunning beers with prep school kids. Patrick and his wheat-colored guitar and his wheat hair and his wheat eyes who has no idea where his best friend is.

***

He thinks of these things and then he sinks into the mattress and thinks of nothing at all.

When he wakes up, it’s near to one AM and Gabe is gone. The door is cracked, spilling out yellow light from the hall, which means Gabe must have snuck out to hang with the night security guards. Pete sits up in bed and puts a hand out towards the bedside table, jerking it back when he feels the fine, dry texture of cocaine on the table. It’s rubbed all over the wood grain surface, one bump lined up and waiting like Gabe forgot about it on his way out the door, or like he left it waiting for Pete as a present. There’s a cigarette resting on the table next to it, burning down and waiting to catch fire to something.

Pete rubs his eyes, which feel gummy and grainy, and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He looks at the table and the senseless mix of things spread across it. A stack of tapes, a bump of coke, a cigarette, a book of matches, and two photos of their former lives. Gabe is stretched out on a beach, golden brown under the Florida sun in neon-green swim trunks. Pete is standing on the lushest, greenest soccer field he can remember, soaked in sweat after winning a championship game. They’re both smiling like it’s the end of the world. They were both the kind of kids people would say had a ton of potential while they nodded seriously. Pete picks up the cigarette and grinds into his smiling, fourteen-year-old face.

He stands up and takes the book of matches in hand. He thinks about Gabe out in the hall, and he thinks about Patrick at home in bed, and he thinks about his house, and he thinks about the sound that a match makes when you strike it. The blinds don’t really catch fire so much as they melt, but the pieces fall on the bed and the sheets turn into wildfire before he can blink and before he can stop it.

He thinks about his mistakes, and he thinks about the heat of the fire against his skin, and then he backs into the corner and, as the fire eats up the space he was standing in, he thinks of nothing at all.

IDK, IDK. I wrote it for my fiction writing class last term and he wouldn't let me write about unicorns.

Holy shit, you're a clingy psychotic bitch!!!

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:20:55 GMT

Cate and I reenacting Twilight in 10 Minutes from Cracked.com. This is what Cate and I do when we're coming down. IDK, IDK, but it's funny as shit.