wiccanrede‌

Max was mostly ignoring the occasional hostility between bar patrons, glancing up only when it sounded like it might get serious, only to return to his work when it settled down on its own. He’d been in the process of wiping down yet another sticky spill in the same spot as the last two times, soft sight escaping as he noticed someone take a seat on the stool across from him. Taking in the oversized jacket of the girl, he was about to make a comment when his eyes met Bradley’s and recognition quickly erased the witty remark he had prepared completely from his memory. 

Brows furrowing as she smudged her fingers along the freshly cleaned surface, he quickly moved to wipe it down again before tossing the cloth up onto his right shoulder. Favouring his right foot as he stood, he took in her appearance. It took a moment for him to catch a glimpse of the red stain on her shirt, but once he had, his expression changed from quizzical to angry. “Shut the fuck up or get out!” he shouted across the bar at the men bickering, shrugging his shoulders. “Your choice.”

Finally returning his gaze to Bradley when his outburst had managed to quiet down most of the bar for a moment, he nodded his head. “The customer bathroom not up to standard?” he asked, fully aware she didn’t need access for the reason she’d given him. “Alright, relax. You can go back there as long as you want. No one gives a fuck, really. Long as you aren’t making a mess we have to clean up,” he said, moving toward the end of the bar to lift up the false surface to allow her behind it.

He hadn’t taken a break tonight and didn’t bother most nights, but to the surprise of his bar mate, he spoke up. “I’m taking my break. Katie can help cover bar if it gets overwhelming,” he stated, tossing the cloth into the sink and following behind Bradley into the back room. Reaching over her head to push it open, he flicked on the light to the left and let the door swing shut behind them.  

“Is that yours?” he asked, tugging at the foreign jacket where the zipper track was without thinking much of it, investigating the blood stain. He had a tendency to forget what rights he had now. “What happened? Will there be cops because I really can’t chance getting fired again.”

Eyes narrowing slightly in a flinch that she successfully passed off as a sudden bout of irritation, Bradley stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets, material of her stolen jacket crumpling around her wrists in protest. 

“No,” she shot back casually, although her syllables came out slightly fractured, a weathered photograph folded one too many times that’s still creased even after smoothing it flat. “Caesar the ape went off the shits and flung his shit at the walls. River Donovan 2.0. Never seen anything like it.” Resisting the urge to swallow her tongue so she’d never have to listen to her own voice again -- that shabby impersonation of a composed person that she wouldn’t even pay ten dollars to see flouncing around in role on a second rate Broadway -- Bradley slipped through the opening with pinpoint pupils working in slow motion. “Rats. Guess I can’t sprout a dong and nut all over the sink, then.”

Reaching up once she’d slipped into the back room, an unfurling of her fist so she could itch at the back of her head saw a palm stained red flashing into view. Incidentally enough, that same hand was still trembling whenever she forgot to keep up appearances and steady it. Oblivious, she remained with the other tucked inside her jacket pocket as she surveyed the rest of the room. “MTV Cribs wouldn’t even film here. Kind of just fucking... crusty. In a good way, though. Smells of filth and rotten apples.”

Ready to spin back to face him with another distracting conversation starter on the tip of her tongue, Bradley switched lanes and froze instead of opening her mouth. The second he reached forwards and tugged at her jacket, it was as if all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. There was only this: her zipper, the blood it was hiding underneath, his fingers. Fingers she hadn’t expected anywhere near her, in spite of all the times they had been in the past. A breach of space she hadn’t been anticipating from anyone, regardless of anything.

Then again, whenever anyone touched her at all it was enough to thrust her face first into the fast lanes of panic.

“Don’t,” she grit out far too firmly, a staple habit born from a broken home that she’d never been able to shake. She was more injured animal than person in moments like these, a feral creature backed up against a brick wall and forced to snarl. It didn’t matter whether they were trying to help her: she’d always remain the same. A spontaneous touch, to Bradley, was like a dash of salt in a freshly slit wound. 

Attempting to shrug off the defensive anger in her expression, Bradley backspaced by two steps and flit her eyes immediately elsewhere, staring off into space. “No cops.” Lips pressed into a fine line, she shrugged a lone shoulder, repeatedly clenching and unclenching her bloodied hand inside her pocket. “Marco’s a retired cop. Did you know that? Funny.” Mouth twitching with a smile that lacked any amusement, she held it that way for a total of three seconds before dropping it far too fast for anything genuine. “I don’t, erm... I don’t even really know why I came here. So, you know. Sorry -- or whatever.” Shifting her weight awkwardly from foot to foot, she did her best to ignore the growing knot in her throat. Figures, really -- whenever placed into a situation of peril, she always wound up crawling towards the only place she felt truly safe. It was an irritating inconvenience that that place just so happened to be a person. “I should probably... I don’t know. I don’t know why I came. I just--...” trailed off into silence, expression unnervingly stiff as she finally switched her eyes back towards his. “I just couldn’t get the fucking blood off. You know? I couldn’t get it to go.”

xcvierserranos‌

Humming along to a Carly Rae Jepsen classic, Teddy enjoyed his ice cream cone in the sloppy way one only could when the frozen treat continued to melt inside the toasty mall. He’d originally shown up to buy a birthday present for his brother but, classic Teddy, continued to be distracted by something new at every corner. Wrapped around the wrist of his free hand was a watch that had a smiling Mickey Mouse in the center of it, a knick knack he’d managed to pickpocket from the dollar store on the lower level, “You want some?” he asked Lana, holding the cone towards her for a second before gently blurting out Oop! and lapping at the side to catch a drip.

“Jesus,” he grumbled once they walked past the glass pane of a store, reflections staring back at them, “I need a haircut. It’s getting outta control! Pedal to the medal, it’s taking over!” Looking to prove a point, Teddy ran his fingers through the front of his hair, watching as the unkempt curls drooped in front of his eyes. Over exaggerated frown twisted until he was chuckling to himself, turning to Lana with the hair still draped like a curtain, “I feel like Pete Wentz or something circa 2006. Or Michael Clifford circa right now ago. He needs a haircut more than I do.” With practiced ease, Teddy tossed his head about in a wild flurry that was somewhat akin to the way a dog would shake themselves dry after a swim, brown hair resting near his hairline once more. “Should I just shave it all off? Rock the bald style? That’s in now, isn’t it?”

Scalp snug with the cotton of a purple beret that had seashells crudely superglued on top of it -- one of the only remaining clues that Lana and Teddy had just had an Ugliest Hats Alive competition in a nearby H&M -- Lana sucked at the lollipop in her hand as she walked along. Every time she came to tug it free from her mouth, her lips were left subtly tinged red from the artificial cherry, leaving her looking vaguely like she’d just tongued Nosferatu after one of his many bloody breakfasts.

“You got the worst flavour,” Lana objected in spite of the fact she was leaning in regardless, fingers flailing to steady the cone before he interrupted the process. “Honestly so rude. I feel like Kim K’ing my purse around the place. Arms flying like shoelaces caught in Hurricane Tortilla. She’s hongry!” Letting out a soft sigh, she tucked her lollipop back to find a home against her right cheek, tip of her tongue rolling it against the fleshy pink to further stain the taste there. Partly, it was because she couldn’t stand to stay still for longer than two seconds at a time, but mostly, it was because she wanted her mouth to taste so potently of cherries that he’d be able to smell her on his skin long after she’d planted a kiss on it. Her favourite kinds of hauntings were the ones you’d gladly wrench out a Ouija board for in order to summon again.

Whirling back to face Teddy, it was with infectiously restless fingers that Lana reached up to toy with the hair at either sides of his face, pad of her thumb flush at his left temple as she flicked the most pronounced curl of the bunch. “No,” she blurted far-too-fast, eyebrows furrowing with the force of her sincerity. Anyone would think she was discussing plans for a nuclear war, not the prospect of his impending baldness. “I like your hair. It’s bouncy. Soft,” slipped out with a nod, lips falling a distracted breath ajar as she sifted a final touch through the top of his head before playfully nudging him away by the ear. “Something to hold onto. Anyways,” she segued seamlessly, impish grin dimpling her cheeks as she flung a hand down to latch onto his free one, giving him a gentle tug. “I have an idea.” Wafting a frantic hand mid air in a bid to indicate her destination, it was only once she’d hopped three times over with Teddy in tow that it became clear she was bee-lining for the photo-booth. “Come in with me? Come on, I want to immortalise my hat. It’s so ugly, Teddy. It’s so ugly, I might cry. I honestly don’t think we’ll ever find one uglier. The seashells look like old bits of cereal. If Jude was here he’d be really confused and probably try to eat one.”

lcversspit‌

Sometimes Maggie felt like she knew all the local hospitals better than her own home, knew all of the kindest nurses, which ones would save her the good chocolate chip cookies and which ones were harsher. The creamy, mottled cinderblocks of the hospital walls where she was currently being treated that she traced so often with her fingers as she shuffled between therapy and meals, the free time and repeat were becoming familiar again after her second stay there this year. 

The other day Jean, a nurse who Maggie absolutely detested, had tutted at the girl in a warm, motherly voice ripe with condescension. “Why don’t you take care of yourself, baby,” she drawled, voice like sour milk in its bitter sweetness. “You could be so pretty if you tried,” she’d told her, brushing back a lock of the girl’s tangled, greasy hair, picking at a knot like a monkey to its young almost as if to prove Jean’s point. Maggie fought the urge to smack her hand away, giving the woman a tense, bitten lip smile. I don’t want me to be like this, either.

Seeing Jude as she rounded a corner into the visitation room was a welcome surprise. Her first genuine smile in days threatened to split her lips before she suppressed it. “It’s from the Inpatient by County Hospital by Marc Jacobs line. Incredibly exclusive. Hear Rihanna’s on the waiting list.” Out of instinct, she threw her arms around him, shorter frame leaning up on her tiptoes to wrap around him. “What are you doing here? Have a sudden urge to eat bland oatmeal?”

“Even Rihanna? Shit. Endorsed by royalty,” Jude murmured in ill feigned surprise, resisting the urge to reach up and rub with frenzy again at the lilac beneath his eye. He didn’t want to worry her. Framed like a crescent moon or a fallen and wilted petal, his bags couldn’t help but make him look as if he’d been sleeping rough on a local park bench for the past three days. He’d been about to perk up with another comment in the same insincere vein that they’d started out in, steering the conversation whichever way she wanted to in her current state of mind, when Maggie’s arms were flung around him like the first wash of comfort he’d experienced all week.

This is what it’s supposed to feel like, he realised. That nostalgic warmth people get when they recount something special from childhood. The drizzled-to-the-top sensation of hot honey inside your chest. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. Those moments where you’re transported home.

“Yeah,” he answered distractedly, tucking his arms close around her waist and gingerly sitting the tips of his fingers against her back. Against his better judgement, every rational sense in him chanting to set her back down like a delicate vase in an expensive antiques shop, he gently pulled her closer and tucked his nose into the hair at the side of her head. It was with a sudden pang in his chest that he finally pulled back, nostrils so flush with the scent of her that, if he’d been alone, he would have dramatically screeched a chair closer so he could shakily take a seat.

“Don’t need a reason to see you. Fuckin’... goblin,” he diffused the affection of the statement with a shake of his head, stepping back to sit on the closest chair. “I’ve, uh... I brought some stuff.” Busying himself by focusing on the sketchbook he’d wrestled free from his rucksack for the nurses to examine earlier, Jude nibbled briefly at the corner of his thumbnail before nodding to it. “Thought ‘cause, uh... Well, you can’t be there. At Lockwood, I mean,” came along with a limp flick of the first page, thumbing slowly through for her to see: a sketch of Teddy hunched like a gargoyle as he hacked up his McDonald’s cheeseburger in a gutter at four A.M. on a Tuesday, then another of the window ledge in Jude’s room where Maggie would usually sketch. Then another. And another. Immortalised snapshot after snapshot of anything she hadn’t managed to be around for -- or, more fittingly, the moments in which Jude had missed her and he hadn’t been able to find the words to let anyone know. “Dunno. It’s kind of like I’m your eyes and ears or something, you know? Might, uh... Sounds a bit stupid when I hear it back but... yeah. Thought you might like it. Keeping you, uh... in the loop, or whatever.”

xcvierserranos‌

Lying comfortably on a stranger’s bed, Teddy watched as the colours of a disco ball Jude had managed to snag from the main event downstairs spiraled across the ceiling. Usually, Teddy would want nothing more than to be shoved into the middle of a crowd, where the laughter and music was loud enough to make any other worries gnawing at his mind melt away. Tonight, though, nothing seemed more appealing than lying on this bed, with his best friend beside him, a joint passed back and forth between them as they stared at the ceiling with as much intensity as a bird watcher keeping an eye on distant trees.

“Y’know, those gays in that show Skam made out when they shared a joint like this,” Teddy pointed out after a long bout of silence, “so you can kiss me if you want to Jude, I give you permission.” Laughter bubbling up inside of him, Teddy coughed through it after another hearty pull from the spliff in hand, before holding it out towards Jude again, “Okay, real question. If you had to kiss, um… no, no, you had to fuck any dude celebrity who would it be? And think hard about it. Don’t just say someone as a joke, I’m already aware of your comedic genuine, Judas.”

@rosedepps

Repeatedly grinding the heels of his shoes down against the bedspread, Jude marvelled in the three distinct images that stuttered across his brain with each fidget. A milk maid frantically churning butter in an Amish village, every pound of stick inside pot synchronised in time with the nudge of his feet. A poker dealer shuffling cards, knocking them down against the green felt table to make the stack even. A cat lapping milk out of the base of a bowl. It was probably down to the MDMA mixing with the weed newly infiltrating his system, this overactive imagination, and perhaps that was cause for alarm given the urgent flutter in his pulse every time he swallowed, but Jude couldn’t quite find it in himself to worry. He’d never been able to -- worry about himself, that is. 

In order to worry about something you tend to have to care about it, first.

“You can’t just call them ‘those gays’, Teddy. Jesus. Fuckin’... nameless gays, dicks swinging. A civil rights law suit waiting to happen,” Jude exhaled in a noise that verged dangerously close to both a cough and a laugh, although the corners of his lips quickly perked to implicate the latter. Catching the end of the spliff between his first two fingers, he perched it in place to pull in a toke. He’d been midway through sucking it further into his lungs when Teddy’s question piqued his eyebrows, smoke circulating inside him until it was well near painful to hold off on a laugh. “Uh... Hm.” Never one to brush off such a topic in the name of fragile masculinity, Jude pondered the question like he’d been posed an equation with a solution critical to the survival of the human race. “Probably Hugh Grant, I think. You know, uh... What’s that film? Uh. Bridge...? Yeah, Bridget Jones. The one where he’s off the shits for Keats. Him, probably.” Nodding lazily, he wafted a hand through a whiff of smoke to avoid getting it too close to his eyes -- they were already bloodshot enough as if without the aid of more. “That guy I tried shit out with looked sort of like him. Thought it’d be a fuckin’... revolution, but I couldn’t even get hard.” Pulling down another drag, he huffed it out with eyes studying cracks in the ceiling plaster, searching for familiar constellations in the lack of night sky. “Never seen a penis so absolutely limp. Fuckin’... noodle fished out of its broth.”

wiccanrede‌

@rosedepps​ → Benji had a tendency to study so intensively the night before an important test that he’d almost push himself into a full-blown breakdown. Hands shaking from the stress and a permanent headache directly above his eyebrows, he’d feel himself slowly descend into a mild form of academic madness. When he phone vibrated on the hardwood next to him, he didn’t pick it up right away, leaving the person on the other end waiting for twenty minutes. Finally allowing himself a moment to come up for air, he reached for his IPhone that rest facedown next to him. 

Lana J. 👀

The name jolted him out of his zombie state and back to reality and he quickly read the message. It’d been a while since he’d spent any time with her, mostly because he’d been trying to avoid any possibility of drama, but he’d been getting antsy about the absence. And now she was announcing that she was coming over soon. She’d said that twenty minutes ago. On cue as if the universe was doing this for its own entertainment, the doorbell rang and he could hear the sound of his grandmother’s slippers scuffing against the floor and the door swinging open.

Quickly slamming the textbook he’d been looking through shut, he had no time to think and simply kicked all of the books and items surrounding him under his bed, pouncing up onto the mattress to quickly adjust his sheets as best as he could and flicking on the television to put on a Netflix film to appear as natural as possible. As Lana appeared in the doorway, he was already collapsed into the mattress as if he’d been doing nothing but watching this very series (in Spanish without subtitles?). “Lana… Sorry… I like dozed off or something. Just saw your text. Would have cleaned up a bit if I knew you were coming,” he said, attempting a natural chuckle. 

No sooner had Lana arrived home from dance practice was she wrinkling her nose and slamming the door shut again, declaring the air too stagnant and the volume too low for her to ever possibly survive. To say she functioned poorly alone would be the biggest understatement of the century -- once, accompanied only by a red Biro and a stack of notes she needed to memorise for a quiz the following morning, she’d wound up doodling a love heart on her ankle, drinking an entire bottle of lukewarm Merlot and crying over how much she hated Big from Sex and the City for an hour.

Then, mascara smudged and tip of her nose rubbed pink from tissues, she’d used her vibrator for such an extended period of time that the next day she had to call in sick because she couldn’t use her legs to walk to class.

“--super pretty today. Yeah, her! Like her. What was her name? The, um... Yeah! That’s her,” Lana finished up complimenting his grandmother as she walked into the room, sunshine bright beam plastered across her cheeks from ear to ear before she finally wrenched her eyes inside. Flared jeans printed with the occasional heart and star shaped glasses pushed up on top of her head, she looked like a glob of fluorescent alien matter that had been spat on top of a sterilised work bench, such a bright focal point in all of the mundane clutter that it might have taken a fresh set of eyes a few blinks to adjust to. Eyes flitting over towards the screen automatically, her dimples roused to life.

“What’s this? Is--... Wait. Did you just switch over from something? Did--... Wait. Were you watching porn?!” As if she’d just received the news her lottery numbers had won her the jackpot, she sprang up on the spot and flung the door shut, laughter bubbling out of her throat in giddy little bursts. “Literally, don’t even lie. Silence! See-lonce in zee court!” Prancing across to his bed once she’d deemed his door had clicked just right, Lana hopped up and took a seat besides him, eyes intent on the screen as if she were waiting in a cinema for the title credits to roll. “Boot the decoy. No-one jerks their ween to foreign languages. Tha--... Actually, I don’t know. A guy kept whispering French in my ear once and it was totally like I was on board the Titanic after it sank.” Waiting a few seconds, she traded a nonchalant glance sideways before clarifying herself. “You know. Wet. Anyway, come on. We’re all friends here. Besties! That termite in the corner agrees with me. I won’t judge, I’m just, like... curious. We might have the same taste.”

Green PVC rucksack -- one, it was notable to point out, that was translucent enough to see all of the contents and shaped like an alien’s head -- slung around her shoulder, Lana thumbed at the Finding Nemo plaster on her forehead as she stood before the glass of the aquarium tank, pale blues of the lighting casting an aquatic glow across her delicate features. Anyone might’ve thought she were a spit for Juliet Capulet if it weren’t for the dishevelled state of her auburn hair and the red lipstick smudged on the left side of her bottom lip. Post-sex chic was a fashion statement that wasn’t uncommon for Lana to be sporting, although perhaps it wasn’t quite as common to be sporting it during a meeting with Sterling.

Then again, it had been a difficult week.

“I hate that one.” Sighing, she jabbed an index twice at the glass. “Him. Gross. I mean, I know you’re not meant to say that and everything but, like... Come on. His eyes are so bulgy. They just, like, honk!” she suddenly blurted out, volume glaring and eyes bugged for theatrical emphasis. “Super aggressive, like that. Like two evil onion bhaji’s poking out of his head. Don’t you think? Whomst ordered the Indian takeout! Not me. Super angry. I think he needs to nut, maybe. Something’s getting him that cranky. Or... huh. Actually...” Eyes switching over to assess Sterling, Lana narrowed them to a squint of assessment. “Yours aren’t really like that. And you... Um. I mean... You nut, like, less than average. Not in a mean way or anything,” she enthused along with a quick shake of the head, auburn waves flailing around sun freckled cheeks. “Rock on. Chastity, emphasis on the titty! Hey, that’s a cool slogan. You should adopt that. But anyway, back on track. Maybe it’s just a him thing. The eyes.” @xcvierserranos

As bedraggled as a rat fished straight from the sewer, Bradley pushed through the front door of the bar with the sleeves of a stolen jacket slouched impossibly low around her shoulders, the only thing keeping it on being the few buttons done up in front. It was three sizes too big in an obscure, otherworldly way that you’d only really laugh about the possibility of high or spot in an absurdist portrait, yet she didn’t seem phased. In fact, from the way she was carrying herself, anyone would think she was the only one adhering to societal norms and everyone else was the one in the wrong.

“Hi,” she greeted crisply, light eyes distant. She’d made a beeline straight towards the portion of the bar that Max was wiping down, tips of her first two fingers skimming a rude zigzag through the spotless shine. Now, he’d definitely have to go back and do it again if he didn’t want smudges. “I need, um... I don’t know.” Pupils drifting further down the bar, they paused on a thrum of commotion in the left corner of the room, some altercation between a supposedly handsy stranger and a protective boyfriend. She spent at least twelve seconds attempting to distinguish the snarl in the man’s mouth as a foreign one not belonging to her father before she spoke again, oxy in her system smudging through the rational paints of her subconscious until she was only left with a muddy, indistinguishable water colour. “You can let me through to the back, right?” Artificial smile twitching the corners of her mouth, she flashed him a corpse robbed expression that may as well have been the same yellow as a poisonous toad. 

Danger.

If it wasn’t obvious enough to him at first, it would have been in the next second when a lazy shift from foot to foot sent a button hole gaping enough to glimpse the blood on her shirt beneath the jacket, the crude smear of someone else’s hands attempting to get clean on anything close enough.

“I need... Yeah. I need to piss. Okay? Just fucking... urine. Whatever.” @wiccanrede

Cheap fabric softener causing her collar to nip at her throat like a badly trained pup whenever she dared to swallow, Scout furrowed her eyebrows so profusely as she scrubbed at a kitchen dish that her face threatened to tear in two. She’d been hunched over the sink in the back of the diner for so long now that she could’ve sworn she’d set in stone that way, a gargoyle set for fixture on the top steeple of a local cathedral. Even when one dish was wiped clean she persevered, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing until her elbows ached. In fact, she’d been in such a trance with the last that it had taken her name chanted four times in succession before she blinked hard like she was jolting awake, heartbeat sudden and frantic.

“Shit, sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you. You okay, babe?” Chelsea probed, plaque on her teeth bad enough that Scout stared at her shoes, instead, like to avoid it completely was more polite. Nodding as she wrung the suds from her fingers, a quick swat at the hair back from her face left a few strands sticky with soap, something that forced an unsavoury wrinkle into Chelsea’s nose. Scout, however, was either oblivious or completely past the point of caring. “Mind covering my last table for me? Sorry, I know. I know. It’s a shitty ask, you’ve been workin’ ages. But, like... I mean, I said I’d meet Guy outside, you know? He’s already been waitin’ twenty. He doesn’t like to wait. Gets real antsy. Such an ansty pantsy, I call him!”

Resisting the urge to yak in her mouth at the nickname, Scout dried her hands and agreed in monotone. It was the way the world was scripted -- to deviate from her given lines at this point seemed stupid. Scout, can you clear this up for me? Scout, mind putting the spaghetti on while I’m at work? Scout, could you splice out your heart with a scalpel and feed it to my pet pig? Whatever the ask, it wasn’t unlikely that yes would be the answer. She was so intent on caring for other people that it was a deep-seeded part of her thought, somehow, by giving that much she might get the tiniest bit back. 

No luck thus far.

Hair wilder than a patch of nettles and secondhand sneakers so worn through that she could wiggle her third toe and flash the childish print of her socks inside, Scout fiddled with a pen and notepad in hand as she approached the table, not once thinking to look up and clock who was sitting at it.

“Sunny side diner, here to serve all of your meals on the sunny side up!” Teeth practically grit at the manufactured cheer, she finally wrenched her eyes up to clock the blue set blinking back at her midway through her next sentence, thumb freezing above the clicker of her ballpoint so that she wouldn’t have been able to write his order, even if she’d wanted to. “What can I get for y--... What--... It’s, erm--... Oh.” Shifting her weight slightly in a bid to appear completely un-phased, she swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat and forced herself to stare back down at the paper. When she next spoke, it was with the regurgitated manners that any nameless waitress would give to any nameless customer. “What can I get for you?” @cementalities

Scribbled in at the front desk and buzzed through the first two doors of security, Jude felt like a fly enveloped deep inside of a spider’s web sitting there, in the inpatient waiting room. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate places like this -- in fact, it was quite the opposite. He admired anyone that dedicated themselves towards the well-being of others, even trying to maintain such efforts in his own day-to-day life. It was just that this felt eerily fitting: him, those clinically white walls, a nurse in the corner clicking her ballpoint against a clipboard and leaving an unsavoury gleam of saliva on the top metal clasp when she pulled it close to chew. He belonged here. The building practically told him so in creaks as he schlepped inside. Sickness recognises sickness, and the hole he had hidden inside him was big enough to fit an entire west wing of the hospital without even a bat of an eyelid.

Picking at the corner of his cuticle so intently it was threatening to break the skin, Jude sat with his chin tucked down and his long limbs folded beneath him like a cheap piece of lawn furniture threatening to buckle. For all of his typically pretty features, he handled himself with the grace of a farm hand on hire from a temp agency: forever fit with lazy slouches and gangly limbs. Anyone might have thought he was slowly sinking down through the floor to the pits of hell if it weren’t for the fact that he subtly brightened when he saw her, spine growing firm as a rod and corners of his lips twitching. 

“Hi,” he greeted simply, dark circles around his eyes crinkling with the effort it took to force a proper smile. Reaching out, Jude sifted once over the thin fabric of her nightgown when she got close enough, hem clasped gently between finger and thumb. “Huh. They, uh.... New gown.” Dropping it once he realised he’d lingered a fraction longer than deemed appropriate, he rubbed three times over at an eye freshly rimmed red from the joint he’d smoked prior to arrival. Then, clearing his throat, he leaned back in his seat. “I like this one. Pretty fancy. Probably got it from one of those, uh... lingerie stores, I’m guessing.” @lcversspit

Zuhair Murad F/W 2015