April 30, 2017
Southside
Somehow he ended up on the train. The passenger car swayed along its magnetized track; a smooth enough ride at any other time, but tonight every hitch and catch of the car made his entire arm throb. Patrick looked down, frowning at the limb tucked protectively to his chest.
Puffy and bruised, his hand looked more like an inflated surgical glove than anything else. The mental comparison might have made him laugh if not for the alarmingly grotesque, unnatural slant at which his wrist was angled. Stupidly, Trick attempted to move his fingers and was met with bright, burning pain. How in the world had this happened?
After that split second of wonder, it all came rushing back. The time between when he’d left the festival and now was all a blur, but he could recall with vivid accuracy the memory of his beautiful Knight of Roses cowering on the ground, holding his face to stave off the sting of having been struck; the angelic beauty of the infuriatingly composed other man; their sounds of satisfaction; the slow-build of despondent misery that had overwhelmed him. Still overwhelmed him.
Patrick didn’t know where he was when the train came to its next stop, but he got off anyway. He thought walking might ease the pulsing ache of the arm he was trying desperately to pretend was not broken, but he was seeing stars by the end of the second block. With the help of a map on his phone, Trick made it to the nearest hospital.
In the waiting room, he dialed Mallory’s number. Guilt gnawed at him for spoiling her night -- he knew she was on a date with Eri -- and a quick glance to the clock on a wall nearby told him it was a little after one in the morning, which meant it was technically the witch’s birthday. Damn it. It went to voicemail. Though he was loathe to do it, Trick redialed immediately. This time she picked up.
“Mal? I’m--well, I’m at the hospital.”
“What -- which one?”
“Uhh, I think it’s Al-Akessar?”
“Near the waterfront? What happened?”
“Broke my arm. Can you just…”
“Yeah -- okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’ll be right there. Fast as I can. Love you.”
She hung up. Love you too, Trick thought.
--
Mallory had said embarrassingly little to Eri on the cab ride to see Trick at the hospital; she didn’t remember whatever she did manage to say when she climbed out, sparing her poor date something between a farewell and an apology before hurrying to the bustling front entrance of Abu Al-Akessar Memorial Hospital.
Beltane meant parties, parties meant drinking, and drinking meant that a busy hospital weekend became that much more hectic.
The witch darted to one side to let a stretcher clatter through the doorway, then picked her way through the crowded waiting room and up to the front desk. “Hi, I need to see Patrick Richie? I’m his sister, Mallory.” It was a simple lie, but she tentatively pressed her thumb into one of the sharper rings that adorned her fingers, ready to rely on the dark arts if her bluff was called or her request was refused.
But Al-Akessar Memorial was far too busy tonight to be vigilant. The receptionist took a moment to try and read the sincerity in Mallory’s expression, then studied whatever was on her flickering black-and-white computer monitor: “212A, second floor, it’ll be down the hall on your right from the stairwell. Just don’t go anywhere else?!” she called the warning after the witch, who was already striding away as fast as her dressy sandals would allow.
Two minutes later, she was marching up to his door, and trailing her fingers in the air to feel the tense, knotted threads of worked arcana: a few alarm spells, and a faint glimmer of a planar ward, likely attached to a teleportation circle nearby. Nothing that set off her red flags. She glimpsed his form through the tiny window of reinforced glass, and as she pressed through the door, breathed his name in a sigh of anxious relief:
“Trick.”
The teenager hurriedly turned his head away from her approach in an obvious attempt to hide his tears. Mallory watched as he set his jaw and swiped the back of a hand across the tear tracks on his cheeks. Only then did he look up and fix her with a watery smile.
“Pretty gnarly, huh.” Patrick gestured to his right arm which was stretched out atop a firm pillow. His wrist and hand were badly swollen, the former quite obviously tilted at an impossible angle.
“You ****ing doofus,” she said, more of the relief written in her smile as she sat on the edge of his bed -- tempered by a frown when she took in his injuries. “What happened? Did you fall?” The precipitous drop from the forest into the sea was vividly recalled, as were dozens more images of the beautiful and dangerous Beltane celebration.
“And where the **** is Ed?” She knew Trick’s boyfriend to be temperamental, but loyal in situations like this, a handy ally to have in your corner when the chips were down.
All at once, the tenuous façade of Patrick's masculine bravado inexplicably dissolved, giving Mallory an unwonted glimpse at his true feelings. There was raw pain there that had nothing at all to do with his arm. Tears spilled down his cheeks, prompting a rush of bitter humiliation that buried everything else from sight.
“We broke up.” Trick averted his gaze petulantly.
Mallory’s breath caught, shocked at the admission. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, tracing her slender fingers along his scalp, sweeping sweat-dampened hair away from his brow. With his gaze averted, Trick did not see her expression darkening as she studied his tear-stained face, and his twisted and swollen hand.
Dark hypotheses were forming in her mind; most demanded a steep and painful price, not for revenge, but for his protection. “What happened to your arm?” she said, the earlier question now more pointed and exact.
“I was pissed, so I punched something until I broke it.” The indignity of having to cry in front of her was evident in the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he disallowed himself to respond in any way to her touch. Instead, Trick gestured wildly at the door. “Where the hell is the doctor? I’ve been waiting in here for over an hour; my hand’s ****ing killing me.”
“Probably scared half to death he’ll end up like whatever you hit.” Mallory huffed an unfelt laugh at her own joke. Her corny humor had helped before. “Dealing with drunks. Every healing house in town gets swamped during Beltane…” She ran her thumb along the thorny ring on her left ring finger, considering what her recent experiences beyond the veil empowered her to do…
“Hey, close your eyes for a second?”
Patrick did as she asked, letting his head fall back to rest against the pillow wedged behind his shoulders. “I just want to go home,” he sighed, sounding perilously close to defeat.
“Soon,” the witch promised as she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Very soon.” She shut her eyes, and in the warm red darkness behind her eyelids, she heard not one heartbeat but two. His, and her own. She murmured the words of the incantation, too quiet for Trick to even guess at the language, and pressed her thumb into the one conspicuously sharpened point of her thorny ring.
She sucked in a breath as part of the dull ache Trick felt came through all at once, feeling little different than Jewell’s iron nails slipping through her flesh. But she was ready for it, diminishing the cry of pain that wanted to escape down to something much quieter, which she muffled by sucking on the pad of her thumb, tasting the tiny wellspring of blood she had created.
“How’s that?” she asked, now pilfering through a small cabinet near his bed for a band-aid. There was genuine curiosity in the question: she had no idea how blood magic felt on the receiving end.
“Warm,” he replied drowsily, relief coloring his tone. “Really warm.”
Mallory wrapped a small bandage around her thumb and nodded to herself, taking small comfort and satisfaction in the result. Trick’s eyes were still closed, but she could tell from the rhythm of his breaths that some part of him wasn’t letting him sleep. Sadness, frustration, anger; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he needed to rest.
She felt the loose thread of arcane power that had fed his pain to her, curled her lightly bloodied fingers around it, and whispered past his ear, into his very soul:
Sleep.
Aftertaste
Moderators: Mallory, Eri Maeda, Patrick
Re: Aftertaste
April 30, 2017
Wayside Manor
The sun had only just begun to rise by the time the taxi turned down their street. Wayside Manor was a sight for sore eyes, modest and somnolent in comparison to the great, pontifical cathedral across the street with its lavish, white marble columns, angel-faced parapet, and sonorous bells.
After six hours in the hospital, which had included several x-rays, needle sticks, and setting a compound fracture, they were finally home. Patrick was quite certain he’d experienced enough pain today to last a lifetime. His broken fingers, hand, and wrist -- those could all be addressed with careful alignment, fiberglass gauze, and a prescription for Dilaudid. Unfortunately, there was no such remedy for a broken heart. That continued to pulse and ache, an incessant bleeding-out sensation that left him shivering and numb from the shock of it all.
The bright orange cast felt enormous, cumbersome, even strapped snugly into a sling as it was, resting motionless against his chest. Patrick tested its weight by lifting his arm minutely, feeling drained with the effort. He was so tired, but after climbing out of the cab, he didn’t follow Mallory up the steps to the door.
At the top of the stairs, realizing he wasn’t right behind her, she turned to look at him. Her face was etched with a weary sort of exhaustion that seemed to echo his own. It was like looking into a mirror.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
Trick shook his head. “I can’t. It’s…” He trailed off, losing his train of thought in the hazy fog of drugs that added to the numbness.
“It’s what?”
He sighed and dug a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. The sight of them brought on another wave of sadness; this was just one more thing he hated Eddie for. He was stuck with this habit, just like he was stuck with the kitten that waited for him upstairs in his room. These were things he couldn’t get rid of, even though they would forever remind him of Edgar Smith. Briefly he considered all the other things he could dispose of, but the idea of throwing out the proof that they had been something at one time made his stomach turn.
“It’s a birthday thing. Your present -- it’s not something I can get on my own now.” Patrick gestured helplessly to his bum arm before digging up the lighter from his back pocket. Even with his ambidextrous talents, having to complete tasks one handed was getting tedious. “I gotta get Connie and Balfour to help me out before they have to prep for the race.”
The race. That was another bitter pill he’d been forced to swallow. Ellington, who had shown up at the hospital while he was being fitted with the cast, had taken one look at the x-rays before declaring that Trick was not allowed to race until it was healed.
Toxic smoke swirled into his lungs. He could hold it in now; he’d been practicing. Patrick watched Mallory warily, certain that she’d fight him on this, but after a long moment of silence, she only nodded.
“Okay, but don’t -- just be careful, okay? And call me if you need anything.”
“Yes, mother,” he replied sarcastically. Mallory gave him the finger. He smiled around the cigarette, wondering how Ed had managed to lie to him with such ease -- faking a simple smile just now had required effort. Effort that he wasn’t even sure had been worth it, because Mallory’s expression softened. He didn’t want her pity. “I’m fine! Go. Seriously, if you ruin this by not letting me surprise you, I’ll feel even worse about everything.”
Trick sat down on the bottom step once she’d gone inside to watch the steady stream of people trickle into the cathedral for early morning mass while smoking the rest of his cigarette. No one saw him watching or even looked in his direction; he was invisible. Of course, that was only because Mallory had put a spell on the house. The uninvited would never even know it existed.
The bells began to ring; thunderously loud, resonant. A call to worship. It was a beautiful sound befitting a beautiful church. When they sang, one could not help but gaze up at the belfries. Look at us! they tolled, over and over. Patrick recalled the nymph whose laugh was like those bells, and how she had led him to the ruinous discovery of Ed with Goshen. He’d never forget that name, nor the sound of Ed’s voice as he'd moaned it so worshipfully.
As the sun crept higher in the sky, the cathedral’s shadows stretched like greedy fingers along the ground until they swallowed him whole.
Goshen was like the church: tall and beautiful, sharp edged and cocksure. Trick was like Wayside: squalid and overshadowed, left wanting in comparison. Invisible. Of course Ed had chosen splendor over tumbledown.
Misery consumed him in much the same way as the cathedral’s shadows had: slowly, but steadily. Trick leaned heavily against the railing, letting the tears slide silently down his cheeks until the bells ceased their resplendent song. Then he pulled out his phone to call Conrad for help.
Wayside Manor
The sun had only just begun to rise by the time the taxi turned down their street. Wayside Manor was a sight for sore eyes, modest and somnolent in comparison to the great, pontifical cathedral across the street with its lavish, white marble columns, angel-faced parapet, and sonorous bells.
After six hours in the hospital, which had included several x-rays, needle sticks, and setting a compound fracture, they were finally home. Patrick was quite certain he’d experienced enough pain today to last a lifetime. His broken fingers, hand, and wrist -- those could all be addressed with careful alignment, fiberglass gauze, and a prescription for Dilaudid. Unfortunately, there was no such remedy for a broken heart. That continued to pulse and ache, an incessant bleeding-out sensation that left him shivering and numb from the shock of it all.
The bright orange cast felt enormous, cumbersome, even strapped snugly into a sling as it was, resting motionless against his chest. Patrick tested its weight by lifting his arm minutely, feeling drained with the effort. He was so tired, but after climbing out of the cab, he didn’t follow Mallory up the steps to the door.
At the top of the stairs, realizing he wasn’t right behind her, she turned to look at him. Her face was etched with a weary sort of exhaustion that seemed to echo his own. It was like looking into a mirror.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
Trick shook his head. “I can’t. It’s…” He trailed off, losing his train of thought in the hazy fog of drugs that added to the numbness.
“It’s what?”
He sighed and dug a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. The sight of them brought on another wave of sadness; this was just one more thing he hated Eddie for. He was stuck with this habit, just like he was stuck with the kitten that waited for him upstairs in his room. These were things he couldn’t get rid of, even though they would forever remind him of Edgar Smith. Briefly he considered all the other things he could dispose of, but the idea of throwing out the proof that they had been something at one time made his stomach turn.
“It’s a birthday thing. Your present -- it’s not something I can get on my own now.” Patrick gestured helplessly to his bum arm before digging up the lighter from his back pocket. Even with his ambidextrous talents, having to complete tasks one handed was getting tedious. “I gotta get Connie and Balfour to help me out before they have to prep for the race.”
The race. That was another bitter pill he’d been forced to swallow. Ellington, who had shown up at the hospital while he was being fitted with the cast, had taken one look at the x-rays before declaring that Trick was not allowed to race until it was healed.
Toxic smoke swirled into his lungs. He could hold it in now; he’d been practicing. Patrick watched Mallory warily, certain that she’d fight him on this, but after a long moment of silence, she only nodded.
“Okay, but don’t -- just be careful, okay? And call me if you need anything.”
“Yes, mother,” he replied sarcastically. Mallory gave him the finger. He smiled around the cigarette, wondering how Ed had managed to lie to him with such ease -- faking a simple smile just now had required effort. Effort that he wasn’t even sure had been worth it, because Mallory’s expression softened. He didn’t want her pity. “I’m fine! Go. Seriously, if you ruin this by not letting me surprise you, I’ll feel even worse about everything.”
Trick sat down on the bottom step once she’d gone inside to watch the steady stream of people trickle into the cathedral for early morning mass while smoking the rest of his cigarette. No one saw him watching or even looked in his direction; he was invisible. Of course, that was only because Mallory had put a spell on the house. The uninvited would never even know it existed.
The bells began to ring; thunderously loud, resonant. A call to worship. It was a beautiful sound befitting a beautiful church. When they sang, one could not help but gaze up at the belfries. Look at us! they tolled, over and over. Patrick recalled the nymph whose laugh was like those bells, and how she had led him to the ruinous discovery of Ed with Goshen. He’d never forget that name, nor the sound of Ed’s voice as he'd moaned it so worshipfully.
As the sun crept higher in the sky, the cathedral’s shadows stretched like greedy fingers along the ground until they swallowed him whole.
Goshen was like the church: tall and beautiful, sharp edged and cocksure. Trick was like Wayside: squalid and overshadowed, left wanting in comparison. Invisible. Of course Ed had chosen splendor over tumbledown.
Misery consumed him in much the same way as the cathedral’s shadows had: slowly, but steadily. Trick leaned heavily against the railing, letting the tears slide silently down his cheeks until the bells ceased their resplendent song. Then he pulled out his phone to call Conrad for help.
Re: Aftertaste
April 30, 2017
Old Temple West
“Damn, Trick. That’s ****ty.”
Patrick stared out the passenger side window as they drove from Dockside to Old Temple, silently willing himself not to cry in front of his teammates. “You’re telling me,” he mumbled.
“He’s a ****,” Balfour groused from the driver’s seat.
“Jesus, Hellcast.” Connie commented reprovingly.
Trick choked on a laugh, eyes widening in shock. The man always had a way with words. It never ceased to amaze him. He couldn’t account for why he’d told his teammates the truth and not his own sister, except that for some reason, the idea of admitting it to Mallory made him feel embarrassed. There was no rhyme or reason to it, especially because he hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.
Balfour just laughed and turned the moving truck down a side street which led them that much closer to Ed’s part of town. With every conquered mile, Trick’s stomach wound itself into bigger and bigger knots.
“So what the hell are we doing going over to this bastard’s house?”
“We gonna teach ‘im a lesson?” Balfour sounded hopeful, and laughed again when Connie punched him in the leg for the suggestion.
“No,” Trick said quickly. “Please, I don’t want any drama. I’ve had enough of that ****. I just want to get my sister’s bookcases and get out of there. If her frickin’ birthday wasn’t today, I’d be abandoning these ones and getting new ones.”
“No one ever lets me have any fun.” Balfour ran a red light, presumably because no one was letting him have any fun.
The thrill of it only lasted a couple seconds, but it was the most alive Trick had felt since everything had fallen apart. “I’m sorry, one of us has to be responsible here.”
Connie snorted. “Says the guy with the broken hand.” They all laughed. “I’d love to see that guy’s face. Getting hit so hard that you broke your hand? Damn.”
Just like that, the joy from speeding was replaced with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Trick shrugged, shaking his head a little. “I don’t really know that I did anything substantial. He’s like… he’s got to have some kind of supernatural ability or whatever. He did this thing that made my head feel like it was going to explode. I only managed to take him down ‘cause Ed distracted him. The guy probably did something to my arm to make it break. Had to ‘ve.”
“You gonna press charges?”
It was Trick’s turn to snort. “And say what? That I started a fight and technically the guy was defending himself? Yeah, that’ll go over well. The press’ll have a field day.”
Connie made a face. “True. All right, all right. So we go in, get the bookcases, and get out.”
Patrick nodded, falling silent as they turned onto Ed’s street. Balfour had the address, so he didn’t have to say anything else. The truck pulled up to the curb and parked. Balfour left it running. Trick stayed in the cab while the other two exited through the door on the driver’s side. His heart was pounding in his chest with fear. Fear for what? He wasn’t sure.
“What if no one answers?” Balfour shut the truck’s door and leaned in through the open window to stare at Trick. “Is he even home?”
Trick dug his keys out of his pocket and held up two specifically, pointing them out before passing the whole set over. “If someone doesn’t buzz you in, then you can use those. Put them in the mailbox for 2B once you get in. No reason for me to keep them anymore.”
The teenager held his breath until Connie and Balfour disappeared inside. Someone buzzed them in after all. He exhaled raggedly, half expecting to see Ed come outside, but that didn’t happen. After a few minutes of squirming in his seat, Trick settled into a slouch against the door.
The front door to the building reopened several minutes later, and he was surprised to see both Hector and Jameson helping carry the bookcases out to the back of the truck. Patrick watched the procession warily from the safety of the cab, certain that Ed would materialize at any moment to oversee the task.
So when someone knocked on his window, he jumped. Every muscle tensed, including the ones in his broken hand. Trick swore, pain flickering across his face before he could school it into careful neutrality for the girl standing outside the passenger side door. Thank God it wasn’t Ed.
Trick bit his tongue, reaching across himself to mash down the button that lowered the window. Abby wore her most serene, lackadaisical smile and offered up a green rose. Patrick stared at her.
“Can I help you?” He asked stiffly.
“Eddie asked me to give this to you. Green for rejuvenation. Renewal and growth.” Abby’s eyes, half-lidded and drowsy, dipped down to touch briefly on the sling.
He made no move to take the rose from her, but it was difficult to keep from snatching it away and tearing it up into pieces. “I don’t want it.”
She blinked at him.
“I don’t want anything from him. Ever again, Abby.”
“Suit yourself,” she replied easily, shrugging bare shoulders at him.
Just then, Connie leaned against the driver’s side door and peered across the cab at Abby on the other side. He pursed his lips, then glanced to Trick. “We’re all set. Did you maybe… wanna… I mean, we can hang out here for a little while if you want to go talk to--”
“**** that bitch!” Balfour interrupted. “He doesn’t need to bother.” The half dwarf looked askance at Connie and pushed him out of the way so he could yank the door open.
Near the front of the building, Trick watched as Jameson was forced to hold back Hector from going after Balfour. He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat and shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to him. It’s fine.” A quick glance aside told him Abby was no longer looming beside the truck; he didn’t know where she’d gone, but she’d slipped the green rose under the windshield wiper. He glowered at it. “Let’s just go.”
Old Temple West
“Damn, Trick. That’s ****ty.”
Patrick stared out the passenger side window as they drove from Dockside to Old Temple, silently willing himself not to cry in front of his teammates. “You’re telling me,” he mumbled.
“He’s a ****,” Balfour groused from the driver’s seat.
“Jesus, Hellcast.” Connie commented reprovingly.
Trick choked on a laugh, eyes widening in shock. The man always had a way with words. It never ceased to amaze him. He couldn’t account for why he’d told his teammates the truth and not his own sister, except that for some reason, the idea of admitting it to Mallory made him feel embarrassed. There was no rhyme or reason to it, especially because he hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.
Balfour just laughed and turned the moving truck down a side street which led them that much closer to Ed’s part of town. With every conquered mile, Trick’s stomach wound itself into bigger and bigger knots.
“So what the hell are we doing going over to this bastard’s house?”
“We gonna teach ‘im a lesson?” Balfour sounded hopeful, and laughed again when Connie punched him in the leg for the suggestion.
“No,” Trick said quickly. “Please, I don’t want any drama. I’ve had enough of that ****. I just want to get my sister’s bookcases and get out of there. If her frickin’ birthday wasn’t today, I’d be abandoning these ones and getting new ones.”
“No one ever lets me have any fun.” Balfour ran a red light, presumably because no one was letting him have any fun.
The thrill of it only lasted a couple seconds, but it was the most alive Trick had felt since everything had fallen apart. “I’m sorry, one of us has to be responsible here.”
Connie snorted. “Says the guy with the broken hand.” They all laughed. “I’d love to see that guy’s face. Getting hit so hard that you broke your hand? Damn.”
Just like that, the joy from speeding was replaced with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Trick shrugged, shaking his head a little. “I don’t really know that I did anything substantial. He’s like… he’s got to have some kind of supernatural ability or whatever. He did this thing that made my head feel like it was going to explode. I only managed to take him down ‘cause Ed distracted him. The guy probably did something to my arm to make it break. Had to ‘ve.”
“You gonna press charges?”
It was Trick’s turn to snort. “And say what? That I started a fight and technically the guy was defending himself? Yeah, that’ll go over well. The press’ll have a field day.”
Connie made a face. “True. All right, all right. So we go in, get the bookcases, and get out.”
Patrick nodded, falling silent as they turned onto Ed’s street. Balfour had the address, so he didn’t have to say anything else. The truck pulled up to the curb and parked. Balfour left it running. Trick stayed in the cab while the other two exited through the door on the driver’s side. His heart was pounding in his chest with fear. Fear for what? He wasn’t sure.
“What if no one answers?” Balfour shut the truck’s door and leaned in through the open window to stare at Trick. “Is he even home?”
Trick dug his keys out of his pocket and held up two specifically, pointing them out before passing the whole set over. “If someone doesn’t buzz you in, then you can use those. Put them in the mailbox for 2B once you get in. No reason for me to keep them anymore.”
The teenager held his breath until Connie and Balfour disappeared inside. Someone buzzed them in after all. He exhaled raggedly, half expecting to see Ed come outside, but that didn’t happen. After a few minutes of squirming in his seat, Trick settled into a slouch against the door.
The front door to the building reopened several minutes later, and he was surprised to see both Hector and Jameson helping carry the bookcases out to the back of the truck. Patrick watched the procession warily from the safety of the cab, certain that Ed would materialize at any moment to oversee the task.
So when someone knocked on his window, he jumped. Every muscle tensed, including the ones in his broken hand. Trick swore, pain flickering across his face before he could school it into careful neutrality for the girl standing outside the passenger side door. Thank God it wasn’t Ed.
Trick bit his tongue, reaching across himself to mash down the button that lowered the window. Abby wore her most serene, lackadaisical smile and offered up a green rose. Patrick stared at her.
“Can I help you?” He asked stiffly.
“Eddie asked me to give this to you. Green for rejuvenation. Renewal and growth.” Abby’s eyes, half-lidded and drowsy, dipped down to touch briefly on the sling.
He made no move to take the rose from her, but it was difficult to keep from snatching it away and tearing it up into pieces. “I don’t want it.”
She blinked at him.
“I don’t want anything from him. Ever again, Abby.”
“Suit yourself,” she replied easily, shrugging bare shoulders at him.
Just then, Connie leaned against the driver’s side door and peered across the cab at Abby on the other side. He pursed his lips, then glanced to Trick. “We’re all set. Did you maybe… wanna… I mean, we can hang out here for a little while if you want to go talk to--”
“**** that bitch!” Balfour interrupted. “He doesn’t need to bother.” The half dwarf looked askance at Connie and pushed him out of the way so he could yank the door open.
Near the front of the building, Trick watched as Jameson was forced to hold back Hector from going after Balfour. He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat and shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to him. It’s fine.” A quick glance aside told him Abby was no longer looming beside the truck; he didn’t know where she’d gone, but she’d slipped the green rose under the windshield wiper. He glowered at it. “Let’s just go.”
Re: Aftertaste
April 30, 2017
Wayside Manor
“Hell, man… don’t tell me you live here?!”
Trick shot a look back at Balfour, but he wasn’t looking at Wayside Manor; instead his teammates’ gazes roved past it, squinting down the quiet alleyways to either side. There were a dozen rotting pallets and several crumbling pieces of furniture littering the walls of adjacent buildings, but no people.
No one liked coming out into the alleys, even those who had access from their homes and shops. Something in the air made their skin crawl…
“I just don’t want her to see them.” It wasn’t quite a lie. “Just leave them there… and my roommates can take care of the rest. Thanks, guys.”
--
“Trick? You home?” Mallory called as she pushed through the front door. The wards etched into the frame received a more careful scrutiny than usual. “I was at the tech shop near High Street… I thought we could watch a few movies?”
She juggled a plastic bag, her keys, and her backpack as she shut the door behind her. There was a familiar giggle emanating from the room nearby, a type of laughter she’d learned to recognize from safety lessons with her youngest roommate.
“Haley, what are you up to…?” she half-sang as she traipsed down the hall, rounding the corner to the spare room.
Rob peeled his hand away from Haley’s mouth so she could join the chorus of, “Happy Birthday!” A stormcloud of fine, paper confetti in a rainbow of a colors exploded noiselessly out of Haley’s hands. Patrick and Spencer smiled at her from the center of the room, the former with his good arm draped about the younger teen’s shoulders.
“Thought we’d mark your getting old by getting you something for old people.” Trick smirked, trying (and, in Mallory’s opinion, failing) to look less run down than he felt. He unhitched himself from Spencer to regard the bookcases that now lined a good portion of the walls in the newly designated library. Many of the shelves were already full of books that had been collected from their various resting piles around the enormous house.
Others were strange to Mallory, recent acquisitions from a small college in Stars End. Rob’s handiwork, or his boyfriend’s… The witch’s hand rested in Haley’s hair (who muffled a giggle) as she moved past them, taking in aging leatherbound encyclopedias and a naturalist’s memoirs. She turned in a circle, taking in the rest of the shelves -- and a detailed map of tangled streets running through a river city that could only be RhyDin, painted on one wall. Her eyes narrowed slyly on Spencer, and then Trick.
“This is, um,” she started, and realized her voice was heavy with emotion. She pushed past it with a hug for Haley: “Augh! This is perfect.” She squeezed the girl.
“I helped,” Haley boasted, tipping her head back to present a smile that was missing a few teeth.
Mallory grinned down at her, then opened an arm for the others, whether they liked it or not. Rob and Spencer gave in after some reluctance, but Trick kept to the very fringes of the group hug. “Thank you,” she said, her voice steadier, and looked over at Trick: “If it makes me an old hag to like it, then I love it. It’s the best room in the house.”
The boy chuckled noiselessly, averting his gaze after locking eyes with hers for a second too long. “Glad you like it,” he said. After glancing down at Haley, he added, “It really was a group effort.”
“Then the group,” she replied, snatching up the bag of data discs she’d dropped moments ago, “gets to pick which movie we get to suffer through together to celebrate the long, long-awaited end of my teens,” finishing the words with a sigh. “Safiya?!” she called in the direction of the stairwell. “We’re having a party, and there had better be dessert! Come share it with us!”
“I lied,” Trick announced, playfully pushing Haley out of the way. She made an indignant sound at him, but he ignored her. “It was all me. I even painted the map.” The others joined in Haley’s sputtered protests; Spencer rolled her eyes. Trick grinned, albeit tiredly, and waggled his outstretched fingers at Mallory for the bag.
“The hell you did,” Safiya said, arms folded, watching them from the doorway, lips ever so slightly curved in a smile. It was unclear how long she’d been lurking there. “I sorted the books and helped with the linework,” pointedly rubbing two paint-smeared fingers together, and raised an eyebrow at Trick.
Mallory had chosen a different option, though: she held out a disc case and lightly bapped Trick on the brow with it. “Phantom Menace it is, flyboy.”
“Hah!” He exulted, devious expression briefly melting into a pleased, uninhibited smile. The boy snatched the disc from Mallory’s fingers. “Winning.”
“That’s not fair,” Haley whined.
“Sure it is. ‘Not fair’ is me eating your piece of cake before you can get to it.”
“You better not!” The little girl bolted from the room, presumably headed for the kitchen to ensure her piece of cake made it safely into her own hands.
“You’re such a dick,” Rob chuckled.
“He means well,” Safiya opined, her smile growing a little smug as her gaze slid between the two boys. “Help me with the plates,” she said to the older one as she peeled away from the doorway, ostensibly to make sure Haley didn’t create a disaster -- and to give herself a few moments’ respite in a less crowded room.
“Get the media thingy set up?” Mallory asked Trick, after watching Safiya and Rob slip out of the library. “I wanna look at the map for a bit… Christ, Spencer, it’s ****ing incredible,” she mused, slinking closer to the freshly painted wall for a more thorough study.
“Of course it is,” she replied.
“Don’t get all weepy over it for too long,” Trick said. He fanned himself with the data disc on his way out of the room. “Or I’ll eat your piece of cake instead of Haley’s.”
Wayside Manor
“Hell, man… don’t tell me you live here?!”
Trick shot a look back at Balfour, but he wasn’t looking at Wayside Manor; instead his teammates’ gazes roved past it, squinting down the quiet alleyways to either side. There were a dozen rotting pallets and several crumbling pieces of furniture littering the walls of adjacent buildings, but no people.
No one liked coming out into the alleys, even those who had access from their homes and shops. Something in the air made their skin crawl…
“I just don’t want her to see them.” It wasn’t quite a lie. “Just leave them there… and my roommates can take care of the rest. Thanks, guys.”
--
“Trick? You home?” Mallory called as she pushed through the front door. The wards etched into the frame received a more careful scrutiny than usual. “I was at the tech shop near High Street… I thought we could watch a few movies?”
She juggled a plastic bag, her keys, and her backpack as she shut the door behind her. There was a familiar giggle emanating from the room nearby, a type of laughter she’d learned to recognize from safety lessons with her youngest roommate.
“Haley, what are you up to…?” she half-sang as she traipsed down the hall, rounding the corner to the spare room.
Rob peeled his hand away from Haley’s mouth so she could join the chorus of, “Happy Birthday!” A stormcloud of fine, paper confetti in a rainbow of a colors exploded noiselessly out of Haley’s hands. Patrick and Spencer smiled at her from the center of the room, the former with his good arm draped about the younger teen’s shoulders.
“Thought we’d mark your getting old by getting you something for old people.” Trick smirked, trying (and, in Mallory’s opinion, failing) to look less run down than he felt. He unhitched himself from Spencer to regard the bookcases that now lined a good portion of the walls in the newly designated library. Many of the shelves were already full of books that had been collected from their various resting piles around the enormous house.
Others were strange to Mallory, recent acquisitions from a small college in Stars End. Rob’s handiwork, or his boyfriend’s… The witch’s hand rested in Haley’s hair (who muffled a giggle) as she moved past them, taking in aging leatherbound encyclopedias and a naturalist’s memoirs. She turned in a circle, taking in the rest of the shelves -- and a detailed map of tangled streets running through a river city that could only be RhyDin, painted on one wall. Her eyes narrowed slyly on Spencer, and then Trick.
“This is, um,” she started, and realized her voice was heavy with emotion. She pushed past it with a hug for Haley: “Augh! This is perfect.” She squeezed the girl.
“I helped,” Haley boasted, tipping her head back to present a smile that was missing a few teeth.
Mallory grinned down at her, then opened an arm for the others, whether they liked it or not. Rob and Spencer gave in after some reluctance, but Trick kept to the very fringes of the group hug. “Thank you,” she said, her voice steadier, and looked over at Trick: “If it makes me an old hag to like it, then I love it. It’s the best room in the house.”
The boy chuckled noiselessly, averting his gaze after locking eyes with hers for a second too long. “Glad you like it,” he said. After glancing down at Haley, he added, “It really was a group effort.”
“Then the group,” she replied, snatching up the bag of data discs she’d dropped moments ago, “gets to pick which movie we get to suffer through together to celebrate the long, long-awaited end of my teens,” finishing the words with a sigh. “Safiya?!” she called in the direction of the stairwell. “We’re having a party, and there had better be dessert! Come share it with us!”
“I lied,” Trick announced, playfully pushing Haley out of the way. She made an indignant sound at him, but he ignored her. “It was all me. I even painted the map.” The others joined in Haley’s sputtered protests; Spencer rolled her eyes. Trick grinned, albeit tiredly, and waggled his outstretched fingers at Mallory for the bag.
“The hell you did,” Safiya said, arms folded, watching them from the doorway, lips ever so slightly curved in a smile. It was unclear how long she’d been lurking there. “I sorted the books and helped with the linework,” pointedly rubbing two paint-smeared fingers together, and raised an eyebrow at Trick.
Mallory had chosen a different option, though: she held out a disc case and lightly bapped Trick on the brow with it. “Phantom Menace it is, flyboy.”
“Hah!” He exulted, devious expression briefly melting into a pleased, uninhibited smile. The boy snatched the disc from Mallory’s fingers. “Winning.”
“That’s not fair,” Haley whined.
“Sure it is. ‘Not fair’ is me eating your piece of cake before you can get to it.”
“You better not!” The little girl bolted from the room, presumably headed for the kitchen to ensure her piece of cake made it safely into her own hands.
“You’re such a dick,” Rob chuckled.
“He means well,” Safiya opined, her smile growing a little smug as her gaze slid between the two boys. “Help me with the plates,” she said to the older one as she peeled away from the doorway, ostensibly to make sure Haley didn’t create a disaster -- and to give herself a few moments’ respite in a less crowded room.
“Get the media thingy set up?” Mallory asked Trick, after watching Safiya and Rob slip out of the library. “I wanna look at the map for a bit… Christ, Spencer, it’s ****ing incredible,” she mused, slinking closer to the freshly painted wall for a more thorough study.
“Of course it is,” she replied.
“Don’t get all weepy over it for too long,” Trick said. He fanned himself with the data disc on his way out of the room. “Or I’ll eat your piece of cake instead of Haley’s.”
Re: Aftertaste
May 1, 2017
Wayside Manor
The sun set and it rose again; time marched on despite the horrible misery that had taken root inside him. Patrick wanted everything to stop. Nothing so dramatic as wanting to die, no… but if everything could stop moving forward without him, if he could have just a second to breathe and process -- that would be great.
Instead, he was left reeling by how quickly things had changed for the worse. Not even two days ago his life had been whole. Under the bright and shining light of Ed’s presence in his life, he’d flourished, he’d been better with him at his side, he’d been startlingly happy, content in ways he never even knew to be possible. Ed’s love had transformed him. Without it, he felt disconnected from everything, even himself. Vacant.
When August Ellington, Bluestar Racing Team’s owner and benefactor, had gently confirmed that he was not allowed to race until his arm was healed, he’d expected to feel something more pronounced. More anger, or despair. But then, he thought, perhaps there was just nothing left to take away. Losing Ed had already hollowed him out, emptied him of all that mattered. He’d sat through the rest of their meeting in silence, numbly agreeing with everything Ellington said; anything to hasten its conclusion.
By the time he got home, Patrick managed to convince himself that none of it mattered. As an expert over-thinker, he’d worked his brain to the point of realizing that his dependency on Ed was unhealthy and that their split was for the best. No one should ever feel this despondent over the end of a four month relationship. He’d invested himself too deeply; these feelings were his own fault; Ed’s cheating was likely his fault, too.
Mallory met him in the hall after he dropped his things on the floor. She was doing a terrible job hiding the concern of her expression, and for some reason this annoyed him. Patrick brushed past her without saying anything and began to climb the stairs.
But Mal was not easily deterred. “How’d the meeting go?”
Trick paused on the first landing, grinding his teeth together in irritation. Keep your cool. He drew in a deep breath and silently counted to three before letting it out. Keeping everything on lock-down was his specialty. “He’s sticking to what he said the other night. No racing until the cast is off.”
“That sucks.” He listened as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, making the floorboards creak. “You need anything?”
He let the numbness creep back in so that when he turned to look at her from over his shoulder, there was nothing but a vacant expression for her to attempt to decipher. “No. Thanks. I’m just going to go back to bed. If I’m not awake for dinner, just let me sleep. I’m ****in’ exhausted.”
She let him go without a fight. Trick climbed each flight of stairs at a snail’s pace until he reached the top. The hall was dark, but a cheery, christmas-y glow spilled out from under the closed door that led into his room. He headed for the bathroom instead and stared at himself in the mirror long enough to allow his mind to superimpose the ghostly image of Goshen’s face over his own, in which every flaw and shortcoming of his in comparison was made painfully obvious.
Patrick wasn’t aware that he’d started to cry, nor that he’d allowed anger to rise back to the forefront of his thoughts. Goshen’s provocative visage burned itself into his retinas; he saw it even when he squeezed his eyes closed. Trick tried desperately to dilute the miserable dolor by gulping in great lungfuls of air, but the gloom of his unhappiness was too heavy a burden to keep gathered up hushly in his chest. He choked on a loud sob that echoed off the tile walls of the bathroom.
At once embarrassed with himself for the outburst, Trick bent over the sink and splashed cold water on his face with one hand until the shock of the temperature forced him to feel something other than pain and heartache. Stop crying. He doesn’t love you. He obviously never did. He’s not worth your tears. It wasn’t comforting, but it helped to sever the cords of his emotions for a time. When he looked into the mirror again, he saw only himself. Resolved and determined.
In his room, he found a sleeve of crackers and a glass of lukewarm water next to the prescription bottle of pain medicine on the nightstand beside his bed. He swallowed two pills instead of the prescribed dose of one. Ate a cracker. Took a drink. Stared at his bed for a few seconds too long as the flickers of memories flashed before his eyes.
Ed in nothing but his jersey and a pair of thigh highs, kneeling there in the middle of the bed with the blankets bunched up around his waist. The first time they’d had sex. The countless times they’d lain together, just talking, touching, staring up at the lights on the ceiling.
Trick looked up at the strings of Christmas lights, trying to ignore the pang of sadness their sight evoked. The heartstrings were already reattaching themselves. He needed to work fast.
While waiting for the drugs to kick in, he found a box and inside he put everything that reminded him of Ed. All the dried flowers saved from their anniversaries, his black hoodie, a multi-colored scarf, every bottle of nail polish, a pair of shoes and lace panties, the necklace he’d gotten from their visit to Layla’s art show, the old messenger device they’d used before getting touch screens, a couple buttons, and a mug. Patrick even remembered to remove the picture key chain from his keys. The other three pictures from their photo booth adventure got tucked under a stack of neatly folded t-shirts in a dresser drawer.
Ten minutes later, the neon sign he’d been given for Christmas and all the strands of lights that had been affixed to the ceiling and walls joined the rest of the items in the box. It took two trips, because he only had the one good arm to use, but eventually Patrick got the box of stuff and the car battery which had powered the lights down on the curb for trash pick up.
When Patrick returned to his room, it felt strangely empty. Like himself. He collapsed onto the bare mattress (because he’d gone so far as to get rid of his sheets, too) and waited for sleep to take him away from the pain of reality. Before that happened, the tiny kitten Ed had given him for their latest anniversary crawled up onto the bed and tucked herself up under his chin. The comfort Prim offered outweighed the sad memories she also dredged up, so she got to stay.
The last thing he remembered before succumbing to the powerful drugs coursing through his veins was thinking that the white, fluffy kitten purring contently against him was the only good thing he had left.
Wayside Manor
The sun set and it rose again; time marched on despite the horrible misery that had taken root inside him. Patrick wanted everything to stop. Nothing so dramatic as wanting to die, no… but if everything could stop moving forward without him, if he could have just a second to breathe and process -- that would be great.
Instead, he was left reeling by how quickly things had changed for the worse. Not even two days ago his life had been whole. Under the bright and shining light of Ed’s presence in his life, he’d flourished, he’d been better with him at his side, he’d been startlingly happy, content in ways he never even knew to be possible. Ed’s love had transformed him. Without it, he felt disconnected from everything, even himself. Vacant.
When August Ellington, Bluestar Racing Team’s owner and benefactor, had gently confirmed that he was not allowed to race until his arm was healed, he’d expected to feel something more pronounced. More anger, or despair. But then, he thought, perhaps there was just nothing left to take away. Losing Ed had already hollowed him out, emptied him of all that mattered. He’d sat through the rest of their meeting in silence, numbly agreeing with everything Ellington said; anything to hasten its conclusion.
By the time he got home, Patrick managed to convince himself that none of it mattered. As an expert over-thinker, he’d worked his brain to the point of realizing that his dependency on Ed was unhealthy and that their split was for the best. No one should ever feel this despondent over the end of a four month relationship. He’d invested himself too deeply; these feelings were his own fault; Ed’s cheating was likely his fault, too.
Mallory met him in the hall after he dropped his things on the floor. She was doing a terrible job hiding the concern of her expression, and for some reason this annoyed him. Patrick brushed past her without saying anything and began to climb the stairs.
But Mal was not easily deterred. “How’d the meeting go?”
Trick paused on the first landing, grinding his teeth together in irritation. Keep your cool. He drew in a deep breath and silently counted to three before letting it out. Keeping everything on lock-down was his specialty. “He’s sticking to what he said the other night. No racing until the cast is off.”
“That sucks.” He listened as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, making the floorboards creak. “You need anything?”
He let the numbness creep back in so that when he turned to look at her from over his shoulder, there was nothing but a vacant expression for her to attempt to decipher. “No. Thanks. I’m just going to go back to bed. If I’m not awake for dinner, just let me sleep. I’m ****in’ exhausted.”
She let him go without a fight. Trick climbed each flight of stairs at a snail’s pace until he reached the top. The hall was dark, but a cheery, christmas-y glow spilled out from under the closed door that led into his room. He headed for the bathroom instead and stared at himself in the mirror long enough to allow his mind to superimpose the ghostly image of Goshen’s face over his own, in which every flaw and shortcoming of his in comparison was made painfully obvious.
Patrick wasn’t aware that he’d started to cry, nor that he’d allowed anger to rise back to the forefront of his thoughts. Goshen’s provocative visage burned itself into his retinas; he saw it even when he squeezed his eyes closed. Trick tried desperately to dilute the miserable dolor by gulping in great lungfuls of air, but the gloom of his unhappiness was too heavy a burden to keep gathered up hushly in his chest. He choked on a loud sob that echoed off the tile walls of the bathroom.
At once embarrassed with himself for the outburst, Trick bent over the sink and splashed cold water on his face with one hand until the shock of the temperature forced him to feel something other than pain and heartache. Stop crying. He doesn’t love you. He obviously never did. He’s not worth your tears. It wasn’t comforting, but it helped to sever the cords of his emotions for a time. When he looked into the mirror again, he saw only himself. Resolved and determined.
In his room, he found a sleeve of crackers and a glass of lukewarm water next to the prescription bottle of pain medicine on the nightstand beside his bed. He swallowed two pills instead of the prescribed dose of one. Ate a cracker. Took a drink. Stared at his bed for a few seconds too long as the flickers of memories flashed before his eyes.
Ed in nothing but his jersey and a pair of thigh highs, kneeling there in the middle of the bed with the blankets bunched up around his waist. The first time they’d had sex. The countless times they’d lain together, just talking, touching, staring up at the lights on the ceiling.
Trick looked up at the strings of Christmas lights, trying to ignore the pang of sadness their sight evoked. The heartstrings were already reattaching themselves. He needed to work fast.
While waiting for the drugs to kick in, he found a box and inside he put everything that reminded him of Ed. All the dried flowers saved from their anniversaries, his black hoodie, a multi-colored scarf, every bottle of nail polish, a pair of shoes and lace panties, the necklace he’d gotten from their visit to Layla’s art show, the old messenger device they’d used before getting touch screens, a couple buttons, and a mug. Patrick even remembered to remove the picture key chain from his keys. The other three pictures from their photo booth adventure got tucked under a stack of neatly folded t-shirts in a dresser drawer.
Ten minutes later, the neon sign he’d been given for Christmas and all the strands of lights that had been affixed to the ceiling and walls joined the rest of the items in the box. It took two trips, because he only had the one good arm to use, but eventually Patrick got the box of stuff and the car battery which had powered the lights down on the curb for trash pick up.
When Patrick returned to his room, it felt strangely empty. Like himself. He collapsed onto the bare mattress (because he’d gone so far as to get rid of his sheets, too) and waited for sleep to take him away from the pain of reality. Before that happened, the tiny kitten Ed had given him for their latest anniversary crawled up onto the bed and tucked herself up under his chin. The comfort Prim offered outweighed the sad memories she also dredged up, so she got to stay.
The last thing he remembered before succumbing to the powerful drugs coursing through his veins was thinking that the white, fluffy kitten purring contently against him was the only good thing he had left.
Re: Aftertaste
May 2, 2017
Red Dragon Inn
Late morning wandering led him to the Red Dragon. Patrick wondered idly if the place had some kind of magical pull, because he certainly hadn't intended to come here of all places. And yet somehow, after coming to his senses and shaking himself from his inner thoughts, he found himself staring at the wide porch.
A strong breeze rocked the empty swing and ruffled his hair. It felt good. Trick let it dry the sweat on the back of his neck before he made his way inside.
"...What's a dementor?" someone at the bar asked. There were several people gathered there, but only Clara’s face was familiar.
"Some of the foulest creatures known,” she explained. They bask in decay and despair and stay alive by sucking the hope and happiness out of everything around them." Clara’s upbeat tone had the words sounding a little odd rolling from her tongue. "Totally don't recommend making out with them."
What a thing to walk in on. Patrick stared at Clara, still holding the door half open with his shoulder. Unamusingly, he felt like he’d been kissed by a dementor. It would explain a lot about the emptiness he felt.
Clara waved at him. "Helloooo, good mor...er... afternoon! It is now afternoon."
The guy who’d intitially asked the question frowned a moment, then quickly covered it up with a smile, "So....they call me Alex!"
"A pleasure, Alex. Jonigan Tal, at yer service."
It seemed they were in the middle of introductions. Patrick let the door slide shut behind him and slipped in quietly, fashioning up one of his usual there-and-then-not smiles. "Afternoon now, I guess."
"Shae,” another woman added. Trick thought her face was a little familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her before.
"Alex, Jonigan Tal, and Shae, hello. I'm Clara, it's nice to meet you all."
Jonigan waved at him. "And a pleasure to meet yeh as well, Clara."
"That's Trick over there," Clara told the others. When she looked back, she spotted the sling and her mouth rounded with surprise. "Oh no, what happened?"
He shrugged one shoulder lackadaisically, affecting a lack of concern. Like hell would be admit to the embarrassing truth of having been cheated on, of being made an absolute fool. "I punched something hard enough to break it. Screwed myself over -- no racing until it's healed." Trick sighed, managing to sound more upset by the 'no racing' consequence than from whatever had caused him to break his arm in the first place.
Alex eyed his cast. "Do we all get to sign it now?"
"Eeeeew, that blows,” Clara offered sympathetically. "I hope it heals quickly!"
“Thanks,” he replied.
Trick looked rather much like he'd just rolled out of bed not too long ago. Bare feet and canvas flip flops, black sweatpants, an oversized long-sleeve shirt (one sleeve bunched up around a bicep). His hair could use a good combing. He shuffled himself lazily behind the bar and listened to the conversation going on around him while he dug through the cooler for a can of soda.
Alex had started a discussion on kissing instead of waiting to hear Trick’s answer about signing the cast. The others joined in, offering advice to the man (who was wearing a dress, he noticed) who had apparently never kissed anyone before.
Patrick tried to follow, wishing he would get swept up in the playful teasing, but all he could do was think about his own journey into the world of kissing. His first kiss happened in a closet. It wasn’t anything spectacular. His second kiss had happened in cold, dark alley and it had been perfection.
Clara’s tittering giggle lured Trick away from the depressing path his thoughts were attempting to lead him. "I didn't know kissin' was a science," she said teasingly.
Jonigan appeared rather entertained by this discourse. "But there is something magical about overcoming yer fear and plunging headlong into unknown waters. Quite thrilling, actually."
And just like that, his mind wandered back to the dark alley. It had been just as Jonigan said: plunging headlong into the unknown. Magical didn’t even begin to describe it. Trick could still hear the soft, worshipful tone Ed used to say his name. He could feel the phantom sensation of Ed’s fingers on his cheek, the way his thumb traced a spot dangerously close to the corner of his mouth. Just recalling the memory made his heart pound like it had that night.
Numb with regret that he’d never get to experience that thrill ever again, Trick carried his drink to a table near the bar where the others were congregated and sat down. Unfortunately, their playful banter failed at distraction. The unseen Dementor continued to suck away at his happiness, pushing him closer and closer toward despondency.
Eventually, Clara’s voice speared through the haze of his gloom like sunshine peeking through the clouds. "Hey, why're ya over there? Come hang out with us," she said with a beckoning gesture of her hand.
His mouth twitched up a quarter smile. He didn't want to move, but he got up anyway and climbed onto a stool. Anything to bring less attention to himself. It was only a matter of time before the paparazzi caught wind of things and his blessed anonymity and privacy would go up in smoke.
She flashed a smile at him, lifting her own arm to indicate his broken one. "How long're ya gonna be out with that?"
"Mm." A brief hum of noise against the mouth of his soda can. After swallowing, Trick set it down and poked at a bit of puffy, bruised skin on his pointer finger. "Six weeks. And that's with all the mystical witchy help. Sucks to be me!" His chuckle was dry and brief.
"Ouch..." Clara cringed. "It'll go quick though. Can always play the flight sims at the arcade in the mean time, stay in shape."
She wasn’t wrong. But the prospect of having to stay grounded for so long was depressing. He’d only just discovered flying, but Patrick now lived for the thrill. Just like he’d pathetically lived for the way Ed made him feel. Now he had nothing.
The group’s conversation was less background noise now that he’d joined the inner circle. Alex declared, "So now I have not only learned about how to kiss, but when to bite..."
"Aye. Such important information may only be garnered from motley crowds at a tavern." Jonigan replied sagely.
"Yeah, a tavern is sort of a school of sorts."
Shae smiled. "The biting usually comes after the kissing. But there are always exceptions."
"A school where inebriation tends to help with class participation." Jonigan nodded.
"And yet I don't think any of us are inebriated,” Shae fired back.
"And such exceptions should be withheld fer the advanced course." Jonigan grinned.
Patrick’s eyes bounced back and forth as the two volleyed replies.
Alex sighed. “I'm not supposed to get drunk. Apparently I cause all sorts of trouble."
"Getting drunk usually leads to most people getting in trouble,” said Jonigan. “It's part of the fun."
Shae mirrored Jonigan’s grin. "If you make it long enough without a proper education, Alex, there's always Beltane next year. You'll learn enough there."
The man in the dress eyed Shae. "Beltane is scary!"
No. No no no. Let’s talk about anything but Beltane. Trick's expression went blank. Inscrutable, he took another drink. Clara scrunched her nose.
"Oh? Why does it frighten you?" asked Shae.
"I heard some crazy things. Heard there was a goblin running around naked and dancing..."
"There were a lot of people running around naked." Trick muttered quietly for Alex's benefit.
"Yeah, I don't know if I'm ready for that." Alex said.
Jonigan looked unconcerned. "It is just a time fer sanctioned debauchery. Nothing to get alarmed about."
Trick took another drink, then tipped his head to regard Clara's expression. "I take it your Beltane plans didn't work out?"
She shook her head, her smile dimmer than before but still there. "Couldn't make it home in time. I've got a little more work to do to get what I need so, I guess I'll just catch it next year, ya know?"
Nodding, Patrick didn't immediately answer. He was too busy piecing things together from previous conversations and what he'd overheard in his time of knowing her. Something told him she wasn’t supposed to be here. He suspected she belonged somewhere else in time.
Blue-gray eyes flickered over the girl's face, but it was short-lived, hollow curiosity. He took another drink. "Always next year," he finally agreed. "Still sucks, though. Hope you get it figured out. What--" He stopped abruptly, briefly second guessing the offer to help, then started again. "What do you need?"
Clara’s teeth worked against her bottom lip. "Well I got a new logic board, which I needed. But we're looking to get our hands on a new omega core for the transistor. They're a pain in the butt to find, I guess."
"Oh." He nodded, but had no idea what she was talking about. For all his dreaming about living in Stars End someday and his being a professional pod racer, Trick was still woefully ignorant of a lot of futuristic tech. "I can maybe ask around for you. With my teammates and stuff. If you want."
"Would you?" Her brows lifted and she straightened on her stool. "That'd be way cool, if you could. If not, it's no worry. The scrapyard out at the spaceport's keeping an eye out for me too."
The mention of the scrapyard felt like picking a scab off a fresh wound. Trick fashioned up a smile for her, bobbing his head a couple times earnestly. "Yeah, I don't mind."
"Thank you, that's so nice of you." She cut a big smile over to Trick.
The group moved on from the topic of Beltane to play a game of Would You Rather, but Patrick wasn’t paying attention. It was difficult to concentrate. He couldn’t even come up with anything else to say to Clara; he was bad at maintaining small talk. Ed was the one who could carry a conversation with ease, so friendly and bubbly. Without him, Trick felt lost. Leaving the house had been a mistake.
Trick quickly drained the last of his soda, then slid quietly from his stool and moved to throw it away. "Catch you around, Clara?" He had to get away. It was too difficult to pretend like he wasn’t irrevocably broken. He started a slow stroll for the door.
"Yeah, probably! I hope your arm feels better soon!"
"Thanks." One last flicker of a smile for her as he escaped.
((Heavily adapted from live play.))
Red Dragon Inn
Late morning wandering led him to the Red Dragon. Patrick wondered idly if the place had some kind of magical pull, because he certainly hadn't intended to come here of all places. And yet somehow, after coming to his senses and shaking himself from his inner thoughts, he found himself staring at the wide porch.
A strong breeze rocked the empty swing and ruffled his hair. It felt good. Trick let it dry the sweat on the back of his neck before he made his way inside.
"...What's a dementor?" someone at the bar asked. There were several people gathered there, but only Clara’s face was familiar.
"Some of the foulest creatures known,” she explained. They bask in decay and despair and stay alive by sucking the hope and happiness out of everything around them." Clara’s upbeat tone had the words sounding a little odd rolling from her tongue. "Totally don't recommend making out with them."
What a thing to walk in on. Patrick stared at Clara, still holding the door half open with his shoulder. Unamusingly, he felt like he’d been kissed by a dementor. It would explain a lot about the emptiness he felt.
Clara waved at him. "Helloooo, good mor...er... afternoon! It is now afternoon."
The guy who’d intitially asked the question frowned a moment, then quickly covered it up with a smile, "So....they call me Alex!"
"A pleasure, Alex. Jonigan Tal, at yer service."
It seemed they were in the middle of introductions. Patrick let the door slide shut behind him and slipped in quietly, fashioning up one of his usual there-and-then-not smiles. "Afternoon now, I guess."
"Shae,” another woman added. Trick thought her face was a little familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her before.
"Alex, Jonigan Tal, and Shae, hello. I'm Clara, it's nice to meet you all."
Jonigan waved at him. "And a pleasure to meet yeh as well, Clara."
"That's Trick over there," Clara told the others. When she looked back, she spotted the sling and her mouth rounded with surprise. "Oh no, what happened?"
He shrugged one shoulder lackadaisically, affecting a lack of concern. Like hell would be admit to the embarrassing truth of having been cheated on, of being made an absolute fool. "I punched something hard enough to break it. Screwed myself over -- no racing until it's healed." Trick sighed, managing to sound more upset by the 'no racing' consequence than from whatever had caused him to break his arm in the first place.
Alex eyed his cast. "Do we all get to sign it now?"
"Eeeeew, that blows,” Clara offered sympathetically. "I hope it heals quickly!"
“Thanks,” he replied.
Trick looked rather much like he'd just rolled out of bed not too long ago. Bare feet and canvas flip flops, black sweatpants, an oversized long-sleeve shirt (one sleeve bunched up around a bicep). His hair could use a good combing. He shuffled himself lazily behind the bar and listened to the conversation going on around him while he dug through the cooler for a can of soda.
Alex had started a discussion on kissing instead of waiting to hear Trick’s answer about signing the cast. The others joined in, offering advice to the man (who was wearing a dress, he noticed) who had apparently never kissed anyone before.
Patrick tried to follow, wishing he would get swept up in the playful teasing, but all he could do was think about his own journey into the world of kissing. His first kiss happened in a closet. It wasn’t anything spectacular. His second kiss had happened in cold, dark alley and it had been perfection.
Clara’s tittering giggle lured Trick away from the depressing path his thoughts were attempting to lead him. "I didn't know kissin' was a science," she said teasingly.
Jonigan appeared rather entertained by this discourse. "But there is something magical about overcoming yer fear and plunging headlong into unknown waters. Quite thrilling, actually."
And just like that, his mind wandered back to the dark alley. It had been just as Jonigan said: plunging headlong into the unknown. Magical didn’t even begin to describe it. Trick could still hear the soft, worshipful tone Ed used to say his name. He could feel the phantom sensation of Ed’s fingers on his cheek, the way his thumb traced a spot dangerously close to the corner of his mouth. Just recalling the memory made his heart pound like it had that night.
Numb with regret that he’d never get to experience that thrill ever again, Trick carried his drink to a table near the bar where the others were congregated and sat down. Unfortunately, their playful banter failed at distraction. The unseen Dementor continued to suck away at his happiness, pushing him closer and closer toward despondency.
Eventually, Clara’s voice speared through the haze of his gloom like sunshine peeking through the clouds. "Hey, why're ya over there? Come hang out with us," she said with a beckoning gesture of her hand.
His mouth twitched up a quarter smile. He didn't want to move, but he got up anyway and climbed onto a stool. Anything to bring less attention to himself. It was only a matter of time before the paparazzi caught wind of things and his blessed anonymity and privacy would go up in smoke.
She flashed a smile at him, lifting her own arm to indicate his broken one. "How long're ya gonna be out with that?"
"Mm." A brief hum of noise against the mouth of his soda can. After swallowing, Trick set it down and poked at a bit of puffy, bruised skin on his pointer finger. "Six weeks. And that's with all the mystical witchy help. Sucks to be me!" His chuckle was dry and brief.
"Ouch..." Clara cringed. "It'll go quick though. Can always play the flight sims at the arcade in the mean time, stay in shape."
She wasn’t wrong. But the prospect of having to stay grounded for so long was depressing. He’d only just discovered flying, but Patrick now lived for the thrill. Just like he’d pathetically lived for the way Ed made him feel. Now he had nothing.
The group’s conversation was less background noise now that he’d joined the inner circle. Alex declared, "So now I have not only learned about how to kiss, but when to bite..."
"Aye. Such important information may only be garnered from motley crowds at a tavern." Jonigan replied sagely.
"Yeah, a tavern is sort of a school of sorts."
Shae smiled. "The biting usually comes after the kissing. But there are always exceptions."
"A school where inebriation tends to help with class participation." Jonigan nodded.
"And yet I don't think any of us are inebriated,” Shae fired back.
"And such exceptions should be withheld fer the advanced course." Jonigan grinned.
Patrick’s eyes bounced back and forth as the two volleyed replies.
Alex sighed. “I'm not supposed to get drunk. Apparently I cause all sorts of trouble."
"Getting drunk usually leads to most people getting in trouble,” said Jonigan. “It's part of the fun."
Shae mirrored Jonigan’s grin. "If you make it long enough without a proper education, Alex, there's always Beltane next year. You'll learn enough there."
The man in the dress eyed Shae. "Beltane is scary!"
No. No no no. Let’s talk about anything but Beltane. Trick's expression went blank. Inscrutable, he took another drink. Clara scrunched her nose.
"Oh? Why does it frighten you?" asked Shae.
"I heard some crazy things. Heard there was a goblin running around naked and dancing..."
"There were a lot of people running around naked." Trick muttered quietly for Alex's benefit.
"Yeah, I don't know if I'm ready for that." Alex said.
Jonigan looked unconcerned. "It is just a time fer sanctioned debauchery. Nothing to get alarmed about."
Trick took another drink, then tipped his head to regard Clara's expression. "I take it your Beltane plans didn't work out?"
She shook her head, her smile dimmer than before but still there. "Couldn't make it home in time. I've got a little more work to do to get what I need so, I guess I'll just catch it next year, ya know?"
Nodding, Patrick didn't immediately answer. He was too busy piecing things together from previous conversations and what he'd overheard in his time of knowing her. Something told him she wasn’t supposed to be here. He suspected she belonged somewhere else in time.
Blue-gray eyes flickered over the girl's face, but it was short-lived, hollow curiosity. He took another drink. "Always next year," he finally agreed. "Still sucks, though. Hope you get it figured out. What--" He stopped abruptly, briefly second guessing the offer to help, then started again. "What do you need?"
Clara’s teeth worked against her bottom lip. "Well I got a new logic board, which I needed. But we're looking to get our hands on a new omega core for the transistor. They're a pain in the butt to find, I guess."
"Oh." He nodded, but had no idea what she was talking about. For all his dreaming about living in Stars End someday and his being a professional pod racer, Trick was still woefully ignorant of a lot of futuristic tech. "I can maybe ask around for you. With my teammates and stuff. If you want."
"Would you?" Her brows lifted and she straightened on her stool. "That'd be way cool, if you could. If not, it's no worry. The scrapyard out at the spaceport's keeping an eye out for me too."
The mention of the scrapyard felt like picking a scab off a fresh wound. Trick fashioned up a smile for her, bobbing his head a couple times earnestly. "Yeah, I don't mind."
"Thank you, that's so nice of you." She cut a big smile over to Trick.
The group moved on from the topic of Beltane to play a game of Would You Rather, but Patrick wasn’t paying attention. It was difficult to concentrate. He couldn’t even come up with anything else to say to Clara; he was bad at maintaining small talk. Ed was the one who could carry a conversation with ease, so friendly and bubbly. Without him, Trick felt lost. Leaving the house had been a mistake.
Trick quickly drained the last of his soda, then slid quietly from his stool and moved to throw it away. "Catch you around, Clara?" He had to get away. It was too difficult to pretend like he wasn’t irrevocably broken. He started a slow stroll for the door.
"Yeah, probably! I hope your arm feels better soon!"
"Thanks." One last flicker of a smile for her as he escaped.
((Heavily adapted from live play.))
Re: Aftertaste
May 6, 2017
The Train
Patrick spent the next four days abusing his pain medication so he could sleep as much as possible. He wasn’t sad when he was asleep. Nothing hurt. The passage of time blurred, the edges of day and night bleeding together, indistinguishable from one another.
Periodically he’d come to long enough to find a tray of soup on his nightstand. Other times it was a sleeve of crackers. The glass of water he drank from was always fresh and full. At one point he remembered the kitten and panicked that he hadn’t been feeding her, but found her food and water bowls taken care of. This was Spencer’s doing; he was sure of it.
After exhausting his prescription supply, Patrick was forced to venture out of the house for food. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone, and it was obvious they were waiting for him to spill the details about what had happened.
It was all so embarrassing, the way he’d been duped like that. And for how long? Patrick hadn’t thought to ask the question that night. But that’s assuming he could have trusted Ed’s answer; the older boy had lied to him so smoothly. He felt stupid for never suspecting the truth. That didn’t stop him from wondering. Why was the most pressing question on his mind.
When another trip to the inn ended in a flood of tears he couldn’t contain, Trick made his way to the train and found a quiet car in which to hide. He got out his phone and made a terrible mistake.
The Train
Patrick spent the next four days abusing his pain medication so he could sleep as much as possible. He wasn’t sad when he was asleep. Nothing hurt. The passage of time blurred, the edges of day and night bleeding together, indistinguishable from one another.
Periodically he’d come to long enough to find a tray of soup on his nightstand. Other times it was a sleeve of crackers. The glass of water he drank from was always fresh and full. At one point he remembered the kitten and panicked that he hadn’t been feeding her, but found her food and water bowls taken care of. This was Spencer’s doing; he was sure of it.
After exhausting his prescription supply, Patrick was forced to venture out of the house for food. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone, and it was obvious they were waiting for him to spill the details about what had happened.
It was all so embarrassing, the way he’d been duped like that. And for how long? Patrick hadn’t thought to ask the question that night. But that’s assuming he could have trusted Ed’s answer; the older boy had lied to him so smoothly. He felt stupid for never suspecting the truth. That didn’t stop him from wondering. Why was the most pressing question on his mind.
When another trip to the inn ended in a flood of tears he couldn’t contain, Trick made his way to the train and found a quiet car in which to hide. He got out his phone and made a terrible mistake.
Re: Aftertaste
Wednesday. 5/17/17 - 11:00 pm
Wayside Manor
The button of Spencer’s jeans thunked into the wall squeeing softly down a ragged line before the denim landed in the hamper below. A tee-shirt flew through the air next followed closely by a bra. Comfortable in a pair of faded black joggers and a muscle tank, the girl looked more like a locker room athlete than a graffiti artist. She had little motivation to deal with her hair. On her way to the door, she reached out and swiped what was left of a milkshake off the dresser.
Her door creaked open, mindfully softer than it had previously thanks to a wiggle of Mallory’s fingers and some olive oil. From door One to door Two, as per the past few weeks Patrick’s door was snugly shut. She caught herself reaching for the handle as habit would have it. Rather than inviting herself in she curled her fingers into her palm and gave a few good raps to the wood.
A little kitten paw poked itself through the gap between the door and the floor, swiping in vain at the perceived intruder on the other side, tiny claws flexing in ferocious fervor. Patrick rolled off his bed to collect her, scooping the baby she-beast against his chest and cracked the door.
It was depressingly dark inside his room now without the cheerful Christmas lights adorning the ceiling. The shadeless lamp beside his bed did little to reach the far corners of his room. Shadows ate him up as he loomed before the slitted opening of the door.
“What?”
From the darkness of the hall behind Spencer, the Devil himself hummed low. She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t be a dick, Lucifer.”
Swinging her attention back to the boy crowding the tiniest bit of opening, “Can I come in?” And then she caught the straw to her shake between her teeth.
He didn’t respond verbally, but left the door open when he walked away. By the time Spencer followed him into the room, he was already in the process of lying back down on the bed. It was still missing a set of sheets, which was kind of gross, but it didn’t appear as though he cared.
Prim, the fluffy white kitten that had already wormed her way into the heart of every Wayside occupant, trotted across Trick’s chest and the bed and flopped down onto the floor to investigate Spencer’s bare toes.
Patrick watched her for a second or two before tossing his good arm across his face. He’d somehow managed to keep the misery bottled up during their walk home and all through dinner, but the time had come for the truth to be shared. Asking for help was essentially not in his vocabulary, but the weight of his pain was too heavy a burden for Trick to manage alone anymore. He was drowning.
Spencer had made sure to shut the door tightly behind her. Prim needed some time to grow before she officially met Lucifer. Regardless of the beneath the door crack flirting that had been taking place since her arrival, the older black cat was not to be trusted.
She left her hand on the door, palm flat and fingers splayed, leaning into it as she watched Trick collapse on his bed and shut out the world. The girl knew little about what was going on inside him but time was not helping him heal. She’d made herself promise that she wouldn’t bombard him. Mallory had told her to let him be. Big D at the shop lectured her for a good thirty minutes about males and their wayward hearts.
She broke the silence the only way she knew how, “Are you ever going to make your bed again?” This was spoken from a crouch on the floor as she rubbed two fingers over the kitten’s little head.
Such a benign, innocuous question. And yet it had the opposite effect on the boy. Patrick’s mouth quavered, then pinched tightly together to stave off the rush of emotion that he could feel building inside him. “No,” he whispered. But resistance, as they say, is futile. Behind the cover of his arm, tears began to leak from his eyes and a plaintive sob burst from his chest. Trick turned his head, pressing his lips to his bicep in an attempt to quell the rising hysterics. He was a dam burst wide open. He wasn’t loud; in fact he tried desperately to cry as silently as possible. Unfortunately, the need for release trumped the indignity of falling apart in front of someone.
His life felt as unmade as his bed. Are you ever going to make your bed again? No. No he wasn’t. He felt so stupid for feeling that way, but try as he might to be logical and sensible, his mind and heart were at odds. “I can’t take it anymore, Spence’. I can’t.”
Spencer was beginning to become convinced that one of her X chromosomes was defective and that she was missing a very important part of the female genetic make up. Tears made her uncomfortable. They made her itchy all over. They made her want to back into a corner and press two fingers together in the sign of a cross. Any other female would rush to the afflicted and offer flooding condolences, soft touches, and hugs.
Patrick was her best friend, her best friend. His pieced together heart was shattering right in front of her and all she could do was stare at him with wide eyes. She knew she was going to hell for thanking that he had his eyes covered. But he was her other, the one and only person that knew all the things. She wasn’t going to leave him when he needed someone the most.
Releasing a quiet breath, she set the milkshake on a crate he had near the door and moved slow for the bed. The corner at the end by his feet dropped a few inches when she lowered herself to sit there. “Patrick, I’m *** with stuff like this. But it can’t last forever.” She really had no idea, but in the moment it sounded good.
A shuddering breath shook his frame, followed swiftly by a painful slow, ragged and silent inhale. It was stupid of him to try and hide it now -- Spencer was perfectly aware that he was falling apart -- but years of hiding his emotions meant that Patrick felt weak and vulnerable putting them on display right now.
“I tried. I tried to just--and he’s there with them, eating ice cream and smiling and getting hugged.” The bed shook with his sobs. He wasn’t exactly making sense, but his mind was firing off random bits of information as it came to him. “Why do I feel like I’m the one being p-punished for--I didn’t do anything! He ****ed me over and I’m the one standing there alone.”
By that point, Prim had grown concerned. Wiggly, bare toes were nothing compared to Patrick’s distress. Her little claws dug into the mattress, climbing expertly up the side of the bed to get to the crying boy at the top. She fussed at him, patting his mouth with her paw a few times before pressing her cold nose against his jaw.
Spencer had turned herself so that she was on an angle that put her leg against his. It was a small measure of physical contact and comfort. Her hands remained in her lap, fingers lacing and unlacing. “Patrick, I have no idea what happened. Like, I get that you need to process or whatever. I mean--I’m sorry--you know what I mean. You’re not alone, you know that.”
She was trying to be encouraging but the sound of his voice and the anguish that hooked onto his words made his torment all too real. “I can’t explain to you why he’s acting the way he is. I’ve only seen him once since---”
“He--he cheated on me.” Patrick rolled onto his side, presenting her with his back. He was still shirtless from the water balloon fight earlier in the evening, having not bothered to redress after they got home.
She stood up so fast that the ripple wave effect of her speed was likely to travel through the old mattress like a tsunami, upsetting his roll away. “The **** he didn’t!”
Spencer raised her voice as loud as the hiss of words allowed it.
Patrick caged the kitten behind the wall of his arms. “I caught him. At the Beltane festival.”
“You know what?” She told his back and the dark windows beyond his bed. “You can hate me all you want, but I’m going to hit him.”
“Spencer. Stop,” he begged, sounding exhausted. Just the few minutes he’d been crying carried the pressure of weeks spent locking everything up inside himself.
“No, Patrick. It’d be like you to try and protect his douche bag cheating ass while you fall apart. You’re too good for him. You’re too good for anyone.”
The accusation felt like a slap to the face. Patrick clamped his mouth shut, muffling the noise. He already felt stupid for not knowing how to stop loving someone who’d hurt him so badly, and now Spencer was judging him for it. He wound the fingers of his good hand into the comforter, strangling it tightly in an effort to get a hold of himself.
She was so mad that her hands were shaking at her sides so she wound her arms tight across her chest and paced away from the bed, only to turn around in an about face. Spencer had so little experience in the area of love she was clueless to the twisted, inner workings of it and the effect it had on the people infected with it.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
It took him a long time to answer. Patrick had to be sure to stuff the emotion away, out of sight, to protect himself and pride from further blows. When he spoke, his voice was low. It sounded like his nose was stuffed up, but he refused to sniffle or let on in any way that he’d let himself go for a while there.
“Because it’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing? Patrick,” she was dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. He ****ed up and you called him out on it. Why is that embarrassing?” The onslaught of vicious things she wanted to say tasted like copper on her tongue. It was becoming more clear that he was in no condition for her wrath.
“That I wasn’t enough to… I don’t know.” He shrugged his left shoulder, a lazy gesture full of childish ill-temper. “That I just wasn’t enough. That he picked someone else.”
“Stop it. Stop it right now.” He sniffled loudly at her, then. It did nothing to calm her flaring temper. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Betrayed, absolutely. Upset, for sure. He’s an asshole for taking you for granted. I don’t know how much of what he fed you was bull**** and what was the truth, but regardless, he’s the one who screwed up. It’s not your fault. None of it is.”
Now that he wasn’t outright sobbing any longer, Trick realized that he had a throbbing headache. Stuffed up sinuses weren’t helping things. He sniffled again, sounding frustrated when he exhaled. “Yeah well, I still feel like ****. Tonight it was like I was all alone. He was surrounded by people who were, like… I don’t know how to *** explain it, Spence’. It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. But I can’t help how I *** feel. I don’t want everyone knowing my business, but it comes at the cost of me being the one who’s standing off to the side while everyone else dotes on him.”
“Of course you’re going to feel like ****. He broke your heart. I’m--” she wanted to kill Ed. It didn’t matter to her one bit of an ounce that she wouldn’t even have to throw a punch to make him feel the ***. She also knew that if Patrick ever found out that she hit Ed, he’d likely never talk to her again. Spencer wanted to help him but she didn’t know how. Instinct threw her into defensive mode with walls made of skepticism and anger.
“I”m so mad right now.” Honesty helped somewhat, though for certain that’s not what she wanted to say.
Trick barked a mirthless laugh. “You and me both. I look back and don’t even recognize myself that night. That’s how I broke my arm, you know.” He turned his head a fraction of an inch, just far enough to bring her into his line of vision. “I beat the **** out of the other guy.”
Spencer was standing in the middle of his room, slightly closer to the bed than the door. She was a ball of tension wrapped up in the form of a skinny, blonde girl with dreads that were very near to uncoiling themselves into a mane of curls. “Good. Whether he knew or not. He deserved it.” Just like Ed does, was the silent follow up that she knew she didn’t have to say.
“Maybe,” Trick conceded. Then, because he thought maybe it would make her feel better (even though thinking about it made him feel even worse about himself), he told her another secret: “I slapped him.” After a short pause, he realized he needed to be more specific. “Ed. I slapped Ed, too.”
She stared at him where he lay. Patrick Richie was one of the kindest souls she knew, likely the only one. For what little time she’d known him, it still felt like forever. For the split second it had taken for that slap, he had likely wanted to take it back before his fingers had even left Ed’s face. It didn’t matter that he had caught his boyfriend cheating. Ed ripped Patrick’s heart clear from his chest and here he was feeling like he wasn’t good enough.
What Patrick said didn’t make Spencer feel better, it pissed her off even more. She lowered her gaze to the floor to hide the flames that likely burned the green of her eyes brighter. “Does anyone else know?”
The boy shook his head sullenly, gently stroking the kitten who had curled herself around his throat like a plump, fluffy scarf. “Just Connie and Balfour, because I needed their help getting Mal’s bookcases from Ed’s place.”
She was afraid if she relaxed her arms from their tight cross, she’d punch a wall. Patrick was not a fan of her Fight Club tendencies. The last thing she wanted to do was upset him more. She was doing a fine job as it were just trying to be his friend. Spencer shifted her weight from one hip to the other, lifting her gaze to the smooth curve of his back where he lay on the bed.
“Patrick, I just--” she smoothed her hands over her face, rubbing her palms along her cheeks. “You deserve to be happy. I don’t like that he ****ed that up.” Her hands fell to her sides.
“Yeah. Well.” He didn’t know what to say to that. Of course he agreed, but there was nothing he could come up with that would change the circumstances. There was nothing she could say to fix things, either. It had been good to get it out in the open, though. “It is what it is. Now you know the full reason why I’ve been moping around. I need my stupid arm to get better so I can get back to racing and this’ll all be tolerable.”
“That’s the stupidest phrase.” She mumbled it beneath her breath through the few steps it took her to get to his bed. Without an invitation, Spencer stretched out next to him on her back, balanced close to the edge. At one time they used to be able to both fit in the smallest spot not giving a whose its what about anything. Time had certainly left them stranded and fumbling for the right way. “Can we burn your mattress?”
Considering that he’d likened his unmade bed to his messy life already, the idea of burning the mattress now was almost hysterical. Patrick’s abrupt laugh startled Prim who had fallen asleep. With her tail bottlebrushed, she resettled by curling up in a tiny ball pressed up against his shoulder. Trick painted a fingertip along the top of her head adoringly.
“Sure. Why the **** not? Let’s do it.” Blue-gray eyes lifted from the kitten to study Spencer’s profile. She hadn’t lain in his bed with him for months and months. It brought back memories of a time before Ed.
She couldn’t help the grin that broke free and pulled the corners of her lips up into her cheeks. Her head fell to the side so she could catch his eyes with hers. “To the roof?”
“I can’t carry this thing up there with this beast.” Trick held up the cast, then set it back down to rest on his side against his hip. “Maybe we can push it out the window into the garden tomorrow.”
Spencer tucked her chin to her chest to peer over his shoulder at the window. “I think it’ll fit.” She honestly had no idea but it sounded like a whole lot of shouldn’t be had fun. Dropping her head, her eyes rolled to his cast. She reached across her stomach and drummed two fingers on the fiberglass. “I’ll fix this for you before you get it off. Then we can burn it too.”
Trick’s eyes dropped down to the neon orange cast, specifically where Spencer’s fingers tapped the hardened casting tape. There were four signatures there. “It’s lacking your particular flair for art, that’s for sure.”
She curled one of her fingers in, scratching the nail over the sealed edge of a strip of plastered gauze. “I just got a bunch of new Sharpies. I’m going to need you for an hour at least.” She pulled her hand back, lacing her fingers together over her stomach. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”
Patrick smiled at the thought of having Spencer’s ‘signature’ added to the others on the cast. “I think I just want to be alone tonight, but I’m all yours tomorrow.” Another sniffle to clear his nasal passages startled the kitten again. Disgruntled, she waddled away from him to make a nest for herself in the center of his pillow a foot away where she wouldn’t be disturbed. “If that’s all right,” he added. “I don’t know how long you have until work, but we can hang until you go.”
Spencer had been staring at the crack in the ceiling. It was the same one she’d stared at many nights before, so many times that she’d lost count. Her chin quivered in a nod. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be here until about noon.” Her balance on the edge of the bed allowed a foot to drop quietly to the floor. She curled up to sit, pausing once as she swung her other foot to the floor.
“I’ll come get you when I’m up.” This was said with a look she cast over her shoulder for him. And then she stood.
He didn’t get up, but twisted his upper body on the mattress to give him a better view of her looming, scarecrow frame. “Thanks for listening.”
Spencer’s smile was half the effort, one side curled up. “Always.”
She shut the door quietly behind her exit.
--
((Co-written with Spencer.))
Wayside Manor
The button of Spencer’s jeans thunked into the wall squeeing softly down a ragged line before the denim landed in the hamper below. A tee-shirt flew through the air next followed closely by a bra. Comfortable in a pair of faded black joggers and a muscle tank, the girl looked more like a locker room athlete than a graffiti artist. She had little motivation to deal with her hair. On her way to the door, she reached out and swiped what was left of a milkshake off the dresser.
Her door creaked open, mindfully softer than it had previously thanks to a wiggle of Mallory’s fingers and some olive oil. From door One to door Two, as per the past few weeks Patrick’s door was snugly shut. She caught herself reaching for the handle as habit would have it. Rather than inviting herself in she curled her fingers into her palm and gave a few good raps to the wood.
A little kitten paw poked itself through the gap between the door and the floor, swiping in vain at the perceived intruder on the other side, tiny claws flexing in ferocious fervor. Patrick rolled off his bed to collect her, scooping the baby she-beast against his chest and cracked the door.
It was depressingly dark inside his room now without the cheerful Christmas lights adorning the ceiling. The shadeless lamp beside his bed did little to reach the far corners of his room. Shadows ate him up as he loomed before the slitted opening of the door.
“What?”
From the darkness of the hall behind Spencer, the Devil himself hummed low. She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t be a dick, Lucifer.”
Swinging her attention back to the boy crowding the tiniest bit of opening, “Can I come in?” And then she caught the straw to her shake between her teeth.
He didn’t respond verbally, but left the door open when he walked away. By the time Spencer followed him into the room, he was already in the process of lying back down on the bed. It was still missing a set of sheets, which was kind of gross, but it didn’t appear as though he cared.
Prim, the fluffy white kitten that had already wormed her way into the heart of every Wayside occupant, trotted across Trick’s chest and the bed and flopped down onto the floor to investigate Spencer’s bare toes.
Patrick watched her for a second or two before tossing his good arm across his face. He’d somehow managed to keep the misery bottled up during their walk home and all through dinner, but the time had come for the truth to be shared. Asking for help was essentially not in his vocabulary, but the weight of his pain was too heavy a burden for Trick to manage alone anymore. He was drowning.
Spencer had made sure to shut the door tightly behind her. Prim needed some time to grow before she officially met Lucifer. Regardless of the beneath the door crack flirting that had been taking place since her arrival, the older black cat was not to be trusted.
She left her hand on the door, palm flat and fingers splayed, leaning into it as she watched Trick collapse on his bed and shut out the world. The girl knew little about what was going on inside him but time was not helping him heal. She’d made herself promise that she wouldn’t bombard him. Mallory had told her to let him be. Big D at the shop lectured her for a good thirty minutes about males and their wayward hearts.
She broke the silence the only way she knew how, “Are you ever going to make your bed again?” This was spoken from a crouch on the floor as she rubbed two fingers over the kitten’s little head.
Such a benign, innocuous question. And yet it had the opposite effect on the boy. Patrick’s mouth quavered, then pinched tightly together to stave off the rush of emotion that he could feel building inside him. “No,” he whispered. But resistance, as they say, is futile. Behind the cover of his arm, tears began to leak from his eyes and a plaintive sob burst from his chest. Trick turned his head, pressing his lips to his bicep in an attempt to quell the rising hysterics. He was a dam burst wide open. He wasn’t loud; in fact he tried desperately to cry as silently as possible. Unfortunately, the need for release trumped the indignity of falling apart in front of someone.
His life felt as unmade as his bed. Are you ever going to make your bed again? No. No he wasn’t. He felt so stupid for feeling that way, but try as he might to be logical and sensible, his mind and heart were at odds. “I can’t take it anymore, Spence’. I can’t.”
Spencer was beginning to become convinced that one of her X chromosomes was defective and that she was missing a very important part of the female genetic make up. Tears made her uncomfortable. They made her itchy all over. They made her want to back into a corner and press two fingers together in the sign of a cross. Any other female would rush to the afflicted and offer flooding condolences, soft touches, and hugs.
Patrick was her best friend, her best friend. His pieced together heart was shattering right in front of her and all she could do was stare at him with wide eyes. She knew she was going to hell for thanking that he had his eyes covered. But he was her other, the one and only person that knew all the things. She wasn’t going to leave him when he needed someone the most.
Releasing a quiet breath, she set the milkshake on a crate he had near the door and moved slow for the bed. The corner at the end by his feet dropped a few inches when she lowered herself to sit there. “Patrick, I’m *** with stuff like this. But it can’t last forever.” She really had no idea, but in the moment it sounded good.
A shuddering breath shook his frame, followed swiftly by a painful slow, ragged and silent inhale. It was stupid of him to try and hide it now -- Spencer was perfectly aware that he was falling apart -- but years of hiding his emotions meant that Patrick felt weak and vulnerable putting them on display right now.
“I tried. I tried to just--and he’s there with them, eating ice cream and smiling and getting hugged.” The bed shook with his sobs. He wasn’t exactly making sense, but his mind was firing off random bits of information as it came to him. “Why do I feel like I’m the one being p-punished for--I didn’t do anything! He ****ed me over and I’m the one standing there alone.”
By that point, Prim had grown concerned. Wiggly, bare toes were nothing compared to Patrick’s distress. Her little claws dug into the mattress, climbing expertly up the side of the bed to get to the crying boy at the top. She fussed at him, patting his mouth with her paw a few times before pressing her cold nose against his jaw.
Spencer had turned herself so that she was on an angle that put her leg against his. It was a small measure of physical contact and comfort. Her hands remained in her lap, fingers lacing and unlacing. “Patrick, I have no idea what happened. Like, I get that you need to process or whatever. I mean--I’m sorry--you know what I mean. You’re not alone, you know that.”
She was trying to be encouraging but the sound of his voice and the anguish that hooked onto his words made his torment all too real. “I can’t explain to you why he’s acting the way he is. I’ve only seen him once since---”
“He--he cheated on me.” Patrick rolled onto his side, presenting her with his back. He was still shirtless from the water balloon fight earlier in the evening, having not bothered to redress after they got home.
She stood up so fast that the ripple wave effect of her speed was likely to travel through the old mattress like a tsunami, upsetting his roll away. “The **** he didn’t!”
Spencer raised her voice as loud as the hiss of words allowed it.
Patrick caged the kitten behind the wall of his arms. “I caught him. At the Beltane festival.”
“You know what?” She told his back and the dark windows beyond his bed. “You can hate me all you want, but I’m going to hit him.”
“Spencer. Stop,” he begged, sounding exhausted. Just the few minutes he’d been crying carried the pressure of weeks spent locking everything up inside himself.
“No, Patrick. It’d be like you to try and protect his douche bag cheating ass while you fall apart. You’re too good for him. You’re too good for anyone.”
The accusation felt like a slap to the face. Patrick clamped his mouth shut, muffling the noise. He already felt stupid for not knowing how to stop loving someone who’d hurt him so badly, and now Spencer was judging him for it. He wound the fingers of his good hand into the comforter, strangling it tightly in an effort to get a hold of himself.
She was so mad that her hands were shaking at her sides so she wound her arms tight across her chest and paced away from the bed, only to turn around in an about face. Spencer had so little experience in the area of love she was clueless to the twisted, inner workings of it and the effect it had on the people infected with it.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
It took him a long time to answer. Patrick had to be sure to stuff the emotion away, out of sight, to protect himself and pride from further blows. When he spoke, his voice was low. It sounded like his nose was stuffed up, but he refused to sniffle or let on in any way that he’d let himself go for a while there.
“Because it’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing? Patrick,” she was dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. He ****ed up and you called him out on it. Why is that embarrassing?” The onslaught of vicious things she wanted to say tasted like copper on her tongue. It was becoming more clear that he was in no condition for her wrath.
“That I wasn’t enough to… I don’t know.” He shrugged his left shoulder, a lazy gesture full of childish ill-temper. “That I just wasn’t enough. That he picked someone else.”
“Stop it. Stop it right now.” He sniffled loudly at her, then. It did nothing to calm her flaring temper. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Betrayed, absolutely. Upset, for sure. He’s an asshole for taking you for granted. I don’t know how much of what he fed you was bull**** and what was the truth, but regardless, he’s the one who screwed up. It’s not your fault. None of it is.”
Now that he wasn’t outright sobbing any longer, Trick realized that he had a throbbing headache. Stuffed up sinuses weren’t helping things. He sniffled again, sounding frustrated when he exhaled. “Yeah well, I still feel like ****. Tonight it was like I was all alone. He was surrounded by people who were, like… I don’t know how to *** explain it, Spence’. It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. But I can’t help how I *** feel. I don’t want everyone knowing my business, but it comes at the cost of me being the one who’s standing off to the side while everyone else dotes on him.”
“Of course you’re going to feel like ****. He broke your heart. I’m--” she wanted to kill Ed. It didn’t matter to her one bit of an ounce that she wouldn’t even have to throw a punch to make him feel the ***. She also knew that if Patrick ever found out that she hit Ed, he’d likely never talk to her again. Spencer wanted to help him but she didn’t know how. Instinct threw her into defensive mode with walls made of skepticism and anger.
“I”m so mad right now.” Honesty helped somewhat, though for certain that’s not what she wanted to say.
Trick barked a mirthless laugh. “You and me both. I look back and don’t even recognize myself that night. That’s how I broke my arm, you know.” He turned his head a fraction of an inch, just far enough to bring her into his line of vision. “I beat the **** out of the other guy.”
Spencer was standing in the middle of his room, slightly closer to the bed than the door. She was a ball of tension wrapped up in the form of a skinny, blonde girl with dreads that were very near to uncoiling themselves into a mane of curls. “Good. Whether he knew or not. He deserved it.” Just like Ed does, was the silent follow up that she knew she didn’t have to say.
“Maybe,” Trick conceded. Then, because he thought maybe it would make her feel better (even though thinking about it made him feel even worse about himself), he told her another secret: “I slapped him.” After a short pause, he realized he needed to be more specific. “Ed. I slapped Ed, too.”
She stared at him where he lay. Patrick Richie was one of the kindest souls she knew, likely the only one. For what little time she’d known him, it still felt like forever. For the split second it had taken for that slap, he had likely wanted to take it back before his fingers had even left Ed’s face. It didn’t matter that he had caught his boyfriend cheating. Ed ripped Patrick’s heart clear from his chest and here he was feeling like he wasn’t good enough.
What Patrick said didn’t make Spencer feel better, it pissed her off even more. She lowered her gaze to the floor to hide the flames that likely burned the green of her eyes brighter. “Does anyone else know?”
The boy shook his head sullenly, gently stroking the kitten who had curled herself around his throat like a plump, fluffy scarf. “Just Connie and Balfour, because I needed their help getting Mal’s bookcases from Ed’s place.”
She was afraid if she relaxed her arms from their tight cross, she’d punch a wall. Patrick was not a fan of her Fight Club tendencies. The last thing she wanted to do was upset him more. She was doing a fine job as it were just trying to be his friend. Spencer shifted her weight from one hip to the other, lifting her gaze to the smooth curve of his back where he lay on the bed.
“Patrick, I just--” she smoothed her hands over her face, rubbing her palms along her cheeks. “You deserve to be happy. I don’t like that he ****ed that up.” Her hands fell to her sides.
“Yeah. Well.” He didn’t know what to say to that. Of course he agreed, but there was nothing he could come up with that would change the circumstances. There was nothing she could say to fix things, either. It had been good to get it out in the open, though. “It is what it is. Now you know the full reason why I’ve been moping around. I need my stupid arm to get better so I can get back to racing and this’ll all be tolerable.”
“That’s the stupidest phrase.” She mumbled it beneath her breath through the few steps it took her to get to his bed. Without an invitation, Spencer stretched out next to him on her back, balanced close to the edge. At one time they used to be able to both fit in the smallest spot not giving a whose its what about anything. Time had certainly left them stranded and fumbling for the right way. “Can we burn your mattress?”
Considering that he’d likened his unmade bed to his messy life already, the idea of burning the mattress now was almost hysterical. Patrick’s abrupt laugh startled Prim who had fallen asleep. With her tail bottlebrushed, she resettled by curling up in a tiny ball pressed up against his shoulder. Trick painted a fingertip along the top of her head adoringly.
“Sure. Why the **** not? Let’s do it.” Blue-gray eyes lifted from the kitten to study Spencer’s profile. She hadn’t lain in his bed with him for months and months. It brought back memories of a time before Ed.
She couldn’t help the grin that broke free and pulled the corners of her lips up into her cheeks. Her head fell to the side so she could catch his eyes with hers. “To the roof?”
“I can’t carry this thing up there with this beast.” Trick held up the cast, then set it back down to rest on his side against his hip. “Maybe we can push it out the window into the garden tomorrow.”
Spencer tucked her chin to her chest to peer over his shoulder at the window. “I think it’ll fit.” She honestly had no idea but it sounded like a whole lot of shouldn’t be had fun. Dropping her head, her eyes rolled to his cast. She reached across her stomach and drummed two fingers on the fiberglass. “I’ll fix this for you before you get it off. Then we can burn it too.”
Trick’s eyes dropped down to the neon orange cast, specifically where Spencer’s fingers tapped the hardened casting tape. There were four signatures there. “It’s lacking your particular flair for art, that’s for sure.”
She curled one of her fingers in, scratching the nail over the sealed edge of a strip of plastered gauze. “I just got a bunch of new Sharpies. I’m going to need you for an hour at least.” She pulled her hand back, lacing her fingers together over her stomach. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”
Patrick smiled at the thought of having Spencer’s ‘signature’ added to the others on the cast. “I think I just want to be alone tonight, but I’m all yours tomorrow.” Another sniffle to clear his nasal passages startled the kitten again. Disgruntled, she waddled away from him to make a nest for herself in the center of his pillow a foot away where she wouldn’t be disturbed. “If that’s all right,” he added. “I don’t know how long you have until work, but we can hang until you go.”
Spencer had been staring at the crack in the ceiling. It was the same one she’d stared at many nights before, so many times that she’d lost count. Her chin quivered in a nod. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be here until about noon.” Her balance on the edge of the bed allowed a foot to drop quietly to the floor. She curled up to sit, pausing once as she swung her other foot to the floor.
“I’ll come get you when I’m up.” This was said with a look she cast over her shoulder for him. And then she stood.
He didn’t get up, but twisted his upper body on the mattress to give him a better view of her looming, scarecrow frame. “Thanks for listening.”
Spencer’s smile was half the effort, one side curled up. “Always.”
She shut the door quietly behind her exit.
--
((Co-written with Spencer.))
Re: Aftertaste
Tuesday. 5/23/17 - 1:45 am
Wayside Manor
Mallory got back late from Kabuki Street, late enough that she made sure the walk from her ride to the house’s protective bubble was only a few steps; late enough that she made no effort to be silence the door or her footsteps, expecting the whole house to be deep into their sleep by now.
She was on her way up to the library, to dig through her scant texts on Shinto and Eastern demonology and feed a few of her hunches, when she spotted something through the open family room door: a flickering orange light, and a pale plume of smoke. For a moment she imagined Ed was out there on the patio, before she remembered that was impossible. He’s no longer allowed here.
She hooked her backpack onto the railing by one strap and now quieted her footsteps, observing Trick through the glass doors on her slow approach. He sat slouched in a deck chair stolen from the Dockside community pool. She rapped twice on the glass to get his attention before stepping out.
“Hey.” Her voice was hushed, befitting the early hour, and that Spencer’s bedroom window was only two stories above them.
Trick’s head lolled to one side to watch her approach. He lifted a hand to pluck the cigarette from his mouth so he could say, “Hey.” Droll. Unmotivated. The boy’s mouth curled into a brief, lazy smile before the cigarette was replaced. “It’s late. You just getting in?”
Her eyes narrowed, but it wasn’t reproachful. It was almost pleased. “You’re a little high. But, yeah,” she said, and stretched her hands up towards the twinkling stars as she leaned into the brick wall behind him. “Spent the day checking out old shrines with Eri, then we hung out and watched movies for a while. You know.” He knew. There was less blushing and no denials anymore when her small circle of friends teased her about the Kabuki Street gangster.
“Eri’s nice,” Trick said. He tipped his face back up toward at the sky. “I like her.” He didn’t say anything else, puffing idly at the cigarette until it formed a precarious stack of ash on the end that eventually broke away to spill down the front of his shirt.
She lowered her gaze to study Trick’s profile while he smoked. “Restless night?”
He shrugged, glancing away from the stars to catch and hold her gaze for a split second. “Yeah, I guess. I got used to, like… you know, sharing a bed with someone. It’s nice. Now nighttime sucks balls.”
She nodded slowly when he explained. Falling asleep with another body in her bed was not so familiar to her, but she imagined similar painful yearning. “That must ache,” she ventured carefully. Her eyes didn’t leave him.
“Yeah. But it’s whatever.” He could feel her watching him, so after smoking the cigarette down to the filter, he leaned over the side of the deck chair to drop the butt in the soda can being used as an ashtray. “I’ll get over it eventually.”
Mallory opened her mouth, then shut it. The past few weeks of her interactions with Trick -- Mother of God, only three ****ing weeks since Beltane? replayed in her mind as she chewed on her next words.
“Pain isn’t… whatever. People hurt until they heal, and **** like this? Hurts. And it’s okay to feel that way.” She ducked her head to look at him, her smile uncertain but caring. “Hell, I’d kinda worry if you didn’t.”
“But it’s stupid to be pining for some guy who cheated on me. I don’t want to hurt anymore, Mal. I want to forget. I want to forget that I was dumb enough to give someone everything.” Trick pushed up from the chair to pace the length of the patio, batting mosquitoes away with his good hand. He kept his back to Mallory. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not -- not for trusting him, and not for the pain,” she said as she trailed a few steps after him. “But trying to forget never stops the pain. It’s still there, until you… deal with it, and let yourself figure out why it hurts so ****ing much instead of telling yourself why it shouldn’t, or why it shouldn’t have happened to begin with. Be sad. Be angry. Whatever the **** it is, it’s fine,” she said, taking another step closer, looking imploringly at his back, though her plea could be heard easily in her voice. “Trust me. It is. You’ve seen my anger, you’ve seen my sadness, even my deepest fear, and it doesn’t make me any weaker. It doesn’t make any of us weaker. The only thing that wears us down is bottling it up -- letting it claw at us from the inside.”
It really didn’t take much to set him off anymore. That’s was the trouble in bottling it up. The pressure builds and builds until at last the smallest chip in the armor makes for an explosive release. Patrick couldn’t see for the tears pouring silently down his cheeks. He did a wonderful job at being quiet about it, but there was no helping the occasionally shudder of his shoulders. He tucked the cast against his bare chest, propped at the elbow by the opposite arm. Almost like he was hugging himself.
“I don’t know why,” Trick cried quietly. “I’ve tried to figure it out. I really have. But I don’t know how to explain any part of what I’m feeling. There’s just all this anger and hate. It’s toxic. It’s--it’s suffocating me. I keep replaying that whole night in my head: it was like I was another person. I beat someone, Mal. And even worse, I slapped--” He choked on a shuddering gasp, held it for a few seconds, then blew it out slowly through loosely pursed lips in an attempt to calm down. “It was after I broke my hand. I was on the ground and Ed was trying to make sure I was okay; he called me ‘Baby’ and I just--snapped. I hit him. ****, I hit him.” Trick squeezed his eyes shut, shoulders rolling forward as he pressed his thumb and fingers against his eyelids until he saw stars. “Why did I do that?”
“Because what he did to you that night made you angry,” Mallory replied. A surge of ache, of a powerful yearning to stop this hurt, welled up inside of her. “It was… completely ****ed up. It made no sense. It hurt, and you wanted him to know what that felt like.”
She slid one hand over his shoulder, gave him a gentle squeeze. “You’re a good person. You’re the best man I know. Giving in to a moment of anger, after being betrayed? Doesn’t change that. And being angry at him now doesn’t change that either. He hurt you. Whatever his reasons, he made choices that caused you pain, and you don’t need any better reason to shout, or cry, or… set your mattress on fire. No judgment,” she added to the last with a breathless laugh as she circled to face him.
By the time Mallory was finished speaking, Trick was crying in earnest behind the ineffective shield of a hand pressed tightly to his face.
“C’mere,” Mallory murmured, opening her arms to fold around him, cradling his head to her shoulder as fractious sobs shook his frame. No sense in hiding that shadow inside you. Stop its silent feast and let it go. Sigh, and sigh, until all the poison leaves your lungs; let it wither on the air, she willed her thoughts into the aether, for all the difference they’d make.
--
((Co-written with Mallory.))
Wayside Manor
Mallory got back late from Kabuki Street, late enough that she made sure the walk from her ride to the house’s protective bubble was only a few steps; late enough that she made no effort to be silence the door or her footsteps, expecting the whole house to be deep into their sleep by now.
She was on her way up to the library, to dig through her scant texts on Shinto and Eastern demonology and feed a few of her hunches, when she spotted something through the open family room door: a flickering orange light, and a pale plume of smoke. For a moment she imagined Ed was out there on the patio, before she remembered that was impossible. He’s no longer allowed here.
She hooked her backpack onto the railing by one strap and now quieted her footsteps, observing Trick through the glass doors on her slow approach. He sat slouched in a deck chair stolen from the Dockside community pool. She rapped twice on the glass to get his attention before stepping out.
“Hey.” Her voice was hushed, befitting the early hour, and that Spencer’s bedroom window was only two stories above them.
Trick’s head lolled to one side to watch her approach. He lifted a hand to pluck the cigarette from his mouth so he could say, “Hey.” Droll. Unmotivated. The boy’s mouth curled into a brief, lazy smile before the cigarette was replaced. “It’s late. You just getting in?”
Her eyes narrowed, but it wasn’t reproachful. It was almost pleased. “You’re a little high. But, yeah,” she said, and stretched her hands up towards the twinkling stars as she leaned into the brick wall behind him. “Spent the day checking out old shrines with Eri, then we hung out and watched movies for a while. You know.” He knew. There was less blushing and no denials anymore when her small circle of friends teased her about the Kabuki Street gangster.
“Eri’s nice,” Trick said. He tipped his face back up toward at the sky. “I like her.” He didn’t say anything else, puffing idly at the cigarette until it formed a precarious stack of ash on the end that eventually broke away to spill down the front of his shirt.
She lowered her gaze to study Trick’s profile while he smoked. “Restless night?”
He shrugged, glancing away from the stars to catch and hold her gaze for a split second. “Yeah, I guess. I got used to, like… you know, sharing a bed with someone. It’s nice. Now nighttime sucks balls.”
She nodded slowly when he explained. Falling asleep with another body in her bed was not so familiar to her, but she imagined similar painful yearning. “That must ache,” she ventured carefully. Her eyes didn’t leave him.
“Yeah. But it’s whatever.” He could feel her watching him, so after smoking the cigarette down to the filter, he leaned over the side of the deck chair to drop the butt in the soda can being used as an ashtray. “I’ll get over it eventually.”
Mallory opened her mouth, then shut it. The past few weeks of her interactions with Trick -- Mother of God, only three ****ing weeks since Beltane? replayed in her mind as she chewed on her next words.
“Pain isn’t… whatever. People hurt until they heal, and **** like this? Hurts. And it’s okay to feel that way.” She ducked her head to look at him, her smile uncertain but caring. “Hell, I’d kinda worry if you didn’t.”
“But it’s stupid to be pining for some guy who cheated on me. I don’t want to hurt anymore, Mal. I want to forget. I want to forget that I was dumb enough to give someone everything.” Trick pushed up from the chair to pace the length of the patio, batting mosquitoes away with his good hand. He kept his back to Mallory. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not -- not for trusting him, and not for the pain,” she said as she trailed a few steps after him. “But trying to forget never stops the pain. It’s still there, until you… deal with it, and let yourself figure out why it hurts so ****ing much instead of telling yourself why it shouldn’t, or why it shouldn’t have happened to begin with. Be sad. Be angry. Whatever the **** it is, it’s fine,” she said, taking another step closer, looking imploringly at his back, though her plea could be heard easily in her voice. “Trust me. It is. You’ve seen my anger, you’ve seen my sadness, even my deepest fear, and it doesn’t make me any weaker. It doesn’t make any of us weaker. The only thing that wears us down is bottling it up -- letting it claw at us from the inside.”
It really didn’t take much to set him off anymore. That’s was the trouble in bottling it up. The pressure builds and builds until at last the smallest chip in the armor makes for an explosive release. Patrick couldn’t see for the tears pouring silently down his cheeks. He did a wonderful job at being quiet about it, but there was no helping the occasionally shudder of his shoulders. He tucked the cast against his bare chest, propped at the elbow by the opposite arm. Almost like he was hugging himself.
“I don’t know why,” Trick cried quietly. “I’ve tried to figure it out. I really have. But I don’t know how to explain any part of what I’m feeling. There’s just all this anger and hate. It’s toxic. It’s--it’s suffocating me. I keep replaying that whole night in my head: it was like I was another person. I beat someone, Mal. And even worse, I slapped--” He choked on a shuddering gasp, held it for a few seconds, then blew it out slowly through loosely pursed lips in an attempt to calm down. “It was after I broke my hand. I was on the ground and Ed was trying to make sure I was okay; he called me ‘Baby’ and I just--snapped. I hit him. ****, I hit him.” Trick squeezed his eyes shut, shoulders rolling forward as he pressed his thumb and fingers against his eyelids until he saw stars. “Why did I do that?”
“Because what he did to you that night made you angry,” Mallory replied. A surge of ache, of a powerful yearning to stop this hurt, welled up inside of her. “It was… completely ****ed up. It made no sense. It hurt, and you wanted him to know what that felt like.”
She slid one hand over his shoulder, gave him a gentle squeeze. “You’re a good person. You’re the best man I know. Giving in to a moment of anger, after being betrayed? Doesn’t change that. And being angry at him now doesn’t change that either. He hurt you. Whatever his reasons, he made choices that caused you pain, and you don’t need any better reason to shout, or cry, or… set your mattress on fire. No judgment,” she added to the last with a breathless laugh as she circled to face him.
By the time Mallory was finished speaking, Trick was crying in earnest behind the ineffective shield of a hand pressed tightly to his face.
“C’mere,” Mallory murmured, opening her arms to fold around him, cradling his head to her shoulder as fractious sobs shook his frame. No sense in hiding that shadow inside you. Stop its silent feast and let it go. Sigh, and sigh, until all the poison leaves your lungs; let it wither on the air, she willed her thoughts into the aether, for all the difference they’d make.
--
((Co-written with Mallory.))
Re: Aftertaste
Saturday. 5-27-17
Teas n’ Tomes
Receiving a text from Trick had jolted Ed with a weird and uncomfortable mixture of emotions. There had been a moment of elation, followed immediately by dread. What could he possibly want to say to him? More of the same, he suspected. You're an awful person and I hate you. He half expected to get slapped again. But he put on a brave face, took several deep breaths, smoked half a pack of cigarettes, and found himself here, where requested, pacing in front of the wide windows on the pavement outside of the tea and book shop. He was on his eleventh cigarette.
When Patrick turned the corner onto the main street that led to the marketplace, he stopped to watch Ed pace and power his way through a cigarette. Given the chance to admire from afar while knowing they weren't going to be pretending the other doesn't exist, he lingered there until Eddie started on the twelfth cigarette to force himself to press on.
He pulled out a cigarette of his own and got it lit while crossing the street. He passed Dam's flower shop, silently growing more panicked with every step that led him closer to Teas. A tight knot of tension formed in his chest, clogging his throat and robbing his mind of the speech he'd been preparing for days.
When Ed saw Patrick, he froze. Not so much like a deer in headlights as a rabbit in an open field, being watched, ready to bolt. Smoke spiraled off the burning end of his cigarette and circled his head. His heart felt as if it were being simultaneously twisted, stabbed, and set on fire.
A little too much smoke got into his throat as he stared. Ed choked, coughed, and dropped his cigarette, stamping it out with the toe of his shoe. When he looked back up, he had forced a warm and welcoming smile into place, because like hell was he going to let the other boy see his fear, if he could help it. Though there was a mantra playing out in his head -- please don't hit me again, on repeat.
That smile damn near stopped Patrick’s heart. It hurt so much. So much. The air left his lungs in a rush, expelling a toxic swirl of smoke. This had seemed like a better idea when the source of his pain wasn't staring him in the face, smiling at him like nothing at all had happened. Trick had to remind himself that Ed was very good at lying.
He drew to a stop roughly five feet away, a visible tension pulling his shoulders back almost painfully tight. He kept his cigarette like it was a shield between them. It gave his good hand something to do since the right hung uselessly at his side, a bright, neon orange sign of truth. The elephant in the room.
"Thanks for meeting me. I, um... this isn't something I wanted to do over the phone or whatever."
Of course Ed did not look at the cast, found he could not. For a fleeting fraction of a second his eyes dipped toward it and then hastily darted away to look up and beyond. He forced himself to meet Trick's eyes, no matter how uncomfortable it was likely to make them both. And there, on his face, he deliberated to keep his focus.
Without a cigarette in hand, he struggled to find something to do with them. His shorts were too tight to jam them in the pockets. He settled on tucking his arms behind his back and holding his hands together. He bobbed his head stupidly up and down, maintaining a strained sort of smile. He wanted to say something along the lines of, Of course! I'd meet you anywhere, any time you asked! But that kind of eager to please blissfulness, he knew, wasn't the least bit appropriate. Instead, he lamely said, "You're, um, welcome."
The speech had not yet come back to Trick, his mind infuriatingly blank after days of preparation. No, not blank -- filled with other things. Like the way seeing Ed's green clothes reminded him that he'd been avoiding that color for nearly a month. Or the way the snug fit of the boy's shorts dredged up memories of his peeling them from Ed's body during quiet moments tucked away in their rooms. The urge to hug him, the desire to touch his hair or kiss his lips was almost overwhelming. It left him standing there stupidly, silently searching for something to force out of his mouth. Finally, Trick had to look away. It was too much to look at any part of Edgar Smith, let alone his eyes.
When the younger boy looked away, Ed did too, deciding to spare him the discomfort of being stared at, longingly. The tiniest glimpse of Patrick's lips reminded him of all the eager kisses they had shared, passionate and loving, sometimes both together. The sight of the cast was a reminder of how violent Trick could be, and he refused to look at it, to look below the other boy's chin at all. If he saw his hands, he knew he'd remember all of the gentle, worshipful touches they'd shared. That was over now. Nothing he said or did could right the wrongs he'd done, and he disagreed. He felt he had deserved it, even if the memory made him flinch. His fingers clamped around his wrist, behind his back, and he swayed where he stood.
Patrick puffed at the cigarette a moment longer, then ashed it off to the side and cleared his throat. "I just... I wanted to let you know that--that I'm..." He pulled in a deep breath and forced himself to man up. You're better than this. He lifted his eyes to lock with Ed's. "I'm sorry. For hitting you. That was completely ****ty of me." A rush of adrenaline surged through his veins, making him shake with emotion. "You didn't deserve that. No one does. Not even--" Nope. He couldn't bring himself to say Goshen's name. It filled him with bitter jealousy to even think about it. "Nothing makes that okay and I'm sorry. I just needed you to know that."
For a stretch of time Ed only nodded dumbly, again and again. A verbal apology was nice. He should acknowledge that. Respond. Say something! "Okay." Ugh. "I mean, thank you. For apologizing." He looked down, head hanging, and scuffed the pavement with the toe of his shoe. "I'm sorry too. I really am. For hurting you." That wasn't enough, but he didn't know what else to say or do. He couldn't fix things, undo what he'd done. Shame hung heavy on his shoulders.
Okay. Okay. The word was like a hot knife jammed into Trick’s stomach and twisted. The knot of tension grew, tugging on each of the strings that were attached to the other parts of his body, pulling them so tightly that his body sang with rigidity. Of course, Ed followed it up with more, but okay had left him floundering.
Patrick glanced down at the cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, realizing it had burned itself all the way up what was left to the filter. He flicked it into the street and pushed that hand through his hair, exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding hostage in his chest. He stared at the older boy, brows coming together in the slightest furrow. His mouth opened, then closed. Trick couldn't say anything for close to a minute while his mind worked furiously through the words that wanted to come tumbling out of his mouth. Finally, he chose to let it pass. His expression smoothed out. He nodded once. "Thanks."
Edgar struggled to keep his feet rooted to the spot, sort of shuffling and swaying in one place. He was leaving bruises on his own wrist, he knew, but he also knew if he let go it would be like launching himself from a slingshot. He wanted to fling himself at Patrick's feet and beg for his forgiveness, his mercy. He wanted to hug him tight and never let go again.
The strength of his own restraint had tears welling up in his eyes. If he kept his head bowed, hair slipping into his face, he reasoned the younger boy would never see them. If he didn't say anything, Patrick wouldn't hear how close he was to breaking, too. This did not feel like closure. What was there to say that wouldn't open up hardly scabbed over wounds? He was sure Trick hated him; there was no need to ask for verification. So he only nodded, vaguely, because 'you're welcome' seemed an insufficient response. Keep your head down. Don't make it worse than it already is.
Patrick waited long enough to figure out that Ed wasn't going to say anything else. As the seconds crept by, the silence yawning between them, he tried not to feel disappointed by the lack. That Ed had nothing more to say wasn't a surprise; in truth, he'd expected it, but that hadn't stopped a tiny kernel of hope growing that after being lied to for so long, he'd finally get the truth.
But this brief meeting wasn't about any of that. It was a way for Trick to let go of that night, a step he needed to take so he could get out of the rut of self-flagellation, of being hyper focused on his own shortcomings. Apologizing and admitting he was wrong had been uncomfortable, but the right thing to do, and he felt better for it.
With nothing left to do, Trick nodded one last time and took a step back.
The step back lifted Ed’s head, slowly like a beaten dog who was uncertain if this was just a ruse, the backing off. His fingers loosened and one hand fell away from the other. One arm fell limp at his side, but he lifted his left hand to scrub the back of his wrist across the corner of his mouth, then the knuckle of his thumb back across his eyes. He'd almost cried.
"Have a good life, Eddie. I hope you..." A carefully regulated exhale was followed by a deep breath in. "...find everything you're looking for."
Ed sniffed (but still did not cry) and nodded, but then shook his head. I don't even know what I'm looking for, he thought. Those words stung, like he felt they were intended to do. They felt like goodbye. "You're going to make somebody real happy someday, Patrick," he heard himself saying. Thoughts he couldn't keep in now just spilled on out. "Like you did me. I'm sorry I messed everything up." The tears were welling back up again, and he turned, feeling the cracks in the dam grow. "I'm sorry," he said again. Took a step. Another. He didn't exactly run, but he hurried to walk away. He wasn't going to say goodbye. He refused.
--
((Adapted from live play with Ed.))
Teas n’ Tomes
Receiving a text from Trick had jolted Ed with a weird and uncomfortable mixture of emotions. There had been a moment of elation, followed immediately by dread. What could he possibly want to say to him? More of the same, he suspected. You're an awful person and I hate you. He half expected to get slapped again. But he put on a brave face, took several deep breaths, smoked half a pack of cigarettes, and found himself here, where requested, pacing in front of the wide windows on the pavement outside of the tea and book shop. He was on his eleventh cigarette.
When Patrick turned the corner onto the main street that led to the marketplace, he stopped to watch Ed pace and power his way through a cigarette. Given the chance to admire from afar while knowing they weren't going to be pretending the other doesn't exist, he lingered there until Eddie started on the twelfth cigarette to force himself to press on.
He pulled out a cigarette of his own and got it lit while crossing the street. He passed Dam's flower shop, silently growing more panicked with every step that led him closer to Teas. A tight knot of tension formed in his chest, clogging his throat and robbing his mind of the speech he'd been preparing for days.
When Ed saw Patrick, he froze. Not so much like a deer in headlights as a rabbit in an open field, being watched, ready to bolt. Smoke spiraled off the burning end of his cigarette and circled his head. His heart felt as if it were being simultaneously twisted, stabbed, and set on fire.
A little too much smoke got into his throat as he stared. Ed choked, coughed, and dropped his cigarette, stamping it out with the toe of his shoe. When he looked back up, he had forced a warm and welcoming smile into place, because like hell was he going to let the other boy see his fear, if he could help it. Though there was a mantra playing out in his head -- please don't hit me again, on repeat.
That smile damn near stopped Patrick’s heart. It hurt so much. So much. The air left his lungs in a rush, expelling a toxic swirl of smoke. This had seemed like a better idea when the source of his pain wasn't staring him in the face, smiling at him like nothing at all had happened. Trick had to remind himself that Ed was very good at lying.
He drew to a stop roughly five feet away, a visible tension pulling his shoulders back almost painfully tight. He kept his cigarette like it was a shield between them. It gave his good hand something to do since the right hung uselessly at his side, a bright, neon orange sign of truth. The elephant in the room.
"Thanks for meeting me. I, um... this isn't something I wanted to do over the phone or whatever."
Of course Ed did not look at the cast, found he could not. For a fleeting fraction of a second his eyes dipped toward it and then hastily darted away to look up and beyond. He forced himself to meet Trick's eyes, no matter how uncomfortable it was likely to make them both. And there, on his face, he deliberated to keep his focus.
Without a cigarette in hand, he struggled to find something to do with them. His shorts were too tight to jam them in the pockets. He settled on tucking his arms behind his back and holding his hands together. He bobbed his head stupidly up and down, maintaining a strained sort of smile. He wanted to say something along the lines of, Of course! I'd meet you anywhere, any time you asked! But that kind of eager to please blissfulness, he knew, wasn't the least bit appropriate. Instead, he lamely said, "You're, um, welcome."
The speech had not yet come back to Trick, his mind infuriatingly blank after days of preparation. No, not blank -- filled with other things. Like the way seeing Ed's green clothes reminded him that he'd been avoiding that color for nearly a month. Or the way the snug fit of the boy's shorts dredged up memories of his peeling them from Ed's body during quiet moments tucked away in their rooms. The urge to hug him, the desire to touch his hair or kiss his lips was almost overwhelming. It left him standing there stupidly, silently searching for something to force out of his mouth. Finally, Trick had to look away. It was too much to look at any part of Edgar Smith, let alone his eyes.
When the younger boy looked away, Ed did too, deciding to spare him the discomfort of being stared at, longingly. The tiniest glimpse of Patrick's lips reminded him of all the eager kisses they had shared, passionate and loving, sometimes both together. The sight of the cast was a reminder of how violent Trick could be, and he refused to look at it, to look below the other boy's chin at all. If he saw his hands, he knew he'd remember all of the gentle, worshipful touches they'd shared. That was over now. Nothing he said or did could right the wrongs he'd done, and he disagreed. He felt he had deserved it, even if the memory made him flinch. His fingers clamped around his wrist, behind his back, and he swayed where he stood.
Patrick puffed at the cigarette a moment longer, then ashed it off to the side and cleared his throat. "I just... I wanted to let you know that--that I'm..." He pulled in a deep breath and forced himself to man up. You're better than this. He lifted his eyes to lock with Ed's. "I'm sorry. For hitting you. That was completely ****ty of me." A rush of adrenaline surged through his veins, making him shake with emotion. "You didn't deserve that. No one does. Not even--" Nope. He couldn't bring himself to say Goshen's name. It filled him with bitter jealousy to even think about it. "Nothing makes that okay and I'm sorry. I just needed you to know that."
For a stretch of time Ed only nodded dumbly, again and again. A verbal apology was nice. He should acknowledge that. Respond. Say something! "Okay." Ugh. "I mean, thank you. For apologizing." He looked down, head hanging, and scuffed the pavement with the toe of his shoe. "I'm sorry too. I really am. For hurting you." That wasn't enough, but he didn't know what else to say or do. He couldn't fix things, undo what he'd done. Shame hung heavy on his shoulders.
Okay. Okay. The word was like a hot knife jammed into Trick’s stomach and twisted. The knot of tension grew, tugging on each of the strings that were attached to the other parts of his body, pulling them so tightly that his body sang with rigidity. Of course, Ed followed it up with more, but okay had left him floundering.
Patrick glanced down at the cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, realizing it had burned itself all the way up what was left to the filter. He flicked it into the street and pushed that hand through his hair, exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding hostage in his chest. He stared at the older boy, brows coming together in the slightest furrow. His mouth opened, then closed. Trick couldn't say anything for close to a minute while his mind worked furiously through the words that wanted to come tumbling out of his mouth. Finally, he chose to let it pass. His expression smoothed out. He nodded once. "Thanks."
Edgar struggled to keep his feet rooted to the spot, sort of shuffling and swaying in one place. He was leaving bruises on his own wrist, he knew, but he also knew if he let go it would be like launching himself from a slingshot. He wanted to fling himself at Patrick's feet and beg for his forgiveness, his mercy. He wanted to hug him tight and never let go again.
The strength of his own restraint had tears welling up in his eyes. If he kept his head bowed, hair slipping into his face, he reasoned the younger boy would never see them. If he didn't say anything, Patrick wouldn't hear how close he was to breaking, too. This did not feel like closure. What was there to say that wouldn't open up hardly scabbed over wounds? He was sure Trick hated him; there was no need to ask for verification. So he only nodded, vaguely, because 'you're welcome' seemed an insufficient response. Keep your head down. Don't make it worse than it already is.
Patrick waited long enough to figure out that Ed wasn't going to say anything else. As the seconds crept by, the silence yawning between them, he tried not to feel disappointed by the lack. That Ed had nothing more to say wasn't a surprise; in truth, he'd expected it, but that hadn't stopped a tiny kernel of hope growing that after being lied to for so long, he'd finally get the truth.
But this brief meeting wasn't about any of that. It was a way for Trick to let go of that night, a step he needed to take so he could get out of the rut of self-flagellation, of being hyper focused on his own shortcomings. Apologizing and admitting he was wrong had been uncomfortable, but the right thing to do, and he felt better for it.
With nothing left to do, Trick nodded one last time and took a step back.
The step back lifted Ed’s head, slowly like a beaten dog who was uncertain if this was just a ruse, the backing off. His fingers loosened and one hand fell away from the other. One arm fell limp at his side, but he lifted his left hand to scrub the back of his wrist across the corner of his mouth, then the knuckle of his thumb back across his eyes. He'd almost cried.
"Have a good life, Eddie. I hope you..." A carefully regulated exhale was followed by a deep breath in. "...find everything you're looking for."
Ed sniffed (but still did not cry) and nodded, but then shook his head. I don't even know what I'm looking for, he thought. Those words stung, like he felt they were intended to do. They felt like goodbye. "You're going to make somebody real happy someday, Patrick," he heard himself saying. Thoughts he couldn't keep in now just spilled on out. "Like you did me. I'm sorry I messed everything up." The tears were welling back up again, and he turned, feeling the cracks in the dam grow. "I'm sorry," he said again. Took a step. Another. He didn't exactly run, but he hurried to walk away. He wasn't going to say goodbye. He refused.
--
((Adapted from live play with Ed.))
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