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Ashton Sanders in Chloe x Halle’s “The Kids Are Alright”

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happy birthday, sabrina! (and @halfrest - belated)

featured above: photo galleries of uriah and salem respectively; each on and featuring sabribri's glorious birthday (and days leading up to) + hot girl parker and beloved family. kisses and hugs!

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LAURA HARRIER via instagram

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colors dipped in and out of her periphery, never entering the center of her visual field, eclipsed by a black hole. an eerie trap to be stuck in, but deliverance came in the form of a giggle, bright colors now flooding each and every inch, one overcoming the rest — a deep rose flush. the heat ran across sasha’s cheek, brushing and adorning and accentuating, until it hid from alice’s view beneath jet back curls. alice blinked a few times to bring sasha into view, blurred lines now concrete. “no,” a few more blinks, then a sigh. alice reached to pull one of sasha’s curls, an attempt to feel something physical to ground herself further. “well, actually shrooms — at one of my college friend’s bachelorette parties. they were all blonde though, so it was unsettling. not like this. i don't know what this is. do you?”

sasha rolled over on the couch she was slumped into, whole body feeling like a physical shimmer. she could swear there were four of the person next to her and she bit her tongue and giggled. "i don't remember the last time i felt like this. do you?" as though everyone was turning into a sequin. as though everyone could see out of her eyes. she was humming softly to the song playing from almost everywhere in the humid house party. something sad, but only if you listened to the words, which sasha was not.

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“dude. unreleased demos from venom dreams’ google drive,” landon introduces, voice thick with reverence as if they were handling the holy book itself. genuine, too, an admirer of their friend’s music; a fan long before they made acquaintance. “beau, like, sent them over to see if they’d help us out of our rut. isn’t that sick?” they place the laptop back onto the desk and settle into one of the chairs, pulling the empty one beside them closer for evie to sit. “which one y'wanna start with?” ( @moiridics )

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30 ROCK — 1.02

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Madelaine Petsch for Flaunt Magazine

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sabrina had told salem she’d only be a moment, would grab her gift and return to the living room where all the hugging and loving was afloat. not that she’d forgotten, but sabrina figured she could be quick and was now engrossed with unpacking. she hated leaving a mess unattended for even a second; a stress response if therapized. right now, apprehension fluttered in the form of a raspberry-sized something in the hollow of her abdomen. it mirrored the baggie of pills ( provided by him ) stowed away amongst advil and zyrtec in order to be indiscernible, untouched since her realization, despite being sure harm’s already been done. then again, she’s not sure about any of it. salem doesn’t make much more noise than usual when she wanders in, but it’s enough to cause sabrina to jump. “shit, — i mean, yeah sorry, shit,” she settles, not quite sure how to censor while in shock. “sorry, i just got caught up. you know me.” there’s a half-hearted shrug and then sabrina leans down to shake a framed painting from between layers of clothes where she had it cushioned for safe travel. “apparently in the 60s, the man my grandmother was seeing commissioned a painting of her…naked,” she turns the frame around to reveal the aforementioned woman completely bare with only silk fabrics hanging at her elbows. “i didn’t want to get rid of it because frankly, it’s amazing, but i also don’t want to keep a painting of my naked grandma. i figured you’d appreciate the artistry and the tits.” ( @vanisheveryday )

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Nausea bubbled in and out, somewhat satiated by medication and small sips of water or broth, anything more robust would send her straight to the toilet. There was a thread of fear at the back of Sabrina’s mind, missed days highlighted on her phone’s app, an exhaustion deeper than the one always present. Still, there was the bleeding — the spotting a week ago, although that hadn’t lasted long. Always careful, except for one night, but even still, it was one night; of course, it would be that one night. Sabrina thought if she didn’t think about it, it would cease to exist. The possibility of something — someone growing inside her gone.  Her body, though, wouldn’t let her mind exist in such a state of ignorance. Never did. The nausea was now accompanied by waves of pain, searing pain that dug into her abdomen, causing droplets of sweat to run down her face despite the coldness in her limbs. It was in between these episodes that she was able to gather some strength, hoping the sound of the door was Maribel forgetting her key. It wasn’t. Sabrina stared in confusion and Ducky’s words seemed to float, his broken speech broken further by the ringing in her ears. Hands reach out to grasp his arms, trying to hold onto something steady, while pulling him in and out of sight, door falling shut behind them. “I, uh, need you to —,” words fade as a curtain of black cuts off her vision and then there’s nothing. — Fluorescent lights blind her, the smell of antiseptic and something sour at the back of her throat, but there’s no nausea now, and that’s a relief. Sabrina remembers dreaming about vials filled with blood, questions left unanswered, cold gel against her belly. All a dream. A bad dream, and she’s awake now. She attempts to push herself up, but ends up tugging some rope, eliciting a rhythmic beeping and that’s when she sees Ducky and the IV bags hung above her, the monitor’s lights turned orange. You’ve got to be careful not to crush these lines or else the alarms will be unending. Good to see you awake. I’m Chris, I’ll be your nurse tonight.  The nurse’s voice seemingly comes out of nowhere and Sabrina lets him adjust her, confused, but nods along until he’s gone once more. “What happened?” She asks, voice barely above a whisper, trying to catch Ducky’s gaze, hoping he says anything other than what she already knows.

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"Surprise." He offered, weakly - as Sabrina opened the door to her apartment; he was sure that she'd been expecting Mercy - but he fucked off somewhere, and every moment Ducky wasn't working, he felt restless. Helpless - useless. Impatient. "Sorry I'm not, uh - who you were expecting, probably. But, uh - got what... you want, so. Can I come inside? Your neighbor, uh - is looking at me through their peephole, I think - saw 'em... walking inside, when I came up, so - yeah."

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Rowan didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she felt Mercy against her, eliciting a gasp of air that brought some relief, fingers entangled in his hair, holding him close, chest heaving in beat with the sound of his breaths. Uncertain if she had managed, having him this tangible was enough for now, missed once he pulled away. She was focused solely on his being, bloodied lip forgotten, heat percolating her cheeks that had gone pale. A smile of reprieve came with a sear of pain in reminder. Before Rowan could attend to it, she felt Mercy shift, felt his fingers against her lips and all she could do was lean into the touch even as he pulled away. The heat had now traveled to her core, turned into something aching and carnal. Nothing new, but it had become harder to smother. Time and time again. The brief moments of vulnerability were what kept her up at night and distracted during the day. Rowan sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, swallowed hard, the thin line they tread on growing faint in the midst of the dying adrenalin. “Of course, I was worried,” voice gravelly, re-learning how to speak words. She was now brushing strands of his hair back into place, not wanting to lose this moment, but knowing her own tendencies paralleled his. Mercy was talented at giving her just enough before cutting the cord. She didn’t think it was a trap, even if that may have been naive of her; she just knew that tenderness was hard to stomach once you’ve been forced to live without it. Rowan decided to steal a bit more time, though, and try — she closed the distance to press a kiss to the right side of his jaw and then cheek and then lips, kisses that were too brief, before they were eye-to-eye once more. “I mean, if talking back to Rocky was bad, then imagine if I fucked up the arm of the guy leading the drug ring.” Brought back to the reality of the situation, she worked to douse those flames, a safety mechanism for her own heart. Her hand had fallen against his neck, thumb along his jawline. “You’re okay, right? Not just your arm, but you said you’d gotten into a fight with someone who works with your dad? You owe me that much. Tell me what happened, please.” And, she tried to sound assertive but could hear the echo of a scared little girl pretending.

Mercy watched, and was somewhat comforted, as her face seemed to melt from shiftiness to something more secure. A steadiness he didn’t even particularly feel, but he had no choice in this situation. Forced to put his well-being into the hands of someone else was a concept so foreign that even now, Mercy didn’t fully trust Rowan wouldn’t suddenly try to wrench his arm right out of its socket, just because she could. He wouldn’t blame her if she did - he’d dragged her into this part of his life with little to no thought of the consequences. But she’d just been a face then, a pretty one that could get anyone else to warm up to her, trust her even. Now she was Rowan, and she was holding his arm like a lifeline, and all he could do was allow it to happen. “Okay. Good.” His words broke into two as Rowan wasted no time, simultaneously pulling and pushing until there was a yank, a scrape, and then an audible pop paired with Mercy’s pained cry. It sounded more like a bark than anything, didn’t even manage to last a second before he was automatically staunching any noises of discomfort. If Vinny had been there, he would’ve started playing lego with the rest of Mercy’s limbs - shifting them in and out of proper position - until he could sit stoic throughout the entire thing. But it was Rowan, and she’d done it right, like they’d faux-promised each other. Liquor coursed through his veins, paired with adrenaline and relief from the searing pain he’d been feeling for the last hour, and it made his vision swim in a way he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Hadn’t even noticed that he’d flopped forward, forehead resting on Rowan’s sternum and good hand (somewhat, fingers that weren’t taped together) clutching at the fabric of her shirt by her hip. “Fuck.” He wheezed, hair stuck to his forehead when he finally pulled back, flashing Rowan a grateful glance - as grateful as he could look. “Good. You did good.” Words syrupy and somewhat slurred now. Brows already pinching again as he took in her face, blood welling up on her bottom lip. His brain still consisted of nothing but mush, so Mercy didn’t really think much about it when he let go of her to swipe away the mess, deliberately careful with his actions the same way she’d been with him. “Fuck did you do? That worried about lil ol’ me?” His voice was strained, still with pain, excursion - something else as well, before slipping his thumb, still covered in Rowan’s blood, into his mouth and lapping at the excess. As if it were a normal thing to do. “You okay? C’mere, lemme see.”

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“‘m just answering your question,” tallulah offers, less of a retort than a fact. “you don’t need protection from furries. only from yourself, i reckon. there’s a hole right there.” hand moves away from his arm, to jab a finger straight into his chest. “there as well,” she points upward, not exactly reaching the middle of cash’s forehead but almost there. 

“what’s your family like?”

cash's eyebrows do their best to meet in the middle as his confusion mounts. "protection from what? them furry people? this some kinda superstitious shit? ma'am, look, all due respect, but i don't believe that anthropomorphism is at all realistic, though i do not doubt the draw of some humans to it - know we're all drawn to all sorts of subcultures so that we might deny the moment of our own death - and i do understand that to be human is to be animal, i-"

he shakes his head, sighs, looks away. "reckon i'm talkin' nonsense. have at it."

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he waves an arm over her head, an attempt to catch an antenna, play along with their new inside joke. “right, right. i’m sorry. i was probably distracted by your, uh, face. it’s a nice face,” he tries to flirt, maybe, if he was pitiful enough to call it that.

with marla, it’s easier not to ask questions because questions would lead to even more questions. instead dominic focuses on where she’s referring to — on the space of black. “this isn’t breaking and entering, though, right?” a question. he’s failed. “i mean, my vision is intact. i’ll follow your lead."

"i have always had antennae," marla says, deadly seriously. "it concerns me that you, like, need to ask. but here we are." she feels emboldened by his presence (which, to be clear, may not be a good thing when it comes to grand schemes, but to marla it seems a net positive. marla is biased).

she pats him on the shoulder. "steady on, soldier. we will be here for precisely two minutes, and then we're diving through that window. so you aren't allowed to, like, go blind before that happens. this is, like, precision work. completely."

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sometimes when rowan catches a glimpse of sean and his dark, almost-black hair followed by the blue flash of a gaze meeting her own, she sees sloane for a moment. and, vice versa. the universe taunts her in that way, but she knows it taunts them even worse. cain meet abel, abel meet cain. she tries not to think about who slaughters who, knowing that she’d be the one handing off the knife if caught this time. rowan wishes she was as drunk as sean right now, to suppress the guilt that came with the draw. the thump of her heart at their closeness, at his muddled state and not knowing what this all meant. no, not yet. she catches the words and folds them up and swallows hard. “hmm,” she says to buy time, clouding over thoughts of otis, but her hum is soon a squeal, head jerking back a little from the surprise. then there’s sean standing, looking at her with those glazed-over half-lidded blue eyes that remind her so much of sloane. so much of sean. she smiles in return, letting amusement override any other emotion. “bad dog. sit.” she tugs at his arm to urge him onto the couch, before walking past into the kitchen. rowan returns with a glass of water and places it on the coffee table, perching herself on the edge of a seat. “drink.” she looks at him with raised brows. “tonight, i spent two hours on the phone with the landlord. nothing too exciting.” rowan feels like a dud, only having that to offer, again the high school girl with a crush on her friend’s brother. “the other night was more exciting, though. saved someone’s limb with my very own two hands. — but, uh, anyway, it’s nice to see you, stranger. drunk and all. who did you go out with?”

he'd been drinking so much with adam that night. everything to forget how much he made sean feel like he might actually be doing something wrong for once. that his actions had consequences for others. if he wasn't so selfish he might not be at rowan's now, feeding the fire still lit in his stomach. "bare feet, you say? i'm listening." he takes his shoes off as he enters, tossing them one by one with a free hand as rowan pulls him inside. he's so damn thankful for her, can't remember why. distraction. friend. the line feels muddled, threading. "sloane lives at my house," he chuckles, the sound caught low in his throat. "why'd she be here?" rowan's face is so close to his own. he wants to bite her ear. "came .. for otis .. ? no, not yet." stuck in his own head, eyes locked on earlobe. her question pulls him back. "not that much." but his lip quivers involuntarily, his chin dimpling with a whine. he puts a lid on it, afraid, suddenly, of any other emotion that could be leaking out of him. advertising how fucked he was like a big neon sign. "what'd you do tonight?" distract. distract. he bites her earlobe, pulls back. feels like a dog who knows he's done something wrong, shrinking inward. he doesn't ask what he really wants to ask, what stays under his tongue .. am i a bad person?

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His noes come tumbling out over her sorry, not meaning to talk over, stopping himself as soon as he does it, but Dominic would hate it if Lana felt like she couldn’t come to him whenever, for whatever. No reason needed to be given. An unspoken promise, although he’s sure he’s said it to her before — that he’s available for her, always. He waits, knowing that with some patience, they could figure out this pause together. Lana’s face is hidden from him, but his gaze stays unmoving from the top of her head, taking in the red that he’s missed so much and could never find elsewhere. Her voice carries him back from the ash. “That’s okay. Of course, that’s okay,” he reassures, already half-way leaned over prior to her request. Like magnets, almost. Dominic slots the fingers of one hand under her chair to angle it close, wood humming against linoleum, until its edge hits his own chair’s and her left knee is placed between his two. Close enough now, Dominic wraps his arms around her and pulls her in, against his chest. “It’s not weird,” he speaks, softly, against her hair. “You know, it’s just me — Dom. It’s just me.” He’s rubbing circles onto her back. A part of him wants to say that he’s needed this as well, maybe even more than her. He's not sure what he means by that, though. Or if he does, it's something better left unsaid. “I’ve missed you.” 

It was strange, the fact they were in his living room; Lana swore she could feel the comforting hum of a refrigerator, reverberating under everything, cheeks basked in the pale golden light. Maybe that was weird, comparing Dom's presence to something as mundane as that, a quiet hum in an otherwise eerie room, but Lana had long found angelic reprieve in an open refrigerator door in the dead of night, slicing through the black as she clinked bottles and foraged herself a special healing potion. "Oh, um -- the milk's, like, scrumptious. I feel like a little, like, Victorian orphan, or something, tasting sugar for the first time. Pupils blown. Mouth frothing." Pressing her lips together, corners irrepressibly tweaked, Lana's fingers itched with the fervour of a dozen anthill occupants to reach out and, well, do something; she wasn't sure what, just that half an hour ago she'd found herself itching for the warmth of Dom's affection like a thick cotton scarf, wanted so desperately to nuzzle her chin and submerge her face to the brow that she'd left Minki's without a coat. "Oh, no. Sorry. Should've, um... I don't know," she neglected to finish the thought, a little laugh surprising her lips ajar. Instead of studying his face, Lana's eyes dropped to her hands in her lap, cold and clammy from raindrops, tips ever so subtly pruned. She pinched at them, briefly thumbed an index, imagined fingerprints erased, bare enough not to taint him. "Yeah, um -- sorry, this is kinda weird, I just -- I think I need, like --," broke into laughter, so humiliated by the brewing request that she couldn't quite believe it was leaving her mouth, "like... a hug, or something, if that's -- like, if that's okay?"

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nothing can ever right this particular wrong, but piper still needs to poke holes, figure out why, attach a reason to her recklessness — to this awfulness. something other than the fact that she might be a fundamentally bad, selfish person. all wrong despite trying so hard not to be. she loves her mom but she feels like her mom; a tsunami crashing through when things don’t go right, when she feels unloved. a high school relationship is still her center point despite the years long gone. pathetic. pathetic. pathetic. babe and reggie love each other — loved each other? even while on-and-off and in disarray, they always came back to the other. that meant more than anything piper ever had despite how desperately she wanted it. she had no right to push herself in, off period or not. it wasn’t her place. never was. she stood by her jeep, heart thumping in her ears as the door swung open and there was babe. her sweet babe, hurt by her hands. piper wished she could sink into the concrete. “i-i know,” she begins, meek, feet firmly planted despite her wishes. telling babe the truth was the very least piper could do. “i can say i’m sorry a million times, babe, but i know that won’t fix this. i, uh — fuck.” fingers splay against metal as she pushes, urging herself to continue despite the break in her voice. “i love you so much and none of this — none of what happened was meant to,” she staggers, knowing how it stupid it sounds because of course it would hurt babe even if that wasn’t their intention. they should’ve known. they did know, maybe not at the time but afterwards when reality hit. “it wasn’t when you guys were together. i swear. babe, i don’t know — this wasn’t some grand affair. we weren’t texting behind your back, fiending to run off together. when it happened, it just happened. we never spoke about it beforehand or afterwards. i’m sorry. i hate myself for it. i do.”

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her shift's nothing but a blur of mismatch colors in a too - dim room; the glitter on her lids sunken down to make home in the corners of her eyes, pilling together as shimmery crust with every blinked - back tear that forms. her chest feels aflame with anxious fire - her lungs hurt, and her head's spinning on a platter - thirty seconds of a drawn out hit on her vape and it's an unraveled balloon meeting telephone wires. she doesn't bother organizing her tips, or changing, really - except for the low - hanging sweatpants around her hips, her invader zim duffle bag half - zipped and hanging heavy against her bare shoulder. her skin prickles at the salt - sting night air as she leaves through the back, and prickles again at the familiar - usually comforting, usually warm, usually kind - blonde. there's - so much babe could say; tangents she's gone off on in her head - the worst case scenarios playing on repeat - they're fucking. they're fucking and they're in love and they hate me and they've always hated me and its a game and they're fucking with me and they're going to fuck after this and they're going to forget about me and i'll be all alone and everyone will know that - "i - i really hate this, pipes. i hate this so fucking much."

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there’s a dream freya has, or maybe it’s a memory that her subconscious has clung onto, deformed into something more horrific, but either way it comes out at night. she’s watching herself on the shore, a smaller version of herself, led by two looming figures — a man and a woman — toward dark waves, deeper and deeper in until she’s covered in blackness, unable to breathe. she wakes with a gasp during this once-a-year occurrence. this time she’s only half-way in before she’s jolted out of said dream by touch and she’s not in water — not yet, but in sand. she watches will as his form replaces her own, watches him kneel, feels the sand thrown against her shins. she decides to plop down beside him. “gunner’s in there.” a chin jut out to where the phone lay, almost gone.

closed for @halfrest. / he swims through reality to the sands of irving and there is the back of freya's blonde head, which will believes he might know anywhere. this belief is founded on psychedelics and would not hold up to major scrutiny; it will be gone in the morning. this isn't a familiarity measuring contest, though - it's a get your high ass to the beach contest, and will has won.

he moves tonelessly until he's up against freya's side, arm brushing arm through cloth (will is not dressed for the beach, but clothes can be removed). the sand proves more inviting than greetings - reality washes him like an ocean wave and he stays under it, goes onto his knees in the day and begins to bury his phone. long time coming, by his reckoning.

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head lolls from one side to another, easing a tension that is all physical, although if sutter were a better person he’d seek out guilt from the soreness, find something to beg forgiveness for — find salvation, maybe. he doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse, though. he watches flick squirm, punish herself and wonders why. sure, that could be answered with the names of the bodies in-between them but, still, why? permanence was futile. even if a ring encircled her left fourth finger, it was just a ring. a childhood friendship was just that — child’s play. “he knows. omnipresent. jesus is a perv, but he got a good show.” words tossed to dig deeper into flick’s self-made wounds. “whatever you gotta tell yourself. got any caffeine? i’ll settle for crack.” 

closed for. @halfrest /

she doesn’t like looking at sutter for too long. for those cratered wounds to stretch and dip, to have his tongue slotting against teeth. they had allowed the night to undress them, carve finger and thumb into flesh. his name is sin that lathers rotten. “we’re not doing this again,” she begins, hands spreading against her stomach: pinching. she cannot breathe without the taste of them. fucking sloane and sean. the carcass of their friendships laying at the foot of her bed : everything makes her nauseated. she's spinning, unthreading desperately. “we can’t do this again. he knows.” they don’t speak of them, it’s the guilt that clogs in her throat, mangled remains prodded and prised apart: we keep doing this to them.