hvlfwygod

[hvlfwygod]

Hot Goss

when: December 29, 2024 who: malia & dex & ben

The worst kind of T is spilled (trauma).

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[hvlfwygod]

Patrick checked out the joint in Jaime's hand, silently impressed that his friend had taken more than two hits before stamping it out for later. Maybe Jaime was trying to keep up with Patrick, or maybe Patirck was rubbing off on Jaime in these small, subtle ways. The thought made him absurdly pleased, never mind how nonsensical it was. It was with pride that he slurped up some tea, and it was only then that he realized Jaime had just finished answering him. He covered by pretending the tea was still a little too hot, wincing as he swallowed. (It helped that the tea was actually still a little too hot).

"You're wrong," he replied with unearned confidence. "It's obviously Dave Bautista."

“Bastard,” Jaime said without malice, coughing once more into his shoulder after he got the word out. His eyes flicked to the joint in his hand, then back to Patrick’s fingers, rolling again. Had he ever smoked an entire one on his own? He didn’t think so. Focus on the movie. He was trying to. It was difficult when several things in the room were competing for his attention and the one the least interested but most interesting was—

Right. Movie.

He got the hang of it eventually. The inhale, pause, inhale situation wasn’t terribly difficult, just took a try or two after a couple of pathetic coughs. When Patrick settled in, putting his legs up, Jaime drew his long limbs up onto the couch. He had a knack, you could say, of being the largest person in the room and yet take up the smallest amount of space. “The narrator, obviously. How could they know everything, unless they were at the very least a witness?” His tone was light, teasing in response. They were only a few minutes in; it was an impossible guess this early. Still, the banter was fun.

[hvlfwygod]

Does that mean I got the job? Patrick wondered. He'd already submitted all the official things ahead of time and assumed this was an interview. But so far she'd just asked him about life and they wound up at 'weird and bad customers' because... well, he thought he should stay on topic. Maybe she really was just doing this as a formality, though. "Yeah, for sure. I've helped out with some stuff already. Kinda been a friends-and-family service only. I actually can't believe we've gone so long without something official. I guess the gods made this place extra sturdy so we haven't needed to fix things up so far."

"Yikes." Nadia grimaced. She couldn't even begin to go over all the grievances she'd had with her career so far, and for the sake of a new person, kept it as easy as she could. "Yeah, I've had people bail on us last minute or make a mistake and just fully leave something broken. It's so dumb. Like, if you mess up, just say so? We'll find a way to fix it, it's not that hard. If you do a good job and people trust you, what's a mistake if not just a chance to learn something, y'know?" She sighed and waved her hand, "Well, I can at least promise no one here will be making random holes in walls or scamming you. Probably a nice reprieve to be just like, building homes and shops and things for the town."

[hvlfwygod]

Once the joint was lit and Jaime inhaling, Patrick left him to his own devices. He returned to his spot over the table, a small but needed space between him and his friend. It was almost second nature to roll at this point but Patrick gave it his full attention anyway. Pushed his knees a little closer together. He heard the coughing and slid a knowing smirk over his shoulder, but made no move to reach for Jaime's hand. "That's all yours," Patrick told him. "Your predictions will be funnier. Just pace yourself."

The movie started in the middle of his task. Once done, Patrick pushed his grinder and papers aside, grabbed his tea, and finally sat back on the couch. He sank into the corner, sitting somewhat diagonally so he could put his legs up. It also served a way to give himself a little more space. Not that it mattered. "Okay nerd. Who's the first suspect?"

He was the type who could guess the ending halfway through. The corner of his mouth twitched upward in a telling smile. “It’s from all the reading,” he said in lieu of yes, meaning clear enough. “With enough of it, you see the patterns. I can keep my guesses quiet if it’ll spoil your fun.” The filter between his lips was a slight surprise— not that he hadn’t seen the movement from Patrick, just that Jaime hadn’t expected him to do that. His eyebrows, hidden by his bangs, rose slightly as he studied Patrick’s face. Why had he frowned? Jaime didn’t know, and then it passed, the moment replaced with an orange glow at the tip of the joint. Taking a hit, he inhaled a little too deeply and had to pass the joint to Patrick, quickly turning to cough into his shoulder. His throat burned. So did his ears, tinged pink with embarrassment. “Amateur hour over here.”

[hvlfwygod]

Patrick twisted off the paper at the top of his joint. "Are you the type who can guess the ending halfway through?" He glanced at the screen again, skimming the description. "I can never fuckin figure it out. Probably just cause I'm not paying attention." He doubted that would be any different today, either. Patrick's gaze drifted back toward Jaime and he sat back, pushing the filter between Jaime's lips. Too much, he thought with a slight frown. But he continued, lifting his lighter and tipping the flame toward the top of the joint. "I'm down, though. I'll be confused and then think I'm an idiot for not figuring it out sooner."

Jaime did not want to bum himself out, he decided, scrolling past a trailer with an actor standing in the pouring rain looking absolutely bereft. He glanced at Patrick out of the corner of his eye: deft artist's hands, rolling a joint with practiced ease.

He looked away.

Suddenly the screen was the most interesting thing in the world. If Patrick thought it was strange that a horror trailer had him enraptured, Jaime hoped he would say nothing. He sat there, clutching his (green) mug of (green) tea for a moment, distracted. A gore-covered zombie jump-scared him at the end of the trailer and he let out a surprised sound. "Okay, not that. What about...this one?" Jaime's head tilted back until it rested against the back of the couch; he turned his face toward Patrick. "Murder mystery?"

[hvlfwygod]

His tea was steaming in front of him. A bright magenta; some sort of herbal blend. Patrick stared as the heat rose up in delicate white wisps, twisting into nothing. While he looked, he ground up some weed, leaning with his elbows on his knees. Besides him on the couch, Jaime was scrolling through Netflix. Every few seconds, the beginnings of a trailer started to play, and then Jaime moved on. "Just don't put on something sad," Patrick said, glancing toward the screen, then back to his friend. Their knees were close, just an inch or so apart.

He was tempted to bump their legs together. Instead, he focused on dumping the weed out and rolling it into the first joint. "I mean, unless you want to bum yourself out."

[hvlfwygod]

Alone in the car, Patrick got a text from the hookup. He typed a fast response, as if Ellie would appear at any moment and glean any information from an unsaved number. Of course, hookup replied again. He replied again. Then again, and again, and before he realized, his sister was opening the door again. Patrick tucked his phone in his pocket and grabbed the cup hastily.

“Um. There are more than one cafes in this town.” Patrick scoffed and took a sip of his drink, but it was too hot so he left the cup resting between his hands. “Coffee is not a lost art. I could throw a stone and find a place. And when I’m feeling lazy, Cleo gave me one of those fancy machines. I feel like a rich asshole with it, but, I’m taken care of.” This place did have the best coffee, though, to Patrick’s chagrin. He watched the town slip by for another minute, then plugged his phone into the center console. “Music?” While he waited for her response, he typed an address in and started the directions.

"Come on, I need to live vicariously through you, Miles is always so busy during football season and I don't go to another game until the fifteenth," Ellie said, pouting lightly, mostly just to piss him off a little more. What was the point of being the younger sister if not to get under your sibling's skin every once in a while. Besides, she was curious and it was better to talk about this than sitting in silence the entire drive.

She swung into the parking lot of the café, running in to grab two large coffees for them. When she got back in, she handed him the caramel flavored drink, "Where do you even get coffee like this since you got banned? I feel like they have the best coffee here," she said as she pulled back onto the road.

[hvlfwygod]

"My stepdad is one of those assholes." Patrick shook his head, chuckling. "I'm sure you have way better stories. I haven't done this regularly, uh, ever." He shot a finger gun at Nadia. "Hope that doesn't count against me. Anyway, yeah, he calls me back an hour and a half later. But turns out the guy he knows is his cousin, who is still there and somehow put a hole in the wall and now he wants to 'collaborate' with me. So now I'm thinking to myself: scam... or scam? But no, man just wanted to help me for free and got insulted when I said no. Acted like I kicked a puppy."

Nadia let out a long sigh, shaking her head, "I swear, like, eighty percent of the people who work in contracting are just asshole old men." On her end of the table it felt equal parts right and weird to be there. Had she ever conducted a job interview before? No, but she'd also never run her own business before. First time for everything. Hopefully she was giving off the energy that she was intently listening. It'd taken years of work, but she'd gotten a lot better at remembering to smile and nod and make eye contact, instead of just blankly staring at the person in front of her. She took a sip of her water, "Did he come back with his tail between his legs or what?"

[hvlfwygod]

Patrick sighed loudly to indicate his annoyance. "Ellie, please." Why had he told her it was a hookup? Usually he could lie effortlessly, but somehow she wormed that detail out of him. Now she looked like she just found a Christmas present early, eyes bright with devious curiosity. He wondered if getting his wallet back was worth it, or if he should just cut his losses and go back home. "I already told you I would give you the cash I had once we got it back," he grumbled, staring out the window. "Go to the place I'm banned from, get me something with caramel."

closed starter - ellie & pat ( @hvlfwygod )

"If I'm driving you outside of New Athens, twenty minutes away, we can at least stop for coffee," she said to her brother as they started their way through the roads of New Athens heading out somewhere after Pat had asked her to drive him to some hook ups house. "Besides, I bet you'll need it, because I want to at least know all the juicy details about this hook up since you managed to leave your wallet there. Take it as price for driving you, and also buying you coffee considering you can't buy it yourself at this current moment."

[hvlfwygod]

Relief and excitement fizzled through her as the door opened inward. Jesse looked as delighted as she hoped he would. She gladly returned the kiss, rising to her feet as he leaned away. As soon as he was looking at her again, she touched the top button of his shirt brought their mouths together again.

"It is," she answered after, sweeping her gaze down to her dress. Malia stepped back from him, letting him take her in as she posed. "I got it mostly because I thought you'd like to look at me in it for a while. Would you?"

The final hour at the bookstore passed more quickly than Jesse necessarily wanted it to– as pleasant as the evening they had planned sounded, even after being reassured twice he couldn't quite shake the anticipatory nerves that something was going to happen, or that there was a motivation that Malia for some reason wasn't telling him. Life had been so calm recently, it was hard not to wait for the other shoe to drop. By the time he made it to Malia's apartment, dressed in a nice button-up she had given to him previously, his hands were sweating enough that he had to tuck the bottle of wine under his arm out of fear of dropping it.

As much as he had let the nerves eat away at him on the way there, he could feel the tension ebbing once he made it to the elevator up. This was just a romantic dinner. They had done this a million times before. He needed to get out of his own head.

By the time he laid eyes on Malia, his pulse was racing for a different reason. It still amazed him– he saw her almost every day, had known her since he was a teenager, and there were still times like now where she entirely took his breath away.

"You're– Wow. You're beautiful." Jesse greeted Malia with a full smile, meeting her at the chair so he could lean down and kiss her hello. "Hi, love. How was the rest of your day?" He leaned over to place the bottle of wine down on the coffee table, then returned his full focus to her. "Is that a new dress?"

[hvlfwygod]

"... And I told him that he was, respectfully, out of his mind."

Patrick unconsciously tugged at his collar. He didn't think he'd ever buttoned this shirt up all the the way before today. Or ironed it.

"But big man didn't really like that I was telling him no and fired me. I was like," he chuckled, "dude, I have all of my materials in the truck, I am in the middle of checking my tools while I'm having this conversation, right? How is firing me going to make this happen any faster?"

Nadia was hard to read. Patrick had no idea if he was boring her or not. He broke the tension for himself by refilling both of their cups with the glass bottle of water between them.

"But he's not seeing reason. Apparently he knows a guy who can do this job in a day and a half." He rolled his eyes. "Okay. Yeah. Call me psychic but I had a feeling this guy was gonna come back to reality in a few hours, so I go to this diner nearby and just wait it out."

[hvlfwygod]

She gave him a reprimanding look, or at least tried to through her smile. "You already asked me that." Malia tugged a curl on his head. "It may be a little special, but it's also just cause. Wine sounds great! I'll see you later, cutie." Newly filled with excitement for tonight, she kissed Jesse once more as a goodbye, then hurried away.

Malia cleaned her apartment thoroughly and bought fresh flowers to arrange in little bouquets. She took extra time styling her hair so it tumbled over one shoulder in bouncy waves. She lit candles and set up mood lighting. Over text they'd decided to order dinner, which she took upon herself to get ahead of time and plate. She waited until all her tasks were done before she stepped into a dress that hugged her hips and covered her bare feet. The pale pink against deep red roses and her skin tone was perfect. The atmosphere was perfect. All that was left was her boyfriend, who was coming up the elevator. Malia left the door unlocked and sat carefully on the arm of her nearest chair, letting herself be the first thing he saw when he stepped inside.

Jesse was mid-way through nodding along to the plan when he was struck by a nervous thought. "Did I forget something?" he asked, thrown off by the level of pre-planning Malia had gone through. He did a quick mental list of important dates– birthdays, anniversaries– and came up blank. "Is today special? Or are you just in the mood for something nice?" He checked his watch when Malia stepped away from him, disappointed by how little the hands had moved over the course of their conversation. These new plans of theirs sounded far more appealing than hanging around the store for the next couple hours. "I can pick up a bottle of wine on the way over, if you'd like."

[hvlfwygod]

Len looked up from their own DS, raising an eyebrow. “Do you hear that sentence?” they asked, teasing. “Ever since we switched bodies. No big deal.” They giggled, paused their game, then scooted closer to Xavier on the couch. “I don’t think it’s suuuuper weird to need some space, you know? Sometimes huge things makes people run away.” Even Len didn’t know what to think of that entire situation most of the time, and they’d barely been aware of the problem until after the fact. But they knew that wasn’t really an answer Xavier would be happy with. “How have you tried bringing it up?”

Xavier was hunched over his old Nintendo DS, his fingers deftly maneuvering through a Hamtaro game, but his attention was clearly divided. He glanced up from the screen, frustration evident in his voice as he spoke to his friend. “I’ve been trying to make friends with River ever since we swapped bodies,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he focused on a particularly tricky part of the game. “But every time I bring it up, he just avoids the conversation and runs off. I don’t get it. We went through something huge together, and now he won’t even talk about it. It’s like he’s scared or something. I just want to understand what’s going on with him, but he won’t let me in.” He explained his frustrations.

[hvlfwygod]

She glanced over her shoulder and brightened when she recognized her brother. The others in the pool were instantly forgotten, and she put all her attention Parker. “Yeah, I literally dumped it out and tripled checked everything.” Moving away from the hot tub, she walked back over to the seats she was at earlier. “It was the Cartier,” she mumbled. Did Parker know what that was? Maybe her other brother was nearby and could help. “So like, I don’t want to call our neighbors a bunch of thieves, but… it’s a lot of money. Gold with diamonds in it and, yeah. I don’t think I have good chances.”

Parker had only arrived at the hot tubs when he spotted his sister, apparently too preoccupied to notice his wave. He loped over and raised an eyebrow at the people he only vaguely recognized, but easily ignored them in favour of Malia’s words. “Ah, shit. Which one was it?” He interjected, hoping that instead of a brand she knew enough to tell him the stone— diamond or pearl or… one that wasn’t either of those. “You already checked your whole bag?”

[hvlfwygod]

Her face lit up. "Stay in," she said quickly. Jesse agreeing was expected, but Malia was genuinely surprised that he offered to leave early, even a little. Gods, he was so cute. "Let's go to my place, it's all mine tonight. But dress nice, okay? We can order dinner if you don't want to cook. I just want to spend some cute, one-on-one time with you, but like, super classy, too." She turned her smile bashful. "I'm decorating already, and I maaaaay have gotten a nice dress for you yesterday. So... good thing you said yes." Malia kissed him again for good measure, then backed out of his embrace. "Cool?"

"Well..." As tempting as Malia's offer was, Jesse did still have some work to finish, and he would feel bad just leaving it for someone else to sort through the next day. Saying 'no' was hardly one of his talents, however, especially when it was something that was infinitely more appealing than sorting through old inventory– he rubbed the side of his neck as he thought through how he might be able to compromise. His 'compromise' ended up just being exactly what Malia suggested. "Okay, sure, that sounds nice." He checked his watch. Three hours until he was supposed to lock up. "I could close an hour early?" he suggested. He'd never closed early before just for fun. It was a little exhilerating. "Did you want to go out for dinner, or stay in?"

[hvlfwygod]

"Hmmm." Brent was slurping his coffee so he didn't respond with words. Where to start? Brent had a feeling he wanted to tell her something. But the latter part of the night was mostly a blur, and before that... that felt very long ago. "It was a time," he said, nodding. "I actually had a lot of fun. Caught up with a lot of people, too, and... Mmm, there's something I wanted to tell you." Brent furrowed his brow, trying to piece the memory together. "Damn, I drank too much." It was so stupidly obvious it made him laugh into his mug. He drank some more coffee, then sighed. "I should have taken notes or something."

"Did we win-win?" Macey teased. Trying to describe a dance competition to a normal person was hard. Technically everyone wins in a way; Everyone gets critiques and a score and a medal, sometimes more than one if you're in multiple dances and solos. But, you want to score the highest and win the most. Be the best. And every competition used different terms, what platinum or high gold or premium or diamond means could be different everywhere. So, it'd been boiled down to just winning or win-winning, after Brent had driven or helped carry props for her enough times. "Yes, there were a lot more win-wins than I expected. Which, slay, honestly. All these new girls on the team keep surprising me." She once again took in her severely hungover husband, and tried not to find the unusually reversed situation too funny. "Seems like you were the one who had way more fun this weekend, though. How was the party?"

[hvlfwygod]

"Ugh, I'm such an idiot." Malia dropped her bag on the lounge chair and crouched over to scan the ground. It was pretty busy at the hot tubs, but what was the likelihood someone had already come by and taken a sparkly trinket? Malia groaned again when she thought about those odds, how long ago she'd left it behind. That outburst drew the attention of the closest occupied pool, which was enough for her to walk over and loop them into her problem. "Did you see a bracelet around this area? Looks, um, expensive? I was here like, forty-five minutes ago and this is the only place I could have left it."