wildcherryfunk

[wildcherryfunk]

maggotmouth​

       sometimes, when jude entered a room he liked to pretend he hadn’t noticed lana so that he could feel it when her gaze snagged on him, fake surprise when their eyes met, a shift in his expression that said ‘—oh, it’s you’. that way, he wasn’t governed by his wanting, but instead empowered by it, a secret language shared when their stares met that felt like an inside joke. it was a silent confession that in any given situation he thought she was the most interesting person in the room, that no matter who was on the receiving end of his dry wit, he’d rather be talking with her — which was kinda shitty for jude’s other friends, but desire could make you a lousy mate. while she was hanging her body over the stair rail, jude realised that often when he was looking at lana, everthing else seemed to disappear, static compared to her crisp frequency, his eyes a focus puller locked in place. “is this where i’m meant to like, jack-in-titanic and tell you not to jump?” jude asked, pressing his can of red stripe to his cheek in an effort to cool the skin there. she probably wouldn’t die, but broken bones would be inevitable. maybe she’d even fuck up her spine, make it so she could never dance in a jewellery box again. all that talent and yet lana found solace not in movement but in the bottom of a bottle. “if you wanna flirt with death, go ahead, but like… i’d much rather you flirt with me.” wincing almost instantly, jude’s nose puckered with wrinkles. “gross. i just died for a moment and was possessed by the spirit of a bricklayer from wakefield auditioning for love island.” jude didn’t follow the show, but his sister’s religious devotion to it meant that he could probably write a buzzfeed quiz on which contestant are you purely from her epic monologues and viral tweets. “two new bois entah the villah!” adopting his best iain stirling impression, his smirk shifted up like the changing of a gear stick when lana pretended not to remember willow’s name. ”willow,” he clarified, cheeks pricked by dimples. “yeah, super sad. think she had like a yeast infection or whatever, and had to get an uber? you look gutted.” he dropped down two steps so that their height was more evenly matched, still grinning from ear to ear. “maybe that’s my thing. spindly,”  jude noted as he tugged lana closer by her elbow ( weren’t they always tugging at one another’s bodies in this game of push and pull ? ) the cold surface of his can tucked against her arm as he steadied her in the guise of idle affection.  “maybe itsy bitsy spider elbows get me hot. what are you on, by the way?” curiosity and envy met in equal weight when his gaze flicked between her blown pupils, as if carrying out a toxicology report post-mortem. “i’ll share if you share.”

Only a smile served as an acknowledgement of her flirt with death, the precarious kind that seemed one lit flame away from dripping down her face like a melting waxwork -- her skin shimmered with it, that heat, glints refracting with every other shift like a disco ball that’d sprouted legs and a famously red mouth. “I am,” Lana confirmed, underpinned by sarcasm yet simultaneously possessing a vacuous quality like an actress incapable of not delivering her lines, perhaps a little too close to home, “I’m really sad.” A little laugh got caught in her throat, after saying so, swallowed again like a hiccup, and her eyes trailed over him like a pilot sizing up the faint flicker of a runway, finally considering landing -- all that sky and stars got lonely, sometimes. As soon as he’d tugged her closer, Lana’s hands began to stray. First, she imagined a strawberry puckered between his lips, herself as the strawberry, then a sink of teeth and the juice running down his chin. The tips of her fingers reached to etch delicately over phantom trickles, imagining her skin gone sticky with it, smiling to herself like she was privy to a secret. She barely processed his question until it bounced back off the cave walls in her skull, relayed from her subconscious like an echo. “Birthday presents,” Lana answered, blinking up at him as if that really explained anything -- that she’d gobbled the last of her own like a greedily gaping goldfish, after her conversation with Minki, had even managed to cop another stray in the hazy television static that followed. Dropping a hand down his chest, she gently took his free one, leading him to the flat of the staircase landing. A quick hop saw her perched on a window sill, there, backlit by a street lamp leaking through the stained glass. She brushed aside her white lace dress by the split, further shedding light on a glitter flecked thigh. There was a little garter pouch strapped up there, inevitably intended for the stowing of a phone, but Lana popped the button and slipped her fingers inside, wriggling until she could fetch a loose pill like a fallen TicTac from the bottom. Her last. Maybe it’d even been there when she thought she was out, scavenging for another -- she wasn’t sure. Either way, she held it up between finger and thumb, waiting against his lips for deposition. “What’re you gonna get me?” Lana asked, eyes rebounding between his without settling, equal parts absorbed in the pattern of each iris -- she found herself wishing she could explore their lines like a hedge maze, lost for hours without a flare, leaves stirring in the breeze to keep her company. “’Cause--,” she started, wetting her lips and swallowing, cheeks newly plump with a smile like a marble sculpt cherub, “’cause I think I know what I, um -- what I wanna ask for.” It was probably obvious, by the way a thumb idled at his jaw, the edge of his bottom lip, knees ajar enough that he could easily slip between them, an open invitation to. Ballooned pupils zeroed on his mouth, ghost of amusement quivering helplessly on her own. She felt itchy with it, covered in spiders, a thousand skittering legs down the damp notches of her spine. That’s what love’s like, Tommy said once. She thought he meant the leaves, all yellow and orange and glorious, but maybe it was that, this -- maybe it crawled all over, everywhere, snuck inside her without permission. Maybe this was hers. Suddenly, Lana wanted Jude to kiss her so badly that she thought she might float away, without it, trip beyond a veil and never come back. Disintegrate entirely. “And I think -- I think I’ll wanna ask for it again, tomorrow.” 

[wildcherryfunk]

Something was different about her. Her edges crackled with static like Pennywise’s red balloon. Lazily walking two fingers along the stone banister, Lana swished the damp lace of her dress in a subtly white knuckled fist, dawdling down the wide staircase with no discernible pattern. Sometimes she lingered, imitated a restless kick with her index finger, imagined a tiny pint of milk her nail had upturned and sent splattering over somebody’s smock. A smile idled on her lips like a television left on standby, humming to receive a transmission from a distant satellite -- like her usual grin was space bound, temporarily bouncing in a helmet on the moon, yet to be granted a rocket back home. She even dangled over the banister, at one point, wondered if that was what pennies dropped off the top of the Eiffel tower felt like right before somebody let them go, sent them hurtling fast enough to split a skull like a pomegranate, long hair fluttering above the drop as if to flirt with the idea. It was only when she pulled herself back that she noticed Jude in the landing stairwell, the mid-level before another drop of stairs, left dimple immediately sprouting. “Oh, no. This is, like -- say it ain’t so, as the prophet Weezer once said. Did you lose Wilbur?” Willow. She’d spotted a redhead from corps twining her hair around her finger as she murmured something in Jude’s ear, earlier, out of the corner of her eye. “That’s, like, really sad.” Lana dropped another step, overripe pupils barely sheltered by two rapid blinks, heels constantly shifting like she was trying to grind an ant. “This is just like in Charlotte’s Web, when the spider died. I mean, kinda. She had, like, pretty spidery elbows, so -- like, as far as I’m aware, anyways, as a licensed weenus expert. Very, like, spindly -- she’s a total spindler.” @maggotmouth​

[wildcherryfunk]

Parked up at the top of the staircase with a fishing rod, a faint quirk of amusement found the left corner of Jude’s mouth as he continued casting line, spliff drooping with a precarious stack of ash all the while. He didn’t even notice somebody coming up besides him to peer over the banister and observe, concentration too set on latching the hook in the scalp of a coiffed, neon orange wig. Whoever it belonged to passed out long ago, slumped against a stained glass depiction of a trio of huddled angels, and Jude had lost track of all time and reality in his quest to retrieve the costume piece like a prize salmon from a lake. “Ah,” he muttered to himself as ash dislodged, fluttering to land in the loosely knit yarn of his thin jumper -- with a feeble swat, he only made it worse, bound to leave a mark. Still, he didn’t give much of a fuck. In fact, he only properly stirred because this blip in this road had made him notice someone besides him, an accidental bump against his elbow. “Fuckin’ hell... Alright? Popping out of nowhere like a fuckin’... cuckoo cock.” Blinking, it took Jude a full two seconds to realise his error. “Uh... Clock. Not, uh... Not that you don’t have a bit of a, uh... phallic look, about you.” Offering a shrug in place of apology, he plucked the spliff from his lips and hesitated a moment, then held it out wordlessly. @settngsuns​

[wildcherryfunk]

Something was distinctly off since Lana’s conversation with Minki, judging by the vacuum space where her high had been buzzing like a trapped wasp. It reminded Lana of sitting in a dentist’s chair, gums anaesthetised, knowing full well you had a set of teeth, but being unable to comprehend them as your own with the probing tip of your tongue. Striding into her bedroom, walls trembling with the reverb of the bass, Lana didn’t notice Teddy flopped out on the bed, too busy rooting through pots and shelves. She’d just upturned a fluffy orange cushion when she heard a stir from her bed’s direction, prompting such a startled jolt that she immediately whipped and hurled it at him, all slumber-party-taking-on-an-unlucky-burglar style. Rebounding off his head mid her scream, Lana clapped a hand across her mouth to stifle a splutter of laughter -- no sooner had the cushion hit the floor, revealing it was Teddy, did it taper, lips wet and back turned to continue raking wild eyes elsewhere. “Sorry. Thought you were, um -- this one guy keeps telling me he wants to munch on my earlobes like corn, so, like -- high alert, or whatever.” Pacing across the room, Lana crouched to investigate the folds of a lilac origami swan, curious to see if there was still a pill nestled between wings like a forgotten child. No such luck. Exasperated, she hesitated a second before straightening, frantically tucking a lock of hair behind her ear before finally turning to face him. Maybe she could make this quick. No need to linger, look him in the eyes too long. “So, um, listen,” Lana began, ignoring whatever reason he’d sought refuge in her room, cutting right to the chase, “do you have anything on you?” @ncghtshifts​​

[wildcherryfunk]

Leaning a little too much on the bathroom door, Lana swung in and let out a startled guinea pig’s squeak when it rebounded against the wall. She might’ve dwelled more on this fact if it weren’t for spotting Minki perching the toilet, either in a moment of solemn reflection or concentrating greatly on rousing his bowels. “Hey, I wondered where you were -- there’s some guy out there that knows sign language that totally wants to,” Lana paused, jutting two fingers up mid air and smacking her lips to make a ‘pop!’, “up in my cooch, like, can you even imagine? That’d totally go crazy, like, I’d be contorting all over the place, season 4 Stranger Things vibes.” Finally shoving the door shut, Lana began pacing the bathroom, either to evade the tremble in her bladder or just because she couldn’t keep still. “Are you gonna be long? I’m, like, clenching in a geyser, seriously -- any second it’s about to be blast off. I’m too hot to die, Minki. I’m, like -- I’m too sexy to go out like that, and on my birthday, too?” Playfully swishing her long dress about, she turned back to face him with a dramatic whoosh of white lace. “That isn’t right.” @petalites​

[wildcherryfunk]

Jude, trudging into the studio with the aim of fetching a book of sheet music he’d left laying around, hoping to make it an in and out job with a disgruntled shove into a rucksack, had somehow unwillingly wound up as a bluebottle tangled in the spider’s web of whatever the fuck was going on here. Not even bothering to stop and wait, he took a step forwards only to freeze as her limbs went flying, blinking in disorientation as he witnessed her hurtle about the place like a napkin in a hurricane. “Fuckin’... cor,” was all he managed, red-rimmed eyes exhibiting mild disbelief in the space of their next slowly stuttered blink. Still attempting to slink around the situation, Jude was pressed against one of the mirrors and nonsensically sliding his back along by the time she stilled, pausing leaning there like a bug caught flattened on a windshield. “Uh... Nah.” He stared at her a moment, squinting. “Trying to get past. Fuckin’... buckin’ your shit around like a rabid gazelle, man. Could’ve... hoofed an eye out.” 

Open starter!

Location: Studio before rehearsal

Blair liked moments of solitude. She liked practicing alone. She liked rehearsals too but she preferred less of a distraction.

Effortless swan-like movements were made as she delved head first into the routine after doing her rigorous warm up.

She could slow down or speed up her momentum at the drop of a hat and not break a sweat. Her movements were as if the Devil danced ballet... this is what she lived and breathed for.

Her limbs stretching at angles that no human body should be capable of doing, yet she mastered it in the routine without injury, she had spent far too many times perfecting the craft after suffering so many injuries before... but now she had done it perfectly. It needed to be perfect... it always had to be perfect.

Blair was so transfixed into the art that she was making with each ballet move that she hadn't heard the door open and close.

In one more feat of strength mixed with elegance, she did a final leap and did the final pose the routine called for at the end.

She opened her eyes, hearing her own breathing first before she realized she wasn't alone now like she thought she was.

Blair saw someone watching her. She sighed a bit.

"Mon dieu. (My god.) Did you watch me the whole time?" She asked.

[wildcherryfunk]

[wildcherryfunk]

Jude, having shambled through the church’s front doors like Ernie entering the spirit realm, had immediately been frog marched to a dressing table stool by Lana with the urgency of Florence Nightingale assigning a feverish patient bedrest. An emergency, she’d called it, clattering among palettes like a bull let loose in a China shop -- then, inevitable distraction, a fresh voice down the hall that had her zipping away like a balloon squealing air. Still, she’d managed to grab Rosa by the hand, somewhere along the way, shoving her into her bedroom by the ass with a vaguely laughed instruction. “Make him pretty!” In the meantime, Jude had set up camp among the clutter of Lana’s desk, various exotically shaped candles looming like the stone slabs at Stonehenge as he smoothed banana flavoured paper and sprinkled out tobacco. Not even gawking over his shoulder at the slam, Jude’s eyes only flicked to observe the mirror as he was leaning in to wet a stripe along the paper’s edge, hesitating as soon as he registered freckles. Her freckles. Rosa was good at that -- pausing his record, scratching the needle. Eyes lowering after a split second of just that, staring, Jude resisted clearing his throat and finished the job, instead, limply knocking the end of his spliff against the table to sort it’s filter. “This the, uh... part of the teen movie where you fuckin’... try me in an array of clogs? Make me remove my glasses?” By the looks of things, Lana had begun a light spattering of smoky grey on his left eye but neglected to finish or start on the second. An errant itch of a chipped polish thumb had already smudged it slightly by the tear duct. “Man, hope I get a, uh... slow motion staircase sequence, panned up from the ankles.” Turning to face her properly felt too intimate, somehow, like he’d surrendered his license to drive a vehicle like that, one that’d only ever parked at the inevitable destination of looking at her and not wanting to do much else. “Good job I, uh... shaved my legs.” @ncghtshifts​

[wildcherryfunk]

After striking a novelty, guitar-shaped lighter to a strand of someone’s tinsel wig on a mutual dare, Lana’s birthday party had nearly been consumed by flames -- luckily, someone was nearby to tackle them into a waiting paddling pool, but that didn’t stop Lana from feigning a faint over Della’s lap as she resided on the sofa, legs kicked up with her long lace dress spilling out over cushions like a skimpy waterfall. “Help, it’s critical -- I’m, like, three eyelashes down. I almost lost an eyebrow,” Lana chattered, a never empty steam engine intent on chugging into the horizon, winking open an eye from beneath the hand she’d dramatically flung against her forehead for effect. Abandoning the pose, she reached up to catch a lock of Della’s hair, restlessly twirling it around an index as her grin roused. “I would’ve just been, like, HUH?” She arched an eyebrow severely. “Like, so quizzical, all the time, totally throwing everyone off, like I’d just seen a pigeon with it’s nipple pierced or, like -- Cole Sprouse with an eight pack, ‘cause that’s just not realistic.” Blinking a few times, Lana wet her lips and sat up just enough to steal a peck abruptly from Della’s lips, dropping back down with a laugh. “Hi, by the way. Forgot to say hi. You look pretty. Like you should command a fleet of ships, or something. Or like I could just, like, gulp you, you know? The kinda pretty you wanna swallow like a star, even if it burns.” @witherinflames​

[wildcherryfunk]

teneprae​

          THE   FIRST   HINT   OF   EXCITEMENT   in   an   otherwise   dispassionate   excursion   ,   but   of   course   ,    ludmila’s   revelry   is   hard   to   differentiate   from   her   resting   state   of   indifference   .   she’s   barely   taken   in   the   (    internal   AHEM   )   artwork   before   it   is   destroyed   and   the   incensed   patron   is   marching   away   .   a   shame   ,   really   –   perhaps   an   explanation   will   do   .   “   hm   ,   ”   she   had   ignored   the   somewhat   depressing   scene   on   her   way   in   ,   a   familiar   face   in   such   settings   too   often   means   talk   of   the   weather   or   even   local   politics   she   figures   she   befits   privileged   to   play   ignorant   to   .   now   she   takes   in   jude’s   side   hustle   with   a   slow   scan   and   quirked   brow   ,   “   CARICATURE   ?   ”   she’s   not   sure   if   that’s   accurate   and   she’s   not   really   worried   ,   but   she’s   taken   back   to   a   particularly   banal   family   holiday   in   ‘   the   us   of   a   ’   and   a   boardwalk   artist’s   interpretation   of   the   doom   and   gloom   brady   bunch   ,   accurately   depicting   her   father’s   subsurface   rage   and   her   own   fore   /   five   head   in   all   it’s   glory   .   “   i   suppose   that’s   the   reaction   you   were   going   for   ,   no   ?   ”   the   reference   of   the   previous   sketch   is   lost   on   her   ,   but   she’ll   give   in   to   a   smile   for   a   few   of   the   more   dreadful   ones   –   engaged   to   the   point   she   sets   the   hideous   salt   and   pepper   shakers   (   picked   up   as   a   horrible   future   birthday   gift   for   maryv   ,   or   lana   ,   or   someone   )   down   amongst   jude’s   WARES   to   get   a   closer   look   at   one   .   “   a   man   of   many   talents   …   ”   it’s   not   meant   to   be   condescending   ,   but   who   is   SHE   to   tone   police   herself   ?   “   would   you   give   me   elvira   breasts   ?   ”

Regarding Ludmila with a stuttered blink, the kind you’d expect from someone freshly shedding slumber, Jude squinted a moment as if calibrating the world to his settings. “Nah, hyperrealism. It’s, uh... spitting image shit,” Jude dead-panned, barely swivelling two centimetres to face her better. He realised, upon readjustment, he hadn’t even lit his cigarette, plucking where it’d stuck to his bottom lip with a subtle furrow of an eyebrow. Could’ve sworn he’d been taking drags between pencil scratches -- maybe a Jude from another realm, instead, an easy mistake. “Dunno what you’re on about, personally. I’m a bit fuckin’, uh... wounded. Feel like a fuckin’ -- baby bird, out the nest... Splattered. Don’t think he liked it. People killin’, children dyin’... Where is the love?” he quoted Black Eyed Peas entirely in monotone, giving his head a solemn shake. Lazily rooting in a pocket, Jude cupped a hand and struck a flame, cherry cindering before he sucked an inhale along with the afternoon breeze through his teeth. Pencil behind his ear -- he wasn’t sure when he’d stowed it there -- Jude’s eyes followed her with the idle obligation of a trip to the optometrist, stout pupils drifting blankly after her light. “Handsome little fellas, y’got there,” he nodded limply at the shakers, tapping to dislodge a clump of ash. “One for the goblin vault, I reckon.” No elaboration on that. Tacking a fresh piece of paper to his easel in the place of a response, Jude gestured vaguely at the vacant stool, tablecloth fluttering with the wind behind it like a phantom superhero’s cape. “My grandfather had Elvira breasts. Very, uh... nostalgic for me, I have to say. Sometimes he’d give me fallen change from, uh... “ Jude wafted his pencil as if that said enough or implied cleavage in the slightest. “Such a thrill.” Not that his voice indicated anything of the sort. A few scratches and he’d started plotting foundations, only glancing at her every so often to refresh his memory. Anyone would think he was perfectly satisfied to sketch in complete silence until he eventually broke it, eyes still squinted at the paper rather than straying to meet hers. “You some kinda, uh... knickknack collector?”

[wildcherryfunk]

“It makes your heart race. It turns the world upside-down.”

Practical Magic (1998) dir. Griffin Dunne

[wildcherryfunk]

fllenstar​

lana’s often rambles were something alexandre would have defined borderline delirious as they had this ability to make him feel like he had taken at least three tablets of acid each time she opened her mouth. he always went along with it, vivid imagination running wild around the hints she dropped of sceneries he had only seen in cartoons, or in those youtube videos everyone watches during their first high. dua lipa, though, was a first timer,    “ shut the fuck up, ”   laughter similar to a scoff gave the clue to his hand to reach for her cowboy hat and give it a slap making it drop down at the collision. for the fraction of a second, an imperceptible wind of thoughts blew behind his eyes: he often wondered about lana’s nature, there was something standing in the way preventing him from believing that what she showed was all there was to know; it was the creak in her mask he had been able to witness the day of their first meeting that reminded him. sometimes he still pictured it, overlapping the faint memory of her fugitive expression with the image of the one in front of him. a firm believer in depth and shades in everyone and everything, alexandre had a hard time stopping at appearances and he refused to accept that shallow waters was all that lana’s sea was made of. a shrug followed her booing, a shrug that was anything but nonchalant due to the feeling of lana’s lips, teeth, and warmth around the tip of his thumb. like a true stoic, he was able to swerve the poking temptation that incumbent stayed hovering over them. his hand. in the meantime, had moved to the side of her neck with dancing fingers electrified by the feeling of soft skin,    “ watch your mouth lana, ”    came a mischievous grasp of her hair, a tight grip used to tug her closer   “ i’ll have you known that caveman spongebob did in fact take inspiration from me, with which money do you think i was able to get here? ”   jokes weren’t familiar to his tongue, puncturing sarcasm often aimed to slash where skin is most vulnerable was where his fluency laid. he was deemed mean while he believed that forcing himself to be kind towards someone he didn’t like was both mockeries towards himself and the person involved: he wanted to be true to himself, not likable, and that also meant knowing how to round the age of the sword (or completely putting it away) when in the presence of someone he did in fact like. a short laugh erupted from him when lana threw her cowboy hat aside, eyes once again rolling as he mumbled something about her being dramatic,   “ yeah i can see why some guys would like that, it tickles, ”   following his words like a command alex’s fingers went to both of her sides, giving them a few pinches but stopping not long after,    “ oh that’s why you are the way you are, ” flashbacks stormed his mind at the feeling of her thumb against his pulse point. he wasn’t sure if it was a simple impression of his, but he felt his blood rushing faster, hotter, accumulating under her touch. alex trapped her wrist in the o of his thumb and his middle finger, bringing her hand to his mouth, nipping her thumb before lips grazed to her defenseless skin, caressing her blue veins and placing a kiss here and a kiss there, flaming yearning hidden behind the tenderness of it all, exposed only by a scrape of his teeth every once in a while. the vision that followed was one he was sure he had seen in his dreams before, flicking flames contrasted her silhouette in alliance with her devilish grin framing a picture that many poets or painters had died begging for,    “ what are you going to do? ”    a challenge raised and he was quick to react, shifting towards her with swiftness, fingers digging into the soft skin of her inner thigh as his forearm trapped it wholly functioning as leverage to haul her closer. his face aligned so perfectly with her neck that alex took it as an invitation, teeth sinking in the spots he had learned to be her weakness accompanied by warm lips. his unused fingers now held her other thigh hostage pulling so that she would be straddling him in a position close to one they had tried not too long ago,   “ y’know, ”   hot breath hit her skin,   “ thieves aren’t really welcomed in this land, especially those who dare to steal the sheriff’s hat- ”   with a move he had mastered, positions switch and he became the one hovering lana forced onto her back. hands trapped her wrists, leaning in to speak against her lips while one regained his possession.   ”- and cigarette. ”

Her breath snagged in her throat like a silk thread on a barbed wire fence. Always did, whenever someone yanked on her like that, but Lana didn’t shy from it, smile only extending wider. She liked it, the precariously balanced scales that Alex seemed to swing between, never sure where she stood or what he’d do next -- it was a little like riding fast without a seatbelt, dangling out of a passenger window, not knowing if he’d pull her back inside or wrench on the wheel hard enough to send her skidding over gravel. “Um, how can I watch my own mouth? I don’t have antennae, Alex, I’m not a snail -- that’s a totally unreasonable request,” Lana teased, then merely hummed in the place of a response to his Spongebob comment. It was the kind of sound one might expect from a parent patting at their child’s head after being shown a stick figure drawing with wonky arms and an eye missing, murmuring an absent “that’s nice, sweetie,” as they focused on the stove. It was hard to keep her attention, sometimes, fluttering through her mind like a butterfly, impossible to choose just one budding thought to perch on. Ribs constricting, Lana squealed out a laugh at his pinches, impossibly ticklish -- it proved troublesome, sometimes, during rehearsals, little giggles escaping under her breath like steam from the lid of a boiling pot, though she mostly managed to swallow them after years of practice. “Uh-huh. Wanting Edward to raw me was, like, totally formative to my soul. It, like, really shaped me as a person. Freud had a theory about it, and everything,” Lana delivered the sarcasm with a smile, watching him kiss and nip at her skin with the same intrigue she’d once held watching a tiger tearing into a raw steak at the zoo, her nose buttoned to the glass as she watched the big cat pay dinner it’s whole, undivided attention. Sometimes she wondered if a sick part of her wanted that, to be the flecks of meat stuck between someone’s teeth, wanted so badly they couldn’t keep from devouring every part of her. Eyes roaming the ceiling, they slipped shut with a laugh when Alex’s lips found her throat, shifting slightly with the squirmy quality of somebody instructed to sit still as a line of ants marched their collarbone. Her buttons were rather easy to press. Once, she’d become just as antsy because somebody brushed her elbow at a bus stop. “Lots of things, maybe even buy a top hat and join the circus,” Lana answered, syllables lazy as a Sunday morning stretch, too distracted to really put any thought into it -- he got her attention back fully when he flipped them, eyebrows furrowed as he held her wrists captive. She wriggled once, unwillingly shackled prisoner. “You know, it’s all fun and games until Gingie and Pinnochio sail down on strings to set me free from jail,” Lana pointed out, shifting her head slightly as her hair mussed against the pillow. Blinking, she studied him looming above her, still and surrendered to his grip. “What now? You gonna ash on my tit? That’s, like, totally insensitive to the people who died in Pompeii. Like, ashy mountain? So not cool. You’d basically be recreating their last moments. I’m about to get you cancelled.” Hiking her legs up, she hooked them over his hips like another position they’d tried not so long ago, mischievous smile rousing dimples to fruition. “Is this the part where you, like...” Lana trailed off, amused glint appearing with her next blink. “I don’t know,” she used the heels of her feet to gently urge his hips closer, practically chasing fingertips over the tip of a flickering flame considering her stark state of dress, “ask me my star sign, to work out where it all went wrong? Then you’ll let me go?” All but grinning as she acknowledged the questions he’d sometimes randomly pose in bed, she attempted to smother it as she inched a tad closer, off the pillow to dramatically whisper the next word right against his lips. “Gemini.” Plopping her head back down, she dropped her lips ajar to feign the ultimate shock. “Bombshell, right? The crowd gasps. Totally had me pegged as a Leo, I know, but the math is mathing. Dots are connected. Is your third eye open?” Wriggling to get free from his vice-like grip, laughter escaped as she wrestled to touch fingertips to his forehead. “I wanna -- hey, I wanna -- you’re so enlightened, now, I wanna touch it! I’ve never felt a third eye before!”

[wildcherryfunk]

maggotmouth​

i don’t know who kelly is but I bet she isn’t even, like, a real genie. the fact that she’d totally misinterpreted what jude just said would usually cause a roll of his eyes, except for the fact it was lana, which only served to make the comment endearing. sickening. his sickly sweet affection for her would surely give him cavities if he let it, and he felt the sudden urge to downplay what was surely just drunken adoration. “don’t joke about that, lana,” jude started, sombre as a catholic burial. “my nan had cataracts and i find it personally offensive.” distracted by the fingers that climbed the rungs of his jeans, his hand darted out from instinct, met her wrist as his eyes locked on hers, and abandoned it just as quickly. a flinch, but his withdrawal was a silent plea to continue, lower lip rolling inside his mouth as he swallowed a gulp.  “i mean, i never met her,” it felt crude to talk about his dead nanna while lana had her hand on his thigh, but when had lana and jude ever cared about what was appropriate?  “but still… could be me one day. blind old jude, the parkour pensioner.” he could picture it too — white haired and wrinkly with black out shades, but the same signature jude hoop earring and patched leather jacket — a regular johnny knoxville. “better get a good look at you now just in case.” fingers were held up like a cinematographer lining up his shot, although with his questionable facial hair the result of two days without a shave and a string vest, jude looked more like an amateur porno director. “yep. still fit. good work, rich and vic.”

if he’d been stirred before, her hand at his belt only heightened it, the phantom pulse of a hand against his abdomen, skin inventing the contact before her fingers could even reach him. “lana—” her name, spoken like the bright yellow slap of a warning sign, his eyes wide as his fingers looped her wrist. what he didn’t say was be careful. the line they were treading was a tightrope suspended fifty-feet from earth, and still she pressed on, toeing the high wire in satin pointe shoes, a wobble feigned to make the crowds eat their own hearts. if she was the acrobat in the big top tent, jude supposed that made him the clown. you wouldn’t fuck me from behind. a tightening in his stomach that licked down into his groin. wanna see my face when you’re inside me?  “yeah, maybe,” he hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but when he imagines it ( against the sink with the cutlery rack shaking, in a bathroom stall with his fingers in her mouth, spread-eagle on the hood of a car that doesn’t resemble something the inbetweeners might drive ) she’s always facing him, heads pressed, an imagined intimacy that he doesn’t look for in post-gig sex with an instagram mutual, the kind of fuck when he’s out the door before they’ve even pulled the condom off. “from behind works too, though. whatever you want. what’s your favourite?” asked like they’re discussing an ice cream brand, feigned nonchalance that only runs skin deep. there was nothing casual about the want he felt for lana, still mentally inside her when her teeth caught his finger ; there’d been no eyelash, but he let her wish on it anyway, swallowed when she cast her wish and kicked her cowboy boot over their line in the sand. “sure,” he spoke, when he trusted his voice enough to know that it wouldn’t shake, gooseflesh ripe with hairs stood on end as she looped her fingers through the holes in his vest. “—but only if you promise to help me, too.” 

shrugging her hand away, jude shifted to the other end of her bed where he pulled her boots off one by one. next came her socks ( mismatched and sweaty from a night on the dance floor ) one of which jude balled up and tossed towards her face in some backwards rendition of a strip tease. her dress was last to go, jude kneeling before her on the bed as if in homage to torvil and dean, the two of them about to start scooping their arms in a bedside rendition of the boléro. his fingers fastened around the hem of her dress, tugged the slip of silk up ( over her thighs… over her hips… over her chest… ) his stomach tightening as flyaway strands of her hair lifted up with it as it brushed over her face. he tried not to look at the prick of her nipples, though his eyes fell to them anyway, an ache ripping through him as he imagined how it might feel to roll them between his teeth. her nakedness was both startling and entirely serene. jude’s hands met her thighs, sunk to clasp beneath her knees, and tugged her legs to pull her flat against the mattress. sinking back down, jude pressed his mouth to her stomach, kissed her belly button, and couldn’t resist the urge to dart his tongue out to swipe against it. “gross. i just scooped out all your belly fluff like a starving cat.” he could see the shimmering imprint of his own saliva glistening against her abdomen. “you know, when cats drink, their tongues turn into like, little spoons? it’s so cool.” nervous and thrumming with a chemical kind of electricity, he resorted to useless information, chewed on the inside of his cheek as he tried to calm the want that swelled in his base. settled beside her, jude let his head fall flat against her pelvis, a hip bone digging against his ear as he turned his gaze to look up at her, the startling bareness of her undressed skin. “weird seeing you like this,” jude eventually spoke, if only to break the tension her state of undress had prompted. his breath was hoarse as he spoke, a sudden urge to have a cigarette prompting him to pull a packet of marlboros from the pocket of his jeans. “i kinda assumed you’d have scales.”

“Don’t say that,” Lana protested gently, eyebrows sloped like a dog denied a treat. Suddenly she had the urge to reach out and touch his eyelids, hands like twitchy, trapped moths as they struggled to resist -- she wasn’t sure what she planned on doing, like she might’ve popped them from their sockets and held them in carefully cupped palms, stowed them in a jewellery box with a wind up ballerina and a tinkling chime that alerted of intruders, the ultimate safekeeping. Lana snatched lightly for his hand like she was chasing the string of a balloon before it drifted above the trees, sky bound forever, attempting to knot this hypothetical fate to a bench or lamppost -- either that, or she was just hellbent on contact, no matter the context. “I’ll describe all the stuff you can’t see -- you know, like, remix the world a little, give people purple eyes and three tits. It’ll be fun.” There she went again. She could be handed a steaming shit on a soggy paper plate and she’d still find a way to spray paint it gold and dress it up in tinsel. Still, she couldn’t help but feel briefly forlorn at the thought of him no longer able to look at her. It felt like imagining all of the flowers in the world losing their perfume at once. Butterflies across the globe gone grey like they’d fluttered out of a black and white television. Lana liked it, Jude looking at her. In fact, she was so consumed by the thought, wriggled an inch closer as if to better soak up the buzz of his current gaze on her skin, thriving in it, that she almost didn’t hear what he said. Almost. Rich and Vic. For a moment, Lana blinked, confused, like she couldn’t put one and two together. Then, oh, they’re supposed to have made me. Victor Frankenstein still got credit for animating the monster, even though he’d left it to roam the dark alone. Lana never understood that part. Weren’t the shadows his family? The wet and scratchy leaves? The hunger scraping at the pit of his stomach? “Yeah, good work,” she practically hummed, newly struck with an itch, the kind that drove cats to nuzzle calves and desperately slink tails, hungry for an owner, a smile with something beneath the surface like a glimmer of orange koi in pond water. “They say I popped out her cooch with a hand on my hip wearing my umbilical cord as a feather boa, so.” Void of eye contact -- on her fingers, instead, picking idly over stitches, deliberately applying pressure, wanting another rise out of him. “Serving from the start.” 

“Jude,” she parroted, grin hot on her lips as the tip of a blue flame -- she had a dream once where every time Danny’s thumb brushed the bottom of the two, it left a pink welt on his skin, one she tried desperately to soothe with a kiss, the wet of her tongue. “Nah, you don’t need to,” he’d dismissed, grabbing her by the chin with television static for eyes, nothing behind them. “You’re like me, now.” The memory sloshed in her brain like a ship yet to be fixed in a bottle by glue, mast lopsided, capsize looming on the horizon. Rather than give in to it, Lana’s eyes found his, peripheral softening like a camera slightly out of focus. She wet her lips, considering the question, archiving memories accordingly. Once, she’d fucked one of the staff at PetCo in a back room when he was meant to be feeding the fish, pressed over an open tank with the tips of her hair sucked at like spaghetti by gaping mouths, a palm flat on the wall to keep her bearings and a sharp bite of discomfort with every smush of hip-against-glass. Another, her cheek pressed hard to a tall mirror, belt buckling her neck so tight that every yank of Danny’s hand made her knees tremble, consciousness white and prickling in her temples, the dizziest she’d ever felt without too many spins on a merry-go-round. There was a certain lack of intimacy in that, never bothered about Lana specifically, more so a body with a smudgy, barely legible name tag they didn’t bother reading, “I like...” Smile flickering, Lana diverted from her standard issue answer last second, abandoning script. “I mean, I like surprises, so there isn’t really just... one. But, I like... being on top, I guess -- sometimes. But not just, like -- I wanna be close, like, you’re sitting up,” she explained, brushing an index beneath his chin as if positioning an easel, better aligning their faces, “and I’m in your lap, and every time I move my hips, I can feel how much you want it by the way you breathe against me.” Saying so plucked a guitar string in her abdomen that wouldn’t stop thrumming long after she’d finished, melody forced back down her throat with every hasty swallow, and her eyes hovered between his features like a bee overwhelmed by buds to pollinate, unable to settle on one. “What’s yours?”

Lana only nodded and beamed at his conditions, already wiggling her feet to make his job difficult, squeal of laughter stifled by a tongue pinch. Lifting her arms to help him pry away silk that might as well have been tissue stitched with spun sugar, when Lana blinked she imagined it with button eyes, hair like fine yarn spilling over shoulders, stitches marking joints like seams. She realised, studying him in the dim pink sunset of her room, that she wouldn’t mind being his doll, so long as he loved her until she came undone. That’s what real felt like, anyway, according to the Velveteen Rabbit -- sacrifice, unravelling. Sinking with his tug, Lana laughed again, inflicted with the sound more often than a sentence bears punctuation. Eyes slipping shut, her fingers roamed to briefly appraise the timid curls at the back of his head, a position that would’ve been wholly more familiar if he’d just sunk a little further and dipped his mouth, realisation of which had a warm sigh dropping her lips ajar. A Kinder Egg of hot maple syrup might as well have been cracked open in her belly when he kissed it, grin wriggling with both the urge to contain a laugh and the desire to ask him to do it again. Even as he settled, Lana crackled and snapped like a toaster thrown live in a bathtub, eyes back open and seeking. “Ugh, that’s, like, the hottest thing you’ve ever said.” Sarcasm tugged her lips upright, already reaching to thumb idly at his temple, an index wandering along the path of his hairline. “I was a mermaid, once,” she began, casual, as if that was just a regular job listing you’d scroll past on Indeed. “At this water park, for the summer. I got to wear a fin and swim and brush my hair with a seashell. Kids loved me, I was a total sensation.” And their dads. Lana didn’t mention that part. Instead, she snatched at his Marlboros and slipped them beneath her tailbone, held prisoner -- kept her hands behind her back, too, afterwards, as if they’d been bound that way. “Not so fast! We’re not even, yet. No, like... dallying. I run a tight ship.” A slight breeze with the loss of fabric coaxed goosebumps over her ribcage, and as Lana shifted slightly the shadows revealed more, shivery and bare -- except she wasn’t cold, it was more just the feeling of his eyes on her, taking in everything. “You know,” Lana started, playfully nudging his head from her pelvis to get upright. By the unsteady way she crawled to plop onto his lap, eerily reminiscent of the position she’d mentioned earlier, anyone would think the mattress was bobbing on the ocean. Apparently she’d forgotten all about her Marlboro hostage. “When I was little,” came as she slid up the hem of his string vest, fingertips exploring the soft jutting V of his abdomen, already distracted, “I used to think goosebumps were, like, the way your body spoke to you.” Swallowing, she urged the vest higher, lone note of laughter slipping loose as it hiked to reach his nipples like a sports bra. “So I’d spend all this time in bed just, like... having conversations, with my fingers,” she explained, pausing briefly to poorly wrestle his head out of the neckline, grin fiercely coaxing dimples. Tossing it off elsewhere, she tucked a tendril behind her ear as she sat with her knees splayed, peering down at him. Hands strayed to his buckle, taking her time to ease the button through. “But I’d get kinda sad ‘cause, like, I wanted to understand -- like, what it was saying, and stuff. I figured it’d be, like, sad, or whatever, if no-one spoke your language. I wanted to be it’s friend.” Maybe she’d just wanted a friend, generally. Lana didn’t quite clock what was coming out of her mouth, gently dragging down his zipper with eyes following the movement. “Then I guess I learned, like -- stuff doesn’t always have to speak, for it to say something. Sometimes you just kinda... know. Your hands can understand.” Eyes dawning back on his, a slight smile piqued as she etched out a star on his stomach, leaving him unbuckled but making no moves to shift and allow him to shrug jeans past his hips. “What’d you think yours is saying?” Pressing her tongue into her cheek, Lana studied him like she wasn’t sliding a saucer of milk before a parched cat. Then, a flicker of amusement, a secret wordlessly shared between them -- I know I might be going a little too far, this time, but I don’t care. “I bet I can guess.” 

[wildcherryfunk]

if stuart little tried to talk to me id just look away or pretend to not hear him

[wildcherryfunk]

Jude, slack on his tattered stool, perfectly embodied Edward Hopper’s 1914 ‘Soir Bleu’ with his void expression, cigarette dangling limp off his bottom lip like a fainted goat. He’d set up a ramshackle stall along Portobello Market, a number of celebrity sketches tacked up in display to entice tourists -- a dead Margaret Thatcher suspended from marionette strings mid robotic corpse dance had actually seemed to do the exact opposite, not that he’d taken it down -- and had actually just finished etching his latest creation. When he removed the tack and handed the portrait over, the man on the stool blinked in utter disbelief. “What the fuck is this?” Itching at his tear duct and successfully staining the bridge of his nose with pencil, Jude only offered a shrug. Whipping the page around, his unsatisfied patron shook the drawing wildly in the face of the next passing person, finally unveiling it’s contents: Ewan McGregor, in full Obi Wan get-up, uncanny as the day it was filmed if it weren’t for his inexplicably bald head, the only similarity between the two. “Free of charge, man. Free of fuckin’... charge,” was all Jude gave in response, lazily clicking a finger before shooting the world’s most miserably dejected gun his way. Ripping up the drawing and catapulting it at the stall, Jude glanced about as the pieces fluttered like a flock of migrating birds, careless to the fact his customer had stormed away. “Cor, like a fuckin’... clown just came, over here. Confetti all over -- over all my fuckin’... wares. He’s an animal.” Cigarette bobbing with every slowly strung syllable, Jude squinted up at whoever had come to join the scene, sunlight infringing his eyelashes. “Think he fuckin’... loved it, don’t you? Bit, uh... moving, actually. Felt a stir.” @furorestarters​

[wildcherryfunk]

honestly my dad is such a freak he never says goodnight like a normal person he just says “i’ll be back” and he goes upstairs and when you ask where he is or go looking for him hes asleep and the next morning when you see him he just says “good morning im back’ like what is wrong with him

[wildcherryfunk]

Douglas Booth as Percy Shelley in Mary Shelley (2017).