Cyrus Ends Up At The Church Due To His Need To Be Involved, To Be Seen, And He Knows That When Tragedy

ALDIS HODGE: Esquire Interview (2022)

for? BRONTE ( @lifekisses ) where? dolly's

griffin slides into the booth across from her, a small grin lifting his lips as he settles into the sticky seat, "do you carry pepper spray?" he asks immediately. then, he backtracks, "i mean, hi, bronte. how are you?" he pauses then repeats, "so do you carry pepper spray?" he tries not to think about it very much, but with the wave of new crimes that have been hitting the town, he's a little worried about the people he cares about. and despite all the slightly convoluted history, bronte falls into that category. his days of being terrified of her are long over, though he would absolutely never want to be on her bad side, he knows better. "because, y'know... all the stuff that's been going on," griffin shrugs, "safety first and all that. not to bring the mood down or anything!" and now he's nervous he's being too paranoid and is going to freak her out. "anyway, i'm just saying, maybe mace is the best stocking stuffer this year."

for? JUNE ( @bittenmoths ) where? outside white pine auto garage

"if i get my car serviced here, are you gonna cut the brakes?" fawn teases when she spots june. she's smoking a cigarette and leaning against the hood of her car — a red 2008 buick lacrosse that she bought off a guy on craigslist over in traverse city. and as much as she's tried to fix the problem herself, she is not that kind of lesbian. and as much as she's not overly confident in june's skills to fix her car, there are other employees and she assumes they were hired for a reason. she's never really bothered to ask. she doesn't know what june actually does there, really. fawn crushes her cigarette under her boot and stands up straight, eyes flicking over the other liao, "i took all the valuables out. can never be too careful." and, honestly, if fawn were in her shoes, she would immediately check the console and the glove compartment for something good. fawn knows that part of her runs in their genes. like blue eyes or the potential to have a widow's peak. there's some metaphor or joke about how the apple's rotten right to the core, but that's not really fawn's style.

he looks up at the sound of her voice, grinning at angela, "mhm, then the week after that it's rope and boxcutters." he relaxes slightly. talking to angela isn't small talk and she's more than used to his antsy, neurotic presence. "hey!" griffin laughs then, shaking his head and grabbing for the book as she slams it down, "i'm not the most pretentious one." he'd argue that's probably his dad. "but it's a good book, i swear. you can borrow it when i'm finished if you want." though, then she'll have to put up with his barely legible shirley jackson fanboy notes in the margins. he tucks the book under the counter, glancing at his watch, "yeah, i get off in an hour. i'll grab some snacks before i leave too. that 30% employee discount... i'm practically the richest guy around." he gestures at the last aisle, "oh! most exciting thing to happen in awhile here actually," here as in the store, he wishes the rest of red creek would relax a little, "we got some of those sour patch kids that are just grape? i've never had them, but the just peach ones kind of rock, so the grape ones have to be pretty good too, right?"

“  𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀  𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁,  𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵  𝗮𝗻𝗱  𝗿𝗮𝗴𝘀?  ”   angela  jests,  having  come  from  the  other  counter  to  retrieve  her  new  prescription  bottle.  the  customer who'd just walked in  shoots  her  a  bewildered  stare  before  disappearing  into  the  aisles,  eliciting  a  snort  out  of  the  young  woman.  she  takes  the  book  out  of  griffin's  hands  and  flips  throught  the  pages, brows furrowed as she reads aloud a few passages.   “  sometimes,  with  a  vast  aching  heartbreak,  the  great,  badly  contained  intentions  of  creation,  the  poignant  searching  longings  of  adolescence  overwhelmed  her  —  ugh,  you  pretentious  little  bitch. all you talbots are the same,  ”  she  teases,  slamming  the  book  face  down  on  the  counter.   “  there's  a  silent  night,  deadly  night  marathon  at  polaris  today,  you  wanna  come  and  binge  'em  all  with  me  after  your  shift?  ”

ALEX CROSS 1.02 - Ride the White Horsey | dir. Nzingha Stewart

Spike Fearn

She shuffled into the kitchen, running a hand through her messy hair as she took in the sight before her, "So glad it's you and not the goddamn Boogeyman." The timing of the joke is, admittedly, horrible, but she's never been subtle. "What time did you get here?" Shreya thought she might have heard something in the middle of the night, but she figured it was either her brother or her cat. If it was anything else? She was willing to face the consequences and die honorably. "Now, if I bought even a single piece of asparagus, I think the world might end. The Boogeyman, who is obviously surveilling me as one of the town's top journalists, could notice my change in pattern and suspect me of knowing something and BAM dead." She sat at the small table by the window, sighing dramatically, "And you wouldn't want that, right?"

Then, Shreya sobered slightly, resting her elbows on the table, "I'm surprised you don't have to work right now. Is it not all hands on deck?" She asked, already thinking about what she may have to write about the incident this coming week. "It's really fucking awful." And there's no way to get through it but to joke about her own mortality, obviously. "What's the sheriff saying? Anything?" She added, "This is all off the record, by the way, I'll save my scheming journalist bit for at least noon."

closed starter with: darshan and shreya (@chappcdlips) setting: shreya's home, 9am, the day after the incident

His eyes fluttered open, and a strangled gasp forced its way out of his painfully dry throat as he struggled to recognize his surroundings, but the panic settled as the comfort of familiarity took hold. It was Shreya’s couch, in Shreya’s living room, in Shreya’s home, where he’d let himself in at 3am after finding sleep impossible at his own home. Darshan wiped the trail of drool off his cheek, sitting up and stretching his aching back before wandering to her kitchen, opening the fridge- only to see a truly meager selection of food between the tupperware containers of his own leftovers. A stray carton of eggs saved the day, and he’d set off to make breakfast when he heard the shuffle of feet. “Hey, lazy bones. Did I wake you?” His voice was casual, but there was an unmistakable horror laced in every syllable. How could he shake the guilt? How could he cope with the relief he felt when he confirmed that the young girl found dead in town hall was not his family member? As if that made it better- that the loss was not his own. “You should really get some vegetables in your fridge, or something, you know. Even an apple, or a single piece of broccoli. Give your poor microwave a break, before it unionizes against you.” 

everyone should thank me because as bad as i am, i am holding myself back from being much worse

If I don’t drive you crazy then what’s the point

joining the war on “pretentiousness” on the side of the pretentious