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Post by SKYE JESSICA FORD on Aug 28, 2012 22:31:19 GMT -5
Skye did kind of wish that she could still be let into places for free -- there were all kinds of places, seriously, anything from buffet dinners to the carnival or something. Prices were kind of ridiculous these days, though she understood, she did, there were all kinds of things about the economy and the cycle of things and businesses in competition and so on and so forth, all kinds of business and economics and the like that she didn't like to bother with. Still, it kind of sucked when she had to dole out money to do something that she'd been able to do for free... like, fifteen years ago. "Yeah, kids and celebrities. They're making billions of dollars, so let's give them free things." Skye might have been a little bitter. Josh had money too, though, but it was... it was different.There were a couple of decent ways to make money and a couple of ways that were pretty ridiculous. "Mm, Christmas is nice. But a haunted house would be pretty awesome." Josh's place was huge, he could probably go all out for that kind of thing and still have plenty of space to spare -- unless he wanted to decorate the whole place, which she would be seriously impressed by. "My mom really likes to decorate, too. We just have a townhouse though, so it was really just the garage we got to mess around with, but you should have seen it." She knew from pictures that her parents did still decorate, but she hadn't been home during Halloween in years, considering she'd been at the Academy -- but Brittany, her mom, a teacher who seriously adored the kids she taught, had always been gung ho about it.
She knew he didn't mean it and so it was easy for her to stare back, her expression hard and cold. "You'll regret this." If someone had been actually, legitimately serious, she might have had reason for concern or to get upset, but it was just Josh, and they were back to normal as quickly as they'd gotten like this in the first place, once they were driving off again. "No, crashing the car was all on him," she agreed. The police had seemed pretty serious about it too, so she was glad that nobody had had a way of pinning the blame on all of them or anything like that. In the end, she didn't think Charlie had gotten in so much trouble, but being yelled at by his mom over the phone was probably pretty awful in itself. "Poor guy doesn't even know we're talking about him," she said after a moment, once the slight giddiness of good memories and all that had died down. Then she rethought her statement and shook her head a little. "Actually, no, he should probably be able to guess." They were kind of shameless about it and Charlie was, after all, the one who'd gone and smashed up the car on a fire hydrant.
It would have been pretty amazing if she actually had the money to head to Blackjack on any kind of regular basis, but unfortunately this wasn't the case at all. She was lucky that she lived in a dorm and hadn't opted for an apartment or anything, because paying rent would have been pretty awful, she was convinced. An apartment would also mean having to buy groceries and the like, and that... well, Skye wasn't prepared to do that when really she'd only started working a few months ago. Plenty of her money, even then, went straight in the bank to put towards paying off loans in the futre. In short, Blackjack was far from affordable in this kind of situation. "Corrosion's such a mess," she said, shaking her head a little. It was probably her last choice of places to be. "Last thing I need is to be hit on by some jerks who smell like sweat and cheap beer." Skye was usually a little more candid about her overall impressions of other people as a whole, but she was in a good mood, they were on the topic already, and... eh, Josh would probably be okay with it. "Mm, casino. Look at all these places we can get into now, anywhere in the world." She was pretty sure there was no place with a higher drinking age than the United States, anyway, and if there was... well, she'd yet to learn about it.
Skye burst out laughing, completely unashamed of doing so, when he almost slipped off the stool. "Smooth." She almost made some kind of pun or joke or something about the stool also being smooth -- considering he'd almost slid off of it -- but then he actually spoke and she was distracted again. Her brain was so totally, totally unable to focus on more than one thing at a time... actually, just the one was pretty difficult as it was. "Oh my god right, high school's just... just fucking ridiculous," she said, completely forgetting that just a couple of seconds ago she'd been talking about how she missed it. Josh brought up a point, though -- even though she hadn't moved anywhere physically from where she'd been in high school, they were sure as hell a lot more free now than they'd been just a few years ago. Well, they were free in certain ways anyway. "But why the fuck is there so much work now?" She was talking about college and their respective workloads, but neglected to mention so. "No, no, Josh, what if we like..." She waved her hands a little in front of her trying to show to him what she was trying to say -- words were harder. "Like... what if we fill a swimming pool up with alcohol? Then would you drink?"
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Aug 29, 2012 15:40:53 GMT -5
He really didn't understand the concept of celebrities. It wasn't fair to give any one person or group a huge amount of cash and free opportunities when the rest of the world had to work their asses off to get where they were. He was all right with some people who still did work hard or at least give back after their rise to fame but really most of it simply annoyed him. He'd probably see it differently if he were famous but he wasn't. "Makes sense," he 'agreed' dryly. "My family's worked for what we've got, saved up for years. They make it all over the course of a couple films. Acting's not harder than, I don't know, being an electrician." He picked one of the first dangerous things that came to mind. "Or a firefighter." He chuckled when realising that he'd named two things relating to their element with no intention of doing so. "Decorating's pretty fun. I used to help my Mum out whenever she'd ask. It was a lot better than being forced to wear a Christmas sweater or go carolling." He was mostly joking about clichés but he was serious about finding fun in the decor. He liked to be kept busy and liked to do stuff with his hands so a task that was demanding suited him quite well. "Do you have pictures?" he wondered, genuinely curious. He wondered what sorts of stuff they got up to. You didn't need a mansion to have a good time and he wasn't of that belief.
Cops always made Joshua nervous after he was taken in for questioning in a murder. You didn't forget something like that. He'd been a mixture of amused at Charlie's reaction and terrified that something would happen to him despite the fact that he'd been in the back with Skye at the time telling their friend that he needed to learn how to drive. "That's why I never took shotgun when he was driving. Too dangerous." You never knew when you could be ploughing into a fire hydrant. "Pfft, c'mon, he totally talks about us behind our backs. You know it." He said it lightly but he believed it, too. He wouldn't be surprised if Charlie relayed the story of Josh getting drunk and ranting about how some poor girl had stolen his cat when he'd seen a lookalike in a window. He'd been trying to get Charlie, his poor designated driver, to turn the car around and let him go up to the door. Oh, alcohol. "It's weird thinking he's not around to get up to shit with us any more, though. Huh." Friends grew up and moved away. Such was life. It kind of sucked, though, especially since Josh treated his friends like gold. All right, he was a dick and a troll but he really did have an intense streak of loyalty. He loved the people he was close to, platonic love of course.
Thunders were judgemental and after six years of being allied with them, Joshua was used to it. He was a little out of practice after switching sides but Skye's comment did not phase him. Far from it. Instead he smirked and checked the road before stealing a quick glance at her. "Well I'm clean and sober, can I hit on you?" He trusted her to know that he was not serious. It wasn't unlike Josh to crack jokes like this for one and he was also engaged. It would be pretty risky to start hitting on his best friend seeing as she knew about Nell and all. "Still, can't say I've had that problem. Not with guys, anyway." He'd been hit on plenty of times by the intoxicated female population. Now he just flashed the ring he usually wore when drinking in bars and said that he was married. "Only problem with casinos are the cheaters. Takes all the fun out of it." There was a bit of a thrill in the chances you took when you gambled. That was the entire point of it, taking a risk. The people who cheated just to rake in cash exasperated him but that was probably because he was rich and didn't feel the need to do the same. Maybe if he were in dire straits he'd understand their position.
Joshua settled for looking offended when she laughed at him. "Dude. Not okay." He took another shot of whiskey as if that could remedy it. In fact it was only going to make things worse seeing as he was getting more and more intoxicated each time he tipped one back. He was glad when Skye agreed with him, he liked being right. "Ridiculous," he repeated, nodding in affirmation. She wondered about the work and he seemed to consider it for a long moment, mystified. "Because we are adults," he told her with an entirely straight face and serious tone, stressing the word like they did in Threw It On The Ground. The Lonely Island was bad for him. Boombox was still his favourite song, though, because it was his song with Nell, the ringtone that sounded when she called him. He scrunched up his expression. "But... but Skye, swimming pools are gross. Like, what if someone does a floater in your beer? Nooooo." He drew it out and shuddered. No way.
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Post by SKYE JESSICA FORD on Aug 31, 2012 13:10:32 GMT -5
The economy was such a weird concept, honestly. This came to mind because it went hand in hand with money and the way people would be able to make it, for obvious reasons. The economy was just something that people had made up because they needed something to fuel to keep themselves happy, but it had made money such a big deal. Money was important, she wasn't idealistic enough to suggest that it wasn't, but only to an extent. There were a few more important things. "I know. Making it big can be hard, I guess, for actors, but..." She didn't want to undermine how hard it could be to act or sing or perform or otherwise do something to get famous (in most cases -- socialites were obviously out of the picture) but she wasn't sure this constituted quite as much as they got. "But that's all dependent on how much worth you want to put on it in comparison," she finished at last, finding the proper words. "Aw, I'd pay to see you in a Christmas sweater. Did it have Rudolph or Santa on it?" Skye grinned. "On my phone somewhere, yeah!" She reached for it now, scrolling through to find them. There it was, her garage covered in cobwebs and... other creepy things -- her mom was standing there dressed up in full ghost costume. Her parents had sent it to her last Halloween as a "this is what you get to miss for going away for college!" reminder -- as a good-natured joke, of course. Skye flashed the screen in Josh's direction before frowning a little. "You're driving, though." Though she trusted Josh to drive just fine, she should hopefully not do anything stupid like distracting him with pictures.
Hilariously enough, she was pretty sure that there had actually been three of them in the backseat and nobody riding shotgun, because really, Charlie was the kind of horrible driver that made her want to hide and just take the bus for the rest of eternity. There were bus accidents too, but bus drivers were probably much more trustworthy when it came to this kind of thing. Plus, Skye had been taking the bus for years, and she had yet to hit a fire hydrant, that was for sure. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that that wasn't just you, it was just what everyone did." Josh's total faith in their friend made her laugh a little. No, it was probably true. "Probably. Let's just agree not to do anything dumb in front of him this time, his whole city would know about it by the time we left." Actually, considering this trip was probably one of those things that'd only happen once every so often (if not just once, ever), she probably wouldn't mind that much, but it was the principle. She supposed that Josh could go off and tell anyone about any stupid things they did (considering they'd already agreed to going to the bar, and this just wasn't going to end well...) but, actually, considering how secret their friendship had to be now, that wasn't likely. "No, it's really weird. I guess that's the thing about boarding school, though." Especially for a place like the Academy, though many students did live in Maple Hollow, a great deal of them also didn't, and came from all over.
Skye gave him a kind of scalding, wary look before pretending to reconsider. "I guess it could be a lot worse," she said, sounding hesitant as if she were still looking down on him. She was just playing along, joking of course -- there was nothing wrong with Josh -- but at the same time serious in the sense that... no, there was no planet on which that would be okay. They were friends -- best friends, actually -- so it would be weird on too many levels. Besides which, he was engaged, and while she and Josh didn't talk about Nell much at all, she didn't think he had any intentions of leaving Nell. "I just don't want to be the one to break it to your fiancée, that's all." Corrosion was just a clusterfuck of people trying to either get really really smashed, or just trying to hook up with someone for the night. The one time they'd run into each other accidentally at the club, Skye had honestly considered herself pretty lucky to find actual good company. "That's true. I guess if you don't get caught there's a ton of money to be made in it." She didn't really gamble, though, so she couldn't really say that she could actually sympathize.
A sober Skye was pretty good at knowing whether or not her friends were joking, even when the firend was Josh, but alcohol tended to ruin her better judgment, and she had no idea. She settled for the assumption that he was kidding anyway, mostly because her brain didn't really allow for taking things seriously at the moment. "You're just -- like -- you're so drunk, Josh." She was in a fit of giggles still, and this almost made her fall off her stool, but she gripped the actual surface in front of her to try to keep herself steady. Nooo, falling over would not be a good idea right now at all. "Way ridiculous. They should make that shit illegal," she slurred. Life may or may not have been better without high school. Skye was currently of the belief that it would have been wayyyy better. "Well, being an adult is stupid," she said, emphasizing it in the same way and totally missing the reference. "What's the point of being an adult if you can't even enjoy it because there's so much to fucking do?" College was a pain, that was for damn sure. He didn't seem very excited about the prospect of filling a pool with beer, and she frowned. "Beer? No, nooo, gross. It'd be like... hm... champagne, baby. And no swimming allowed. Just drinking." Oh god, Skye could so not afford to fill an entire pool with champagne. Josh probably could, but it'd still be a waste of money and perfectly good alcohol.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Sept 2, 2012 3:44:10 GMT -5
Though he didn't agree with how much money actors made in comparison to other jobs, it was not because of jealousy. Other than in the romantic sense, Josh didn't get jealous of other people. He pushed himself to be the best he could be in all areas that he strived to do well in and didn't envy others their own success. He would, however, be pretty irritable if someone lucked out and made millions when he worked his ass off and made little in comparison. Then again, Josh was studying to become a doctor and they made loads of money. "A lot of jobs are hard. Look at scientists. They make less than actors do and they're the ones trying to keep people s—" He cut himself off mid-word, the result a hissing sound as he let it die on his lips. Taking a breath, he said, "Ah, whatever." He'd realised that he was getting snippy and overly passionate about his opinion and that was his cue to stop before it got out of hand. He was defensive of scientists and doctors because it was his field of future and current interest. Unfortunately it didn't look like he'd be able to have a dual career in science and medicine like he'd hoped but that didn't make him any less protective. "Are you kidding? My parents couldn't have stuffed me in a Christmas sweater if they tried." A wolfish grin adorned his lips momentarily as he thought of his childhood self. He'd had a vicious temper back then as well and he'd been quite the handful for his parents. He had to hand it to them, they'd done all right. He thought that he was pretty darn awesome.
He took a quick glance at the phone, not too bothered about the road due to its relative state of desertion. Once they hit the main highways he'd need to start being a lot more careful but right now he wasn't too concerned about safety. Skye was, apparently, and after grinning at the photo he had to admit that she was being more responsible than he was at the moment. "Right, sorry." It wasn't snippy and sarcastic but more subdued as he turned his gray gaze back onto the road. He was usually a lot more responsible but the giddiness from the road trip seemed to be affecting him. Whoops. "That's really neat, though. Maybe I should do that to my house some time." He imagined Annabel would get a kick out of inviting her friends over to see it and he didn't imagine his fiancée would protest. Still, it wasn't like he'd set something like that up without asking her first. "Kinda glad, too, or I would have become one with the damned hydrant." He didn't laugh this time because he was serious. The shotgun side had actually sustained damage due to, y'know, ploughing into a fire hydrant, and he was glad that his only injury had been pain in his ribs from holding back laughter. "Dude, deal. We're fucked if we let him get the better of us. I mean, it's Charlie. It'd be so pathetic." All right so Charlie was that guy, the butt of most of the jokes, but he'd earned it from being such a clown. He was so easy to troll, too, that someone like Joshua could hardly help himself.
He didn't appear put off at all by the look Skye gave him and merely flashed a grin in reply. He was fairly shameless when he joked around and it was good that most people who knew him long enough understood this or he figured that Nell would be receiving some pretty shifty rumours. "Well excuse you, I happen to think I'm fucking wonderful." He wiggled his brows and then even he couldn't hold back laughter, shaking his head. He was in a jovial mood and it was showing. "Ha! God, no. She'd kill me!" Several drinks later and it was a damn good thing that he was faithful at heart or he might have just fell back on his earlier request to hit on his best friend. The beer goggles were on and a lot of the women were gorgeous as hell but he tried his best to ignore them in favour of the nonsensical conversation they were having. Or, well, trying to have amidst fits of laughter and dumbfuckery. "Yeah, and? Sore you." The words blended together, no visible space created between them. Still playing off the reference, his response to Skye's question was, "Cause you're not a part of their system." He took a shot and then added, "Maaaan." God, they were so drunk. It was ridiculous and totally okay. They deserved to let loose every once and a while! "Weeeell... uh, what about backwash? That's some gross-ass shit, right there." He didn't like pools and so he was convinced that a pool full of anything was as bad as a pool full of water. Empty pools were all right by him, though.
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Post by SKYE JESSICA FORD on Sept 6, 2012 20:17:14 GMT -5
Being used to the tempers of Fires and of this one Fire in particular -- damn, it's been years... -- Skye was neither surprised nor bothered when he started off on what sounded like it was about to be a kind of miniature tirade. It was cut off, though, and she diverted her gaze from the window to look at him kind of curiously. He seemed to calm himself. "I know," she said, pretty simply. Though her interests weren't in the field of medicine or science like Josh's were, she understood the certain feeling of defensiveness. "Basically in short the world is just really stupid." There were good things about the world, but uh... Skye couldn't be bothered to put the effort into thinking of any. She was, however, a little bit of a cynic. "Right, well, I'm still holding out hope." She smirked a little bit. The idea of Josh being in a Christmas sweater -- or anything of the sort, actually -- was hilarious.
Things like these, seeing the Halloween decorations, made her miss home, she'd admit, and this was kind of rare. She liked Maple Hollow -- a lot, actually, enough that recently for the first time she'd been considering staying after college -- but it wasn't... home in the same way. Ottawa was her hometown, after all. They were similar and yet so different. There were decisions that she'd have to make after graduation, though, so that'd be just fine with her. "Do it! It'd look pretty badass up there." Josh's place was huge and it would probably require way more work to decorate that place than her parents', but he could probably do it without a problem. "Yeah, the damages were probably pretty awful to pay for, too," she said, remembering how shitty the front of the car had looked all smashed up. From what she remembered, that was another thing Charlie's mother had been none too pleased about, seeing as their friend hadn't actually had a job. "Are our lives really that sad that we'd be worried about Charlie one-upping us?" she asked, amusement clear in her tone. It was just way too easy to pick on their friend for this.
If this situation ever actually happened in complete seriousness, Skye had no idea what the fuck she'd really do. The most appropriate thing would probably be to tell the fiancée, but then, after all, she didn't know Nell that well. This was all hypothetical, though, because she was very aware that it never would happen, and mostly if it did she'd probably be too busy facepalming all over the place to figure out a real plan of action. Josh wasn't an asshole, though, wasn't a shitty enough person to do that she didn't think. "Yeah, of course you would if you really think you'd have a shot hitting on me." She gave him another snide look before laughing, breaking character. Skye... okay, she did think pretty highly of herself, but not to that extent, no. It took her a second to process what he said and then she shook her head. "Am not, I'm totally... totally sober," she insisted, but she was giggling way too hard at nothing to make herself believe it, either. "Wait wait -- waitwaitwait, but I don't want to be a part of their stupid system," she said, still not knowing the reference, and in her state she really didn't think that Josh was acting out of the ordinary enough at all to question his strange choice of words and tone.
"Ewww, backwash, what the hell," she whined, actually hitting him in the arm a little this time, but considering she wasn't that strong and was not very much in control of her actions it probably didn't even bother him. "What about like a -- like a champagne fountain? You should get one of those for the front yard," she insisted, still deadset on this for some reason. She made eye contact with the bartender (or tried through her stupid giggilng) and waved her hand to order more, please and thanks, but it was with a kind of shifty look that the man walked over. "No, I think I'll have to cut you two off." Well fuck everything if it had been a long time since she'd heard those words, and pfft, Skye was responsible, okay, she could totally hold her liquor and she didn't care what the hell this guy was trying to pull. "No... no no, no you're not," she argued, shaking her head and waving her hands around a little more as if this were any help to their case. "What the fuck? Can you believe this guy?" she asked, turning back to Josh, hopefully her ally in this. How dare the man deny them this. Skye never got to let loose! She deserved this.
(she has gone off the deep end omg >>)
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Sept 8, 2012 1:51:18 GMT -5
He could feel the internal heat that had flushed through his veins, not an embarrassed flush but one of anger. He was passionate about his opinions and it was one of the reasons he tended to avoid expressing them. Hot-blooded made a lot of sense to someone with a temper like his. It did not fade even as he forced himself to stand down and avoid assaulting his friend with angry words that weren't meant for her. He offered Skye a bitter smile of thanks when she didn't seem bothered. "Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty stupid. In more ways than one." He wasn't thinking of the issue he'd been ranting about but of another that had defined the way he looked at law enforcement. He remembered being sat down in an interrogation room and lied to about what would happen to him if he didn't talk. It was a scare tactic and probably illegal but it had worked and it was far too late to get back at them now. He pushed the thought aside. This was meant to be a fun outing with a friend, nothing like this. "Right. If you show up at my door with a suspiciously-shaped package on Christmas I am reserving the right to shut that door in your face." It was actually pretty funny to think of Skye trying to stuff him into a brightly coloured, woollen, uncomfortable sweater. Not funny enough that he'd let her do it, or even enough that he thought she would actually try, but amusing all the same.
The Fire was constantly needing to remind himself that other people did not have the same kind of money he had. He wasn't stupid, no, but in living a life of luxury it was easy to let the financial troubles of others slip his mind. Charlie's family made decent money and had a nice house in the States from what he'd heard but they didn't have the kind of money that he did and so the crash had probably dented their bank account as well as their car. "Probably, yeah. Y'know, that's one thing I've never done. Got into an accident, I mean." He realised a second too late that he'd told Skye his scars were from a car accident. Shit. Maybe she wouldn't notice. Pressing on, he said, "Charlie more than makes up for me, though. Guy's luck is as bad as his driving skills." That wasn't a lie, at least, and it made it easy to answer Skye's question. "If Charles ever one ups me, I swear I'm going to cry." The grim tone was used to cover his desire to laugh. Really, even joking about crying was ridiculous. Josh never cried. Not around his friends, anyway.
Skye was attractive, Josh was not blind, but he definitely hadn't thought of hitting on her since he'd gotten into a relationship. Before then? All right, so maybe he'd had less-than-innocent thoughts about a lot of his female friends. Lark wasn't an exception either. But he'd never acted on them because he'd been a lot less committed at the time and he didn't like to be a player. He wouldn't mess with a friend like that even if they were a hot-as-hell supermodel. Now he was engaged so it was completely off-limits. Skye was obviously not sober but Joshua wasn't either and so it wasn't like he had anything to hold over her head there. She didn't get his reference and he shook his head. "That's what I said Skye. You're not a part of their system." Something was missing. The sentence lacked meaning. "Man." There we go. It was said flatly and without any of the enthusiasm of last time but hey, he'd gotten it out there and now he could live content. Content and very, very drunk. Being hit in the arm didn't so much as phase him and he only laughed—really, though, in his current state it was more like a cackle—and grinned at her. Fountains weren't pools and so he was more open to that idea. "Like a chocolate fountain... but with champagne? Okay sure. Cept I think I'd like a whiskey fountain." Because reasons.
He was in a happy, jovial, incredibly intoxicated mood, and so he was totally on board with Skye's idea to drink more. What he was not all right with, though, was the idea that the both of them were being cut off. He'd lost track of how much he'd actually drank and that in and of itself was a bad sign but right now he didn't care. This was supposed to be their night of fun! "We're paying you. Y'can't cut us off!" This was wrong on so many levels in Joshua's eyes. Not okay. "No, no, no I can't." He glared at the offending bartender, then stood up and crossed his arms. "We're not leaving. You need to give her what she wants." So maybe demanding things of them like this was some kind of robbery wasn't the best idea. Next thing he knew someone had grabbed hold of his arm and he was throwing a wild punch toward the offender. "Don't fuckin' touch me!" Barroom brawls weren't something he often got involved in but he definitely wasn't someone you could just up and grab without consequence. Mad as a raging bull, he took another step toward the guy and swung again. Fuck this.
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Post by SKYE JESSICA FORD on Sept 8, 2012 23:17:29 GMT -5
There were definitely plenty of fucked up things about the world they happened to live in, and Skye... okay, was a bit of a cynic. She would admit that freely enough. It was the way she was, kind of the way she'd always been, or at least for a really long time. "Yeah. It is," she said, but that was pretty much the end of that, because -- while she lacked the anger that Josh had so much of the time -- she could be pretty impassioned about things too, and this would never end well if they both got wound up. "I'd never do something stupid like that!" she protested, shaking her head a little, but there was a tiny smirk on her face. "Not alone, anyway. I'll bring a whole army of people to help me." She imagined gathering an entourage of their mutual friends so that they could get Josh into a Christmas sweater, but she was pretty sure that his resistance would be able to stop most anyone in their tracks. Then again, they had few mutual friends as it was nowadays. Actually, it was a little awful sometimes to hear the things that the Fires and Thunders would say about her friend -- especially back then when it was fresh, but still now occasionally -- but it was the kind of thing that Skye had learnt to brush off. They were still friends, at least, even if it wasn't like group hang-outs with other people ever happened anymore.
It really was just far too easy to pick on Charlie, though in their case it wasn't out of malicious intent at all. He was pretty good at figuring this out, actually, which was always good. She was sure that both she and Josh had gotten into trouble over stupid things like that sometimes, people taking things far too seriously. "Probably even worse, honestly. Come on, look at the guy's life choices." Mostly the things that had happened to Charlie hadn't been his choices at all, she knew, or any kind of direct results of them, but it was just easier to say than all those shitty things that happened to him because he was just really unlucky. Plus... okay, sometimes he had made some questionable choices in the past. It took her a couple of seconds after she'd said this, his earlier comment having gone unnoticed at first, for something to click in her head as being off about this. "Wait, but I swear you've said... something about a car accident." She tried to remember but couldn't piece together much -- her memory was fair but not very good. The conversation she was thinking of must have been from years ago. Most of their more recent talks were pretty fresh in her mind -- probably because they were just that much more rare. She shook it off. "Might as well quit everything you do at that point, there'd be no hope for you." Charlie was a pretty hopeless guy himself.
At this point in time, she was having trouble remembering what she had said, so whatever he'd said just a few seconds before that was beyond her. Okay, well, it wasn't really that she had forgotten, but the ways these things connected had stopped making sense long ago and she was pretty much spitting out whatever words she wanted. It was a pretty weird change for her -- most people at school would probably get mood whiplash or something if they saw or heard her at this moment. "Good. Good, 'cause their system is fucking stupid," she said, then paused. Though she hadn't been saying it before, Josh had repeated it like... a billion times now and she decided to try the word out. "Man." Okay, it was weird-sounding coming from her, she decided, and it made her laugh. "Whiskey? I think... no, I think we've had enough of whiskey," Skye refuted, shaking her head and still laughing, but she was pretty much convinced that this was the best idea ever. "But you can always just get both. Oh my god Josh you need to get an entire garden and fill it with alcohol fountains." Why not? She couldn't see any reason this could be a bad idea or even unfeasible, not at the time being.
A few minutes later, though, any earlier mention of having had too much whiskey had been forgotten (god, it was a laughable concept at this point) and she was very angry to discover that the bartender was trying to cut them off. She wanted more to drink, damn it all. "What the hell, it's not like this is cheap, it's like you guys don't want to make money," she complained as if this would convince the man. It didn't, however, and she was happy when Josh stood up to try to argue with the man. Mostly she was impressed that he could even stand up straight, because she felt like her legs would just be like jelly if she tried to do the same at this moment -- but she wasn't as obviously intimidating as Josh, anyway, so it wouldn't have made a difference. Skye was acutely aware of a different man, a kind of huge one, approaching, but she realized too late what was going on because next second, he'd grabbed Josh and then Josh was throwing a punch and Skye actually screamed a little out of surprise at the fight that had broken out.
"Wait wait wait wait, what the fuck --" She cut herself off when she saw the word 'SECURITY' on the man's shirt in block letters -- it took a moment to register in her alcohol-addled mind. This probably should have made her try to stop Josh but instead she just got to her feet too, holding onto the bar beside her now for support. "Show him up, Josh." The bouncer was big, though, around the same height as Joshua was but heftier, ridiculously muscular, the typical security man, and Josh's second punch seemed to make no difference to him other than to annoy him. Well, fuck. It wasn't more than a second later that she also felt a hand on her arm and turned to see another bouncer, this one smaller but grim-faced. Her mind managed to still figure out what was going on and she let her jaw drop open, somehow feeling that this was surprising even though it shouldn't have been to any sober person. Starting fights with securyt was generally not the way to go. "You can't kick us out, what the fuck," she argued angrily, trying to yank her arm away, but it was testament to how much she'd been drinking that she almost fell over in the process.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Sept 14, 2012 8:35:04 GMT -5
He had to spare a laugh for the ridiculous mental image. A small army arriving at the doorstep on Christmas eve bearing a woolly abomination they wished to cram over his head? Sounded like a real fun time. He shot her a mock glare which wasn't quite as frightening as the real thing but almost as impressive. "Do I have to one-up you or would you rather avoid embarrassment?" He pressed his lips together and would have crossed his arms, too, if his hands hadn't been on the wheel with eyes focused on the road ahead. Said road was rather empty, with only a couple of other cars passing at inconsistent intervals. It made concentrating on their conversation rather simple. He thought of some of Skye's friends, some of which used to also be his, and he decided that a group of Fire and Thunders that likely still harboured a mild resentment toward him would not be the best house guests.
Immediate alarm swept through him when Skye spoke, realizing that she had caught on to his slip-up. It had been so long since the incident that had given him the scars that he often forgot about the tangled web of lies he'd woven around himself. He'd lied to his friends, his family, everyone but himself. He hadn't thought about the possibility of it catching up to him. It was a damn good thing that he didn't have any physical reactions or else he might have gotten into his first ever car crash right there and then. Skye seemed to give up on it but he decided that to bury a lie would only come back to bite him again in the future. "Uh, yeah, about that," he said awkwardly, then paused to let her know he was going to correct himself. "It wasn't a car accident or anything like that, I got myself into some trouble I didn't want to talk about so soon after it happened." His hands tightened a little on the wheel but he was glad that the words came easier than they once had. He was getting over it, the wounds were healing at long last. With a weak chuckle, he said, "Let's just say I pissed the wrong people off. It's all good now, though. But nah, never been in a car accident. With these mad driving skills? Pfft, never." He moved on quickly from the sticky subject of his being attacked but he hoped that his friend would appreciate the honesty. He'd realized a long time ago that shutting his friends out of his life was not the greatest idea.
By the time he'd drank enough, the awkward admission from earlier had been completely forgotten. "Whose system were we talking about again?" His eyes narrowed in frustrated concentration as he glared at an empty shot glass as if it could provide him with the answer. It was an important question, damn it! As crucial as the meaning of life or some shit like that. Hell, it could be the meaning of life for all he cared. All he wanted was answers. He burst into hysterical laughter when she stressed the word 'man' like she had, not really grasping why it was funny but rolling with it anyway. His cheeks were flushed red from the pressure of the laughter and he was grinning from ear to ear. He was glad they'd come out tonight, this was a real good time. "You can never have enough whiskey," he insisted stubbornly. He reached for a shot to prove this to her and realized the last three he'd ordered were all empty. A disappointed breath huffed past his lips. Thankfully, Skye was there to save the day with thoughts of alcohol fountains. He stared intently at her. "Dude, you're a fucking genius." She also wasn't a dude but hell if he cared right about now. "Hey, hey, a beer garden, get it?" His eyes shone as he grinned. "They should give you a fucking Nobel Prize Piece or whatever." God, he was so drunk.
It shouldn't, therefore, have surprised him when they were cut off. He wasn't thinking responsibly, though, else his first thought would have been to quietly take his leave instead of causing a scene by trying to punch out the security guard. He might have had an all right chance if he hadn't been totally plastered but he wasn't in luck there and his wild punch wasn't nearly strong enough to do even minimal damage. He found himself pressed up against the bar with his arm twisted behind his back, the pain dull thanks to the effects of alcohol making him more angry than hurt. "Get off!" he half-slurred and half-snarled, which was met only by the heftier man hauling him out of the bar and slamming the door behind he and Skye. He turned around and pounded his fist once against the door, which didn't so much as dent the metal. He cursed colorfully and waved his hand around for a moment, then leaned against the brick wall for support, panting. "Man, fuck this shit," he said. "Who are they to tell us what to do? Fuck 'em." He slid down the wall and held his head. "How the fuck're we gettin' home?" 'Home' probably being a hotel room given the time. It didn't occur to him to call a cab. "Fuck this," he muttered again.
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Post by SKYE JESSICA FORD on Sept 18, 2012 19:05:06 GMT -5
There was probably no gang of people she'd be able to round up to go all the way over to Josh's house. Even if they were all Winds and still mutual friends -- much like Charlie was, though he lived way too far away for that -- there was no guarantee that any of them would have been able to keep their mouths shut if they still actually attended the Academy. Everything was kept so quiet. She wondered if people would actually care anymore if she and Josh hung out at school or anything like that, considering how long it'd been, but she decided that it wasn't worth it to try. Their friendship wasn't falling apart at the seams the way it was now, so she was alright with it. "I think it's safe to say you'd never be able to one-up that," she said rather than voice any of this, her lips pressed together much the same way that his were, though he wasn't actually looking at her. That was for the best, though -- eyes on the road and all that.
She would have let it go, deciding that it was a slip of the memory somehow -- even though that seemed unlikely. It was easy to forget that conversations in the past had happened, and -- while not impossible -- slightly more difficult to completely imagine that one had happened when it hadn't. Even so, she wasn't going to insist on something like that. Then he spoke, though, and the first few words out of his mouth made it clear that she had been at least kind of right all along. She didn't interrupt when he paused. "Oh." It was all she said at first but her eyebrows furrowed together when he continued. All of this was still pretty cryptic-sounding. "The... 'wrong people'?" she repeated, not sounding as confused as she felt, but still definitely wondering. "When was this, anyway? But --" Skye stopped. It was hard to gauge how she should even react in a situation like this. This situation was weird, actually. She couldn't say she'd ever had anything quite like this happen. On the one hand, it was hard not to be a little resentful about being lied to, but on the other... it wasn't exactly like he'd repeated this same lie multiple times over over the course of the time they'd known each other or anything. She trusted her friend's judgment, also. If it'd been that bad, then maybe... she really couldn't blame him. And at least he's coming clean. Her reaction was much more measured because of this -- rather than if she'd somehow heard about this elsewhere. "But it's good that it's all done now," she finished after a second. He hadn't apologized and she didn't really expect him to. "And I guess also good that it's not likely we'll die in a freak accident on this trip or anything." Well, that was morbid.
"System?" she asked kind of blearily, not sure exactly what was going on, and she laughed ridiculously at the stupid glare on his face. Pfft. It didn't even cross her mind that she probably looked just as ridiculous but she did know that Josh looked hilarious right at that moment. "I don't know. The man's system," she said, trying to sound like a hippie or something when she said it, but it didn't work out too well. She was more giggly than mellow, with all that alcohol in her. "Dude, dude, I know. I need to... to patent this or something. Or however you invent stuff, Ionno," she said, because she had never even tried to invent something before. "We should build one. We even have so much alcohol right here, it's so great. Like, just... grab some of those bottles and we'll go buy a fountain and fill it up. Right now." Something about the words "Noble Prize Piece" just sounded a little off but she couldn't be bothered to think the couple extra seconds to work out what, so she shrugged it off. Meh. Nobel Peace Prize winners also probably didn't go around talking about stealing whiskey from bars and running off, but luckily Skye wasn't gunning for a real one.
Barely aware of what was even going on around her -- everything was moving way too quickly, god, she couldn't focus on this many things happening at once -- Skye wasn't really sure of anything until she was dropped off outside and her arm was released. She rubbed it clumsily where the bouncer had been holding onto it. The door was slammed shut behind them and she turned and stared at it like they were crazy or something. Well, at least it had stopped raining, not that this was something she took note of. There were more pressing issues. "What the fuck," she whined, apparently mopey and annoying in that sense when she had alcohol in her system and, uh, was put in the right circumstances. She had never been forcefully removed from a bar before. This was definitely one of those "circumstances". "We should... uh --" She didn't finish her sentence and didn't really think to, half-stumbling over and nearly falling into a sitting position next to him. Shhhh, she did that on purpose. "Can't drive. Wait wait wait Josh, where's your car?" Even drunk she knew that it was a really stupid idea to drive, but it made her realize that she didn't actually see the car anywhere, and obviously she couldn't remember where the hell they'd parked. "I don't know. I don't know! This is so stupid," she whined more, shaking her head violently before deflating a little.
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Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Sept 19, 2012 13:00:39 GMT -5
Joshua wasn't usually one to get nervous or uncomfortable around people, especially not his friends, but he felt his stomach flip at her initial answer. Though there was no outward sign of his concerns, on the inside his heart was racing. What did she think of him now? Would she be angry that he'd kept secrets for so long? They were my secrets to keep. There was his defense mechanism kicking in and assuring him that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted and tell anyone as much or as little as he wished. Still, Skye was a friend and he had outright lied to her. Thank goodness he wasn't an incredibly manipulative person and didn't lie compulsively, else their friendship might have been endangered by that little admission. He blinked, swallowed. "Yeah," he said softly. He didn't elaborate at first, unsure of whether he should, but then he said, "A gang. I... I did something to piss them off and they came after me for it." He didn't think that he could tell her he was a part of that gang, that he'd been a part of it when he'd met her. People looked at you differently when you admitted to gang involvement, he wasn't blind and deaf to the judgments of the world. You were seen as a criminal and a stain on society. All he'd wanted was a group of people that accepted him but no one was going to take the time to listen to all that. In addition, he didn't want to tell them. Keeping secrets was Joshua's default.
She asked when it had happened and he wondered what answer to give her. None of the things that ran through his head as possibilities were complete lies but neither were they entire truths. He didn't want to tell her that it had happened twice because that meant confessing he'd lied a lot more than she was currently thinking. Not many people have seen that scar. The jagged, parallel scars from the nails on the bat they'd used ran along his ribs on the right side and so only those who'd taken a good look when he'd stripped his shirt off in front of them would know it was there. He was pretty sure he'd never made a habit to peel off his shirt around Skye. "A couple years ago," he said honestly. "I think I told you it was an accident pretty soon after it happened. Not like the scars do a good job of camouflage." The smile that he flashed was bitter and residual anger burned in his gray eyes. He hadn't been given a grace period to accept the scars, the one on his face had people asking questions right off the bat. He couldn't blame his friends, at least, no matter how much he might have wanted to at the time. "Yeah. Yeah, it's all over. Thank fuck." The gang was scattered with most of the members behind bars or worse and so he no longer had to glance over his shoulder when he went somewhere alone.
When sober he probably could have told her how she might want to go about patenting any great ideas she had but in his current state he only shook his head and looked irritated and confused. "No clue. You shouldn't need to patent shit, you're so amazing that it should just... happen. Just like that. Bam." He slapped his hand quite hard against the bar as he spoke the word, causing the shot glasses he'd abandoned to jump. Pain would have shot up his arm if he'd been sober enough to acknowledge it but in his current state it was easily ignored. Numb to the world. "This thing is in the way, though." He nodded down at the counter. He couldn't grab the stupid bottles from here, which sucked. He'd have loved to have built an awesome beer garden with Skye so they could frolic in fields of whiskey and wine and other things they really should have stopped drinking a while ago. Out on the cold streets without a way of getting home, though, being drunk suddenly wasn't such a novelty. His brain was fuzzy and he couldn't think straight to save his life. "Dunno. Stupid car." As if it was Harper's fault he'd forgotten where he parked her! "Need a hotel or some shit. You see one?" Squinting, he tilted his head back to lean it against the wall. "Fuuuck me," he groaned. He wanted to be back home.
[... hi muse, nice to see you again >>]
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Post by SKYE JESSICA FORD on Sept 24, 2012 16:35:56 GMT -5
Much as Skye didn't really appreciate being lied to, she tried not to hold it against Josh. This wasn't a prime opportunity to be getting into arguments with her friend, not when they were on the middle of the highway and he was driving. She knew better than to do anything dumb when other people were driving, anyway, so she would have held off, but Josh was a really good friend, also, the kind of friend she really obviously was not prepared to give up even when, okay, it was hard not to feel resentful. He seemed legitimately... not really upset necessarily, over this, but there was something negative enough there that Skye wouldn't have been able to bring herself to point it out even if she'd wanted to. Skye sometimes decided that she wouldn't respect people's boundaries only because the reasons for their being there were stupid, but this was one that she wouldn't push if only because it seemed a genuinely big deal. "What did..." Halfway through her question she decided against asking. "Never mind. I guess... It's just good that it wasn't worse." There was no use in worrying if he'd said that it was done and in the past now, and though she might be a little concerned, she wasn't the type to needlessly fret over things like that.
A couple of years ago could be any crazy range from a couple of years ago, back when they'd literally just met at thirteen or fourteen (which was far too long ago, now that she looked back) or it could be a literal couple of years ago, in their first or second year of college. She decided that it didn't matter much to her, but she'd assume that it was somewhere in between at some point when they'd been in high school. She couldn't even remember when they'd ever had a conversation about the scars or car accidents, so there was no real way for her to narrow it down. The conversation existed only vaguely in her mind. If anything, she'd have been more worried than Josh was okay, but he'd seemed to be coping so well with it -- he always had with everything, as far as she could remember -- that she must have eventually forgotten until just now. "Well... I didn't notice anything, so I guess the camouflage wouldn't have been necessary," she said, not returning the smile (sarcastic, almost, as it was), but she wasn't bitter, not really, despite how the words might have sounded. It was something she'd have to take in stride. Could she really hold it against him? She was pretty sure she couldn't really -- it was a weird feeling that she had at the moment but in time she'd come to terms with it. Everyone had something -- Skye didn't have big secrets to keep but she wasn't a big sharer in general. It wasn't something she could get angry about. "I'm glad it's done, yeah. As long as nothing happens again." She meant the gang, not this entire thing about lying and keeping secrets. Criminal activity was generally bad business.
Unfortunately for Skye, she had neither the resources nor the ability to go about inventing or even making a quick fix for an alcohol fountain, let alone an entire garden full of them. "Oh my god I wish I could just do that. Just... bam," she agreed, imitating his voice but not the hand slap, which had actually made her jump, not just the shot glasses. She was just jumpy but it made her start giggling again, only getting serious again when he pointed out the counter, and she nodded. "Stupid thing. Wrecks everything," she mumbled as if bitter. "You should jump over and grab them. And I'll distract the bartender," she went on, the plan coming together perfectly in her mind, but she was pretty sure she was either not drunk enough or already far too drunk to actually try to go through with the plan. It was hard to tell which, but either way, they'd never get the chance to find out, because one thing led to another and they were dumped out rather unceremoniously onto the sidewalk outside. "Wish I had a magic carpet," she said, thinking of Aladdin and sounding downright miserable. "A hotel... a hotel? Is that one down there?" She squinted down the road, where there was some kind of big building with some fancy sign out front. From this angle -- and with the whole world spinning, woah -- she couldn't read it, but she did know that it beat sitting on the cold and still wet ground, so with way more difficulty than it should have taken she pushed herself up into a standing position, one hand still on the wall to keep herself steady. "Let's go, come on," she mumbled, definitely not totally in her right state of mind, but she would consider the fact that she was standing steadily -- oops, uh, steadily-ish -- a victory. Together they sort of half-stumbled down the street toward the hotel; in the morning she could thank all the heavens that the bar and hotel had happened to be in the same general visitor-y place in town.
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