100 Themes, 500 words.

100 themes, 500 words per day: This is the goal. Unfortunately I still have a term paper to write that's due in a week so I don't know when I'll be able to start this.

Soon, hopefully.

1. Entrance
2. Love
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Solitude
6. Break Away
7. BAM!
8. Graffiti
9. Ink
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune
14. Caffeine
15. Bamboo
16. 367
17. I Create Things
18. Noodles
19. Gray
20. Puddle
21. Fluffy
22. Big Tree
23. Eyepatch
24. No Time
25. Tomorrow
26. Swirly
27. Insomnia
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Monday
32. Night
33. Expectations
34. Stars
35. Imperfection
36. He Was a Sexy Man
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. Fantasia
41. Awesomeness
42. Standing Still
43. Dying
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Jukebox
48. Childhood
49. Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Ninja
52. Deep in Thought
53. Lanterns
54. Tower
55. Exotic
56. I <3 Gid
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Tangled
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Wires
65. Horror
66. Emergence
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Fly Me to the Moon
73. All the World's a Stage
74. Tattoo
75. Mirror
76. Balloons
77. Wish
78. Fishies
79. Misunderstanding
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Cups
85. Barrel Roll
86. Red
87. Classical
88. Rubber Ducky
89. Triangle
90. Drowning
91. Plaid
92. Give Up
93. Bird's Eye Perspective
94. Advertisement
95. Locks
96. Keys
97. Safety First
98. Bubbles
99. TV
100. Exit

Shameless Advertising

So, just to see if anyone subscribed or is actually following...

I'm planning on starting to write 500 words a day on a random subject starting soonish. I have tests to study for and term papers to write in the next three weeks though so it might be a bit before I get to that. I'll take any subject matter suggestions into consideration if you leave it in the comments.

Also, if you really are looking for more stuff to read, you can check out my friend's blog: http://satiricalprose.blogspot.com

She does a lot of work with me with the Jack and Risa stuff, so if you're into that you should check out Semantics.

That is all.

Snippets

As I go through my writing folder on my computer, I've found all sorts of things I had initially planned to work on, but had never gotten more than a few sentences or paragraphs in. These were things that were meant to be much longer but never got finished, not just the short drabbles that I do sometimes - those are meant so be concise, compact ideas.

The problem with these is that I wouldn't even want to post them as WIPs because there's so little material present.

[WOSF] Easy [Complete]

“I love you,” Elias whispered, bending down so that his lips were just a few inches from her ear. While she cleaned the blade of her sword. Allowing himself so close to her while bringing up such a delicate subject was a dangerous decision, but a calculated one.

“And what made you decide that burdening me with this information now was a good idea, on the eve of the end of the world?” She looked up at him with stormy eyes narrowed. “Did the sacred wisdom of the ages tell you so?” He could tell even now by the dry sarcasm in her voice that her approval of the entire invasion plan was thin at best.

He chuckled slightly, shaking his head as he turned his gaze from her and out to the horizon. “I wanted you to know in the event I didn't have another chance to say so.” He paused for a moment, before slipping a silver ring with a large red gem off of his finger and producing a silver chain from the pocket of his breeches. Pea couldn't help but glance down and watch his fingers fumble, noting to herself that even though he carried the sacred fire tomb with him now, he still dressed in the garb of a swordfighter and his sword scabbard hung from his side, the only difference now being the dark crimson cloak that hung from his shoulders, marking him as a prince and a fire mage.

The sandy-haired woman sighed and set her blade down on the cargo box she was perched on. “If you don't have another chance to speak with me after this is all over I would be quite disappointed in you... having gone through all the trouble to teach you to use a sword only for you to die. It would look bad for me as a teacher.”

Elias cracked a grin, despite himself. “And of course, that's all that matters.”

“Of course,” she replied evenly.

He stood in silence for a moment, still looking out over the deck of the ship rather than at Pea or at his fingers as they unclasped the chain and slid the silver ring onto it. “I want you to have this,” he said finally, looking over at her again and holding the chain outstretched in his hand. “The band is likely too big for your fingers, so wear it around your neck. It's magic.”

“You know how I feel about magic, my Lord Sage.” He knew she was going to give him problems, even over something as simple as this. It wouldn't be like her not to, after all.

“Yes, but I also think I know how you feel about me,” he replied, grabbing one of her hands with his free hand and placing the chain in it. “And as flighty and fickle as women are... hold on to it for me for a while at least.” He curled her fingers over her palm, gazing back into her eyes as he did so.

Pea nursed her lip for a moment before nodding slightly and pulling her hand out of his grasp to inspect the contents. “Do not think I am so easily won by trinkets and charms,” she murmured, unclasping the chain and refastening it around her neck before inspecting the ring more closely.

“I know better than to presume anything involving you could ever be considered 'easy',” he replied with a slight laugh.

~~~

So, this is an introduction drabble into a fantasy story I've been contemplating in the last week or so, although in the timeline I have planned it would actually be quite near the end. The problem I have with this story is that it feels like something that should be less of a written narrative and more of a video game.

I Want You [Complete]

I want you.

She stared at the phone's tiny screen, taking a deep breath and letting the air escape through barely-parted lips. A wave of emotion hit her, something the stupid, childish part of her automatically and incessantly declared as love despite the more experienced half of her brain knowing better. No, this was physical lust, pure and simple, garnered from events and actions taken two weeks ago to the day that in all honesty probably should have never happened.

And she loved it.

She bit her lip, contemplating the characters of her response as she selected each key deliberately. It wasn't something she did often, usually hitting the buttons on her phone as quickly as she could tell her fingers to do so and leaving room for any number of mistakes and typos. This, though... this was important. Important for the moment; as important as any single moment could be.

I want you too.

She paused for a second more, before hitting send.

~~~

Short little drabble, not related to anything. Complete.

Take You Back [complete]

She wished, at this point, that she was a guy.

Guys had it easy, after all. Anyone who had ever seen a romantic comedy knew that all you had to do to win a girl's heart back after a fight or the unwanted breakup was show up outside her window and croon some sappy sweet song, waiting for her to appear in the window a la Romeo and Juliet. Just grab a guitar and go, or, barring that, show up at school or one of her hangouts and play some beautiful music with lots of oohs and aahs and 'nobody said it was easy's.

She wanted to pick up a guitar and run after him. She wanted to wheel an upright piano onto some stage and pour her all her hurt and sorrow out into a heartbroken ballad, on display for the whole damn city to see. She wanted to find the perfect song to say 'I'll still take you back even though that skanky pitysex bootycall you called to pick you up got blood on my carpet after I punched her in the face and broke her nose.'

Yeah, she would have made a better guy, she decided, crouching against the door and rubbing the scratch marks left on her cheek by fake nails. Not that it mattered much now.

"I hope she makes you pay for the hospital bill, you ass," she mumbled quietly.

~~~

A drabble I wrote a while ago. Short, simple, not really related to anything.

[JIL] Beach Vacation, Part 3 [WIP]

Despite his rather melodramatic display earlier in the restaurant, it appeared as though Jack had remembered the advice that the waiter (who would now forever be referred to as Fernando in Risa's mind) had given them: go to the beach.

That, and there really wasn't anything else to do at this point.

The flip-flops both Jack and Risa were wearing stayed on for as long as they were walking through the parking lot; once the two had climbed over the rocky precipice that served as a sort of natural stairway onto the sand, they were kicked off in unison. Risa tucked hers in the crook of one arm, holding both arms across her chest for warmth against the ocean breeze; Jack held his limply at his side, bumping them against the woman occasionally as they walked.

As soon as she saw the breaking of the waves against the sand, Risa felt the sudden urge to go running out to meet them. It was only after she had taken a few excited steps out towards the water that she remembered that it was almost ten o'clock out, that it was maybe fifty degrees out, and that she wasn't seven years old anymore.

“I'm cold,” she murmured to herself, nursing her lip. A quick glance revealed bonfires dotted along the beach, meaning that all the good driftwood had probably been taken already.

A soft foomph in the sand next to her announced where Jack had decided to sit and enjoy the view. She dug her toes into the sand for a moment, finally deciding that he tended to be decent enough company, and if he was going to keep up his dickery she could always just start walking away. An unceremonious flop later, she was sitting next to him and looking out at the waves once more.

Risa couldn't remember how long it had been exactly since she had been here last. They would take a vacation to the coast every summer and it was one of the few memories of her parents she could genuinely look back upon fondly, yet they had just decided to stop coming one year for reasons she had never really found satisfactory answers to. All she knew right now was that it was gorgeous, and, as an involuntary shiver reminded her, cold. She set her flip-flops on her open side and drew her knees to her torso, stealing a glance over at Jack only to find him pulling his sweatshirt off and tossing it at her. She paused, blinking at him a few times as he gazed steadily out at the ocean and seemingly refusing to look back. Shaking her head at his ridiculousness, she let out a slightly exaggerated sigh.

“I'm still not going to sleep with you,” she informed him half-jokingly, finally deciding that she'd take the sweatshirt, cliché as it was for the situation, and slipping the fabric around her arms.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him smirk. “Yeah... except you already are.”

She rolled her eyes. “Har har, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, well,” he murmured, looking up at the nearly cloudless sky, “Who said I wanted any repeats on my resume, anyway?”

“Right.” She looked down at the zipper of the sweatshirt, thankful for the darkness as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. The wind was blowing and it was cold out, she assured herself mentally, and that was why. It had nothing to do with him at all.

The iPod in her other hand had been playing continuously the whole walk, and she finally paused long enough to pay attention to it. She wanted to say something, but she didn't know what; she wanted to do something but she didn't want to bother getting up. So she sat and listened to the music playing in one ear, before taking her finger and beginning to draw in the sand.

Eventually though, the cold and the hour of night won out over Risa's love of scrawling lyrical nonsense for the tide to wash away. Her little pet project had soon outgrown the immediate vicinity of their spots in the sand, and Risa had stood up, writing ever bigger letters and longer verses from whatever song came on her iPod or just happened to pop into her head. By the way he was pacing around, muttering inanely to himself, and by the occasional “What the fuck does that even mean?” the breeze brought to her ears, she could tell that Jack had been ready to go back for a while.

She backtracked to the original spot where they had sat down, grabbing her flip-flops and waiting expectantly for the male, looping her free arm around his now that her iPod was safely in the pocket of Jack's newly-liberated sweatshirt. He looked down at her with eyebrows raised; she met his gaze with a 'dare you to complain' grin.

He didn't, at least not about her arm. “Why do you even bother listening to the lyrics of this crap? I hate it when bands try to sound all profound and shit when the songs don't actually mean anything at all.”

She shrugged. “Like I said, I do it to fuck with people.”

“Liar,” he snorted, “You do it because you think it sounds cool and hope that someone will come along and read it and go 'hey that's interesting' and somehow remember or care long enough to Google it when they have access to the internet.”

“I think someone's just pissed he didn't get the references.”

“No, no, I'm really not.”

“Whatever.” Risa rolled her eyes, for the god-knows-what-th time that night. It occurred to her that she should probably find another means for expressing her distaste, as clearly this one wasn't really doing much.

“Whatever yourself. Quit being a bitch and trying to push this back on me when you're the one acting stupid. Like always.”

“Stupid's a pretty harsh label coming from someone who mentioned that both his livers were still intact and functioning the other day.”

“Fuck you.”

“We've been over this already,” she mused, tossing her sandals onto the rock in front of her and slipping her feet into them. Jack followed suit, pulling his arm out of her grip for balance and not bothering to offer it back after they had reached the top.

She told herself she wouldn't have taken it back even if he had.

“You know,” he began conversationally, his voice and the clacking of sandals against the paved concrete parking lot the only noise besides the distant crash of waves. “It almost hurts that you actually think I'm that much of an idiot... and then I remember: you're a bitch.”

“I thought irony was for hipsters and assholes?”

He gave her that look. That 'come on, really?' look that tended to embody half their conversations (friendly or otherwise), completed with a raised eyebrow and a dramatic blink. “I never denied being an asshole. You seem to mention it quite frequently yourself, in fact.”

“And it still applies,” she murmured, nursing her labret ring.

“Why? Because I'm not giving up on my point and telling you, 'oh, fine, you win'?”

“No,” she shook her head, quite thankful for the stairs up to the room that they were rapidly advancing towards. “Because you're a stubborn ass who doesn't know when to quit or let things go. What were we even talking about originally, or did you forget in your crusade to be right?”

He paused, taking the first few steps in silence.

“You,” he said finally. “You, and how you're so fucking cool and everything's about what you like and what you want. There's no room for dissent, no room for compromise, and anyone who disagrees is wrong and inferior for it.” He reached the top of the stairwell, reaching to pull the key out of the sweatshirt he wasn't wearing anymore. “You're just as bad as all those people you claim to hate.”

She shoved past him angrily, pulling the key she had been fingering out of the pocket and jamming it in the keyhole.

After fumbling for a moment, the redheaded woman pushed the door open to reveal that in the time Risa and Jack had spent out on the beach, Taylor and Clark had already fallen asleep. Either what the beach-going duo had assumed would be going on was a lot tamer than they had thought, or it was over more quickly than expected. Or, alternatively, they had just spent entirely too much time out in the relative cold, bickering.

Most likely, however, was some combination of all three.

Seeing Taylor sleeping peacefully was actually a fairly rare sight; it meant he had actually taken the sleeping medication he was prescribed. That also meant that there was a good chance they would be dealing with a zombie Taylor in the morning. In all honesty she wasn't sure what was really worse, but she like all people had been indoctrinated into believing that sleep was always the best course of action and she didn't have any other real evidence to the contrary to combat it. While generally she adhered to the notion of 'anarchy for anarchy's sake', going against the generally accepted thing just because it was generally accepted and didn't necessarily have any factual basis... when it came to Taylor, she didn't really mind occasionally going back on one of her usual principles. Sleep was good; medicinally-induced sleep just meant that they would have to give the man extra help making sure his shoes were matched and on the proper feet the next day.

Risa made her way through the room, cursing under her breath as she stumbled over suitcases and bags in the half-darkness, her only light source the sliding glass door that opened up to the outside deck and the unnatural orange glow of the streetlights (or, rather, parking-lot lights) that shown through it. Despite the far greater amount of noise than she had intended to make, she reached her own suitcase and pulled out what she had decided to sleep in: a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and a sports-bra. The disgustingly bright pink blanket that had been layered on top of everything else was tossed onto her side of the bed; she would return to it in a moment.

She pushed past Jack again, this time towards the bathroom, shooting him a glare rather than saying anything in a continued attempt to not wake anyone else up. Despite the fact that even if they were awake no one would really be able to make out anything particularly explicit, Risa still felt the need to change away from the men; she didn't want to freak Taylor or Clark out, and she didn't want to give Jack the satisfaction of seeing her strip.

She emerged a few minutes later, changed, teeth brushed, and all the rest of her nightly rituals adhered to. She tiptoed through the narrow walkway to her bed more carefully this time, setting her worn clothes down next to her suitcase and tossing the borrowed sweatshirt back at the brunette man fiddling with his cell phone in the bed.

“You look like some kind of fucked up modern-art lamp,” she goaded through barely parted lips, hopping on the mattress and immediately wrapping the pink blanket she had pulled from the suitcase earlier around her shoulders. Who cared if it was obnoxiously bright pink? She certainly didn't; it was warm, and it went everywhere with her, no matter how appropriate it actually was for the situation. The redhead had shown up for class on more than one occasion decked out in a fuzzy neon cape. After the immediate shock had worn off, she had to protect the blanket-turned-accessory from would-be thieves and classmates jealous of her truly awesome getup.

Angrily, Jack tore the sweatshirt from his head and motioned to chuck it back at her, before changing his mind mid-throw and tossing it easily into what the woman assumed was his pile of things on the other side. “Yeah, you're welcome,” he muttered, rolling onto his side and facing away from her.

Apparently whatever he was doing with his phone had died or otherwise been finished, as he tossed it over to wherever he had thrown the sweatshirt and flopped his head onto the pillows. By their usual standards it was still rather early yet, but for some reason, it seemed much later to them both now.

Risa followed suit, slipping under the blankets, turning her back to Jack and attempting to get comfortable in the foreign bed in the room she wasn't used to. Of course, falling asleep for her tended towards the difficult on the best of nights, but unlike Taylor she was too proud (or maybe just stubborn) to admit it to her doctor; instead she tacked her problems to any number of things ranging from too much light in the room to the mattress being too soft. Most prevalent, however, were her complaints of sleeping alone; perhaps it was actually due to the fact that when she slept with someone else in the bed she usually wasn't asleep so much as passed out from drinking, but she tended to 'sleep' better when she was with someone else. Not that it mattered now; at the moment she was seriously reconsidering the tub option as a viable alternative to dealing with the body she was currently supposed to share with.

“I'm not going to apologize to you,” she murmured, taking one last look at the sleeping Taylor across from her before closing her eyes. Yes, it was true: all the good ones were gay or taken. It was just her luck that she'd manage to find a guy that was both.

For a moment, there was no reply, and she mentally shrugged, assuming that he was just going to ignore her for however long again until he couldn't bother his friends or girls he had tricked into giving out their numbers anymore. But, to her surprise, she got one.

“I didn't think you were going to,” he muttered back, his voice obscured by sleepiness and feathers. “Now shut up before you wake someone up.”

Eyes still closed, she flailed blindly behind her back with her right arm until fist collided with shoulder. Satisfied with the muffled grunt she got in response, she snuggled into the covers and drifted off.

Or, at least, she tried to.

It felt as though she woke up every hour on the hour, judging by the green glow of the time on the microwave across the room; she was too hot at first, too cold next. Her side was uncomfortable but she couldn't roll over too much lest she bump into her bed-mate, never mind all the times he flopped an arm or a leg over her. He pushed; she shoved back. Covers were tossed off and then pulled back on, sometimes by one party to the ire of the other. She didn't even bother to check the time the penultimate hour; all she knew was that it was getting light outside and that maybe, just maybe, she could get a little bit more sleep in, even if she was stuck with The Bed Hog From Hell.

Finally, she resigned herself to the fact that she wasn't going to get any more sleep, at least for the time being. She found herself curled up on her side, arms under her head replacing pillows that had been shoved off the mattress some time between two and three AM. It took her a moment in her groggy state to realize that at some point she had gained an extra limb from the experience; a limb that was half as tan and twice as hairy. Only as she tried to stretch out of her fetal position did she realize why: somehow, at some point in the night, Jack had managed to claim a good two-thirds of the bed, sprawling out across the mattress diagonally into her foot-space and unintentionally offering up his arm as a headrest.

Risa sat up, kicking her legs over the side of the bed and grabbing the corners of a fallen pillow; if she couldn't sleep anymore, then neither could he. In a single swift motion, the pillow went from floor to face, soliciting a vaguely angry groan from the no-longer-sleeping brunette that only served to egg the woman on more. She repeated the motion once more before tossing the pillow back onto the floor - leaving it on the mattress would just leave ammunition for use in his retaliation strikes, whenever he got his sorry ass into a sitting position.

“Up!” she called, slapping her palm against his stomach. “Up, or I'll twist your nipples again.”

At some point in the night he had managed to steal her blanket, and he proceeded to pull it from his head and roll onto his side. “You know,” he began, surprisingly conversationally for having supposedly just woken up – must be practice, she decided - “Generally, I prefer refereeing pillow fights to participating. And generally there are more girls... and less clothes... Princess doesn't count,” he added as an afterthought.

“They're not here anyway,” she said, jerking her head over to the empty bed before flopping back onto her side and rubbing up against him with a smirk. “Oh what, you mean I'm not enough for you? Even though if someone just walked in here now it would look like we just got done boning all night?”

A pair of hands pressed against her back and pushed her away. “Yeah, don't do that.”

She rolled her head over to look at him. “Oh? Can't handle this?”

“Nope,” he said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up, revealing a truly spectacular case of bedhead that would be the envy of any anime character. “Because I know you're just a tease and you don't like sausage in the morning.” He stared at the pink blanket in his lap for a moment before throwing it at her. “This is yours. The only pinks I like are flesh-tones.”

Watching the man get up and stumble haphazardly to the bathroom, Risa couldn't help but realize how much she liked men in nothing but boxers... even if those men happened to be Jack.

It was only after he had left her line of sight that she began looking for some sort of notification as to where the other two MIA males had gone off to. Eventually her search was rewarded in the form of a yellow sticky-note stuck to the TV in Taylor's compulsively neat handwriting, explaining that they had left for breakfast and the beach and would like to meet up for lunch. A glance down at the microwave located conveniently below the television (what, so that stoners sitting too close to the TV had easy access to their microwaved burritos? But, who was she to question the logic of the room designers) revealed it to be 10:30 already; apparently that last 'hour' of sleep had lasted far longer than she thought.

She flipped through her phone idly, trying to decide on what she could do to kill time before lunch. It was a little late for breakfast now if they were just going to eat again in two hours or less, and no matter what she might say to anyone on the subject implying otherwise she felt the strange need to look halfway decent and well-groomed for wandering around on the street with three men. While she would never admit to anyone exactly how long it took her just for a shower (and doing her hair, and eyeliner and eyeshadow and mascara...), an hour was a pretty conservative estimate. 'Meet you at noon outside the lobby?' she texted Taylor finally, deciding that an hour and a half was probably enough time to get her act together. Probably.

A few minutes of staring around the hotel room and pondering food later, her sole remaining temporary roommate re-appeared, glancing around clandestinely before walking out of the bathroom with nothing but a white hotel towel wrapped around his waist and his mop of ruddy brown hair stuck to his neck. “Taylor and Princess aren't back yet, are they?” he asked, pausing to snatch the sticky-note from the TV and crumple it into a ball.

“Um, no...” normally, Risa would immediately jump on the opportunity to point out the fallacy behind asking a question like this when he could clearly see all the current occupants in a room, but she supposed she could let him slide just this once.

Because the only thing that beat guys in boxers was dripping wet guys in towels.

He tossed the paper ball into the trash can and smirked as he made the shot, looking back over at Risa and quirking an eyebrow. “You know, there's plenty of hot water left if you want to see some instant replay, and we could get into some overtime.”

She'd been caught.

Fortunately the buzz from her phone that marked Taylor's response saved her from Jack's gaze, and she managed a semi-convincing “Oh, fuck you,” as she flipped the phone open.

“Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for, actually, though in nicer terms...” he trailed off, flopping back onto his side of the bed and running a hand through his wet hair. He flicked the water at her, still apparently amused by the fact that he had caught her oogling him red-handed. “I mean, ten minutes ago you were grinding up on me.”

'Don't do anything I wouldn't do.' She stared at the text for a moment, trying do decode Taylor's rather cryptic message, swinging her left arm behind her. The windmill slap connected with one of Jack's pecs, and she made good on her previous nipple-pinching promise.

“Owww!” he grabbed her wrist and wrenched it away with a scowl. “You do that way too hard for it to be a turn on!”

As if right on cue, the phone buzzed again. 'Incest is disturbing.' Apparently, thanks to the invention of text messaging, siblings didn't even have to be in the same room to try and cock block each other anymore.

“It's not like I'd do your brother anyway,” she muttered to the phone, typing out a hasty 'I'll take that as a yes, then' and hitting send. She pulled her other hand from Jack's grip, mentally writing off the redhead's non-response as a byproduct of his benzodiazepine-induced haze. “We're meeting them at noon,” she explained, loud enough for Jack to actually hear this time, “And I'm getting in the shower.”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he could say it. “No, I do not need any instant replays.”

She knelt down, grabbed a handful of clothes, and stalked off into the bathroom.

“Want me to wash your back?” Jack yelled after her.

“NO.” Risa rolled her eyes and closed the door.

Risa emerged some time later after twenty minutes in the shower and the rest of the time devoted to a battle royale involving overly-damaged hair and a flat iron. On the plus side, though, she looked great. Or, well, as great as she ever thought she looked.

“Holy hell, I thought you'd drowned,” Jack called to her, flipping idly through TV channels and somehow still managing to be only half-dressed. If not for the khaki-colored shorts that had replaced the towel, she would have sworn that he hadn't moved at all in however long it had taken her to get everything taken care of.

“It's the hair,” she explained, playing with a piece in front for added visual effect. “It takes forever to dry and straighten and blah blah... and you seemed real keen on helping me out, if something had actually happened.”

He shrugged. “Hey, you gone means I get the whole bed to myself.”

Risa covered her face with one hand, careful not to smudge any of the green and black eye makeup. “Good to know you care, there.”

“Always,” he replied with a grin.

She tossed her dirty clothes onto the growing pile on her side of the bed and sat down on the mattress, pulling her pink blanket around her shoulders out of habit more than need. There were still a few minutes to kill before they were supposed to meet up with Taylor and Clark, and at the moment Risa was content with watching Jack's spastic channel-surfing rather than actually doing anything useful.

“Why do you bother?” he asked after a moment, eyes still fixed on the TV as he contemplated the program briefly before changing to a new one.

She looked over at him. “Bother with what?”

“With spending such an ungodly long time on your hair, when we're going to go down to the beach and it'll just get fucked up again,” he said.

It was her turn to shrug, as she readjusted the blanket and snuggled into the pink fuzz. “Because.” She didn't really have a good reason. She just did.

“Ah.”

~~~

Short(ish) story using the characters from Millennials. Unlike the last sectioned piece, this was written in order, and is just really fucking long. Unfortunately, it's not finished.

[JIL] Beach Vacation, Part 2

Jack, in the meantime, had finally noticed the existence of the corn chips and salsa and was stuffing them in his face like they were going out of style. Risa daringly rescued one from the terrible fate of Jack's stomach, only to drown it in chunky tomatoes and onions and crunch it to pieces herself. Briefly, she wondered if the salsa was made on-location – it was good.

Eventually, the waiter (who Risa noted with a twinge of anger hadn't bothered to wear a name-tag that day) returned to their table, pen and notepad in hand. “Are you guys ready to order?”

Jack went first; Risa was too busy trying (but not particularly hard) not to stare. “Yeah, uh, I think I'll have the chicken enchiladas.”

The waiter nodded, scribbling something onto the notepad before turning to the faux redhead and waiting expectantly.

Dumbstruck, she gazed up at for a second; a kick from under the table helped her get past the mental block of Can I just have you? For definitely not the first and probably not the last time that night, she shot Jack a glare before clearing her throat. “I'd like a bowl of the black bean soup, please.” It was generally the safest bet; she could always go with the vegetarian burrito but sometimes rather than just the standard beans-cheese-sauce, places like this would feel the need to stick things like broccoli and carrots into the mix. Not that she had anything against broccoli; she just wasn't a fan of it in her burritos.

The man nodded to her, scribbling her order down and taking the menus that had been set aside back to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, the foot that had kicked her a moment ago was rubbing against the spot now. It would have been sort of cute if it wasn't so... weird.

“Are you really doing this right now?” she asked incredulously.

Jack shrugged, eating another chip. “Nope. It's all part of your imagination.”

She rolled her eyes. “Smart ass. Isn't footsie for old people and awkward teenagers?”

He caught her gaze in his and blinked his brown eyes slowly, deliberately, unnervingly. “Tell me to stop, then.”

“Stop!” she cried a little too forcefully, instantly regretting it as soon as she saw the flash of surprised hurt on the man's face. Clearly, that wasn't the response he was expecting; he pulled his foot from hers quickly and preoccupied himself by cleaning out the contents of the salsa bowl rather than looking at her.

The food couldn't come quickly enough.

When the waiter finally returned with their orders, Risa breathed a quiet sigh of relief, thanking the man and hoping the food would somehow re-instigate the conversation.

It didn't.

They ate in silence, Risa hoping that it was just because that the food was keeping their mouths preoccupied from talking but shifting uncomfortably in her seat anyway.

The food itself was delicious; or at least hers was. Really, it was hard to mess up black bean soup, but it had been so long since she had eaten real cheese and real sour cream, and the vicinity of the cheese factory made the dairy seem that much fresher even though it was probably completely placebo and possibly not even the right brand.

“Um... how's yours?” she asked tentatively, stirring the beans around in her bowl and mixing in the sour cream and melted cheddar.

Jack grunted, mouth full of seasoned chicken and tortilla.

“I'll take that as 'good', then,” she murmured quietly, looking down at her food and taking another bite.

He nodded, swallowing. “It is.”

She smiled at him, glad he had decided to talk to her again. “Want some of mine?”

For some reason, she loved sharing food with Jack. She didn't even know how much he really appreciated it, but she felt the need to invite him to try most everything, no matter the likelihood that he would actually enjoy it. She was much the same way with music, but while music was sustenance for the soul, physical food had much more tangible effects.

It wasn't as though the dish was all that exotic, either; when Risa made Mexican food at home, she generally used black beans, and when she was too lazy to prepare everything she had been known to just eat a can of the legumes by themselves. She offered him a spoonful from across the table, complete with real dairy for once (something the male would probably appreciate greatly), and he took the bite straight from the utensil.

“Not bad,” he said after a moment, imitating a food critic as he made a show of mulling over his words. “Could use a little more dead animal, though.”

She glared at him again, biting her lip to hide the smirk that was threatening to show. She was well-accustomed to his 'needs more MEAT' jibes at her choice of cuisine. If she didn't know better, she'd say he actually liked her food and was just saying it to fuck with her.

“Ya want some of mine?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Yeeeeeah.... no.” The woman couldn't hold back her grin anymore and she giggled into her glass of water.

Of course, as soon as it seemed as though they had made amends, the waiter had made his way over to their table again.

She honestly felt bad for what she had done earlier, and she wanted to make it up to Jack, who was yet again glaring at the male server, chewing his final bite of enchilada like it was the man's head. Really, she had no idea what would be worth doing around here though, especially now that probably all of the stores and most of the restaurants were closed. They could always go to one of the bars, but they did that enough at home; they should try to find something that they could only do here.

“So, what do you like to do around here around this time of night?” she asked the server, who was collecting their plates and resting them on his arm. It was a completely innocent statement, but Risa's good intentions were lost in the alternate implications of the question.

The server seemed to take it at face value, though. “Oh, well... I know this will sound really cliché, but I actually really like to walk down along the beach. It's definitely nicer when you're with someone else, though.” He flashed her another grin, and she looked up and smiled back despite herself. The man was so cute, it really was a shame...

Even the waiter's smile couldn't distract her from Jack's next actions, though: standing up, he pulled out his wallet and flipped a crisp twenty dollar bill onto the table. “That should cover it,” he said evenly, walking out without any further explanation.

Risa stared after the man dumbly for a moment before looking down at the bill and up at the waiter. What had just happened?

She wasn't sure, but she wasn't waiting around to find out. “Um, keep the change,” she murmured, standing up, glancing around to make sure she wasn't leaving anything, and dashing out after the brunette man.

It didn't take her long to catch up. She latched onto his arm for dear life, resisting his attempts to shake her off. “Where are you going?”

He looked down at her and made one last halfhearted attempt to free his arm. “I told you I wasn't going to sit around and watch you flirt with Fernando all night.”

“I... but...” she paused, trying to figure out how to best put what she was trying to say. “That guy definitely wasn't a Fernando.”

Or, when in doubt, snark.

Jack sighed, all too used to her quips by now. “That was definitely not the point I was trying to make, here.”

“I was just trying to find something – thing, not one – to do around here. Y'know, because we're stuck here for the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours. But I forgot you can mack on anyone you want but if I do something productive I'm the asshole.”

“Hey!” He looked down at her, shaking his head. “Getting laid is very productive.” He paused for a moment, before smirking and adding, “In more ways than one.”

“You're horrible,” she snorted. It was nice to know she was not the only person around with the maturity level of an eight-year-old. Not that she would admit that.

“If I'm so horrible, can I have my arm back?”

She looked down the street, at the empty sidewalks and lines of pastel-colored shops with little closed signs hanging in the doors and windows. She looked up at the sky, a cerulean, post-sunset blue in the west that faded to almost complete darkness in the east, while the first stars began to twinkle and the moon hung low to the horizon. And then she looked back at him.

“Nah.”

They walked a little more slowly than usual, strolling through the little stretch of town without much conversation and not making eye-contact lest the scene seem too sappy for their jaded, cynical sensibilities. The close proximity of the ocean meant the air was cooler than what she was used to; Risa was rapidly beginning to regret not bringing a sweatshirt of her own, reasoning with herself that she was clinging to the brunette male more for the body heat than anything else. She was aware of the alternate implications of their little walk and she couldn't help but feel bad for what could easily be called a lead-on, but, at least at the moment, he didn't seem to be complaining. They made it across the road and up the stairs to their room without much incident save for Risa's occasional shiver.

The redheaded woman reached for the doorknob, but Jack had gotten there first. He froze for a second, returning her bemused look with his own steadfast gaze.

“Risa,” he began, letting her name hang in the air and nursing his lip rather than continuing.

“What?” She raised her eyebrows at him, trying to decide if he actually had something to say or if this was just another manifestation of his penchant for the dramatic. Stupid boys and their stupid theater arts degrees.

If he did have something to day, he decided against it, instead shaking his head quickly and mumbling “Nothing,” before turning the knob and pushing the door open. Finally, she dropped her arm back to her side.

Two pairs of surprised eyes met them as they walked in; Clark and Taylor had returned from wherever it was that they had disappeared to and were curled together in their own bed with the TV playing a movie the woman didn't recognize. Despite the attempts to be nonchalant, Risa noticed with a sort of grim amusement how the two guiltily pulled away from each other and redirected their attention to things besides whatever they had been in the middle (or beginning) of. In an effort to minimize the awkwardness of the four of them stuck in a single room together, they had made a pact on the drive down that there were to be no hook ups by any party in the motel room. It seemed a little odd given the very nature of the lodging, but it was best for everyone: Risa had no desire to watch the object of her affection with another man; Jack had no desire to watch his brother with another man, and neither Clark nor Taylor particularly wanted to walk in on Jack and Risa getting it on, be it with each other or anyone else for that matter. Risa was certainly thankful for the deal now.

“Where have you guys been?” Taylor asked the pair; his ebony-haired lover was not so interested and immediately turned his attention to the TV screen.

“Psh. Could ask you the same thing,” Risa retorted. Jack just shrugged and made his way across the room, ducking below the TV screen and flopping onto his side of the second queen-sized bed, furthest from the entrance. Risa followed a few seconds behind, sitting on the inside edge of the bed and facing her roommate, crossing her legs under her and leaning in slightly to hear over the blare of the television.

“Oh, um... we walked down the street and bought bowls of chowder, and then we walked to the beach and watched the sunset,” Taylor explained, his cheeks reddening a little. Risa doubted that 'watching the sunset' was the only thing the two men had done while they were unaccompanied.

She nodded, forcing a smile onto her face. “We just walked around for a while and ate some Mexican.” She paused for a moment, adding, “Food.” to the end of her statement.

From over her shoulder, she heard a dry “Oh baby.”

“Ah,” Taylor said, his eyes glancing over to his brother for a moment before returning to Risa. “Was it good?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It only occurred to me after we got here that I can't eat vegan, though. So I had real cheese and stuff...”

“Yeah, because you don't cheat all the time when we're at home.”

It was her turn to look over her shoulder and shoot a glare at the brunette man. “I don't remember asking for your opinion,” she said pointedly, to no response.

Rolling her eyes at the man, who had decided that staring at the painting hanging up on the far side of the room was a better alternative than answering, she turned back to his younger, redheaded and generally more amiable brother.

Taylor frowned. “I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that before we left...”

“Nah, it's fine,” Risa said quickly, cutting him off. “This trip's about you, remember? I'll be fine. At least it's just some dairy and not the wholesale slaughter of baby lambs or something.”

“Well... That's true, I guess... you're not going to get sick or anything though, are you?”

“Don't worry about me, jeeze!” She couldn't help but smile at him. Taylor was so nice, and sweet, and caring...

And, as a jealous arm was quick to remind her of, taken. “Look, here comes the best part,” Clark cooed, cupping his hand on Taylor's cheek and turning his head from his roommate and towards the television.

“Oh, uh... what are you watching?” she asked tentatively, glancing up at the movie and searching for some hint of what the title might be.

“I have no idea,” Taylor admitted, “But apparently this is the best part.”

Taking the recommendation of sorts from the dark-haired man, Risa watched the screen for a few seconds, but found whatever was going on in the film to be completely incomprehensible to someone coming in halfway through. Black and white characters viewed from 'artistic' angles murmured to each other in what sounded like French; she read the subtitles for a moment but found herself rapidly losing interest.

Sighing, she fell back onto the bed, her left hand fishing around blindly through her bag for her iPod, to listen to something aside from dialogue she didn't understand and to distract herself from the couple lying in the bed next to hers. As she pushed the earbud into her ear though, it seemed as though the melancholy song that her playlist had been stopped on was only making the whole situation worse. She bit her lip, stealing a look over at Taylor and Clark and immediately regretting it. Somewhere in her head she knew she should be happy that her roommate was happy; that the neurotic, socially awkward man had found someone to love and care for, and wouldn't be stuck watering a plant three times a week at the same time for the rest of his life. But at the same time, she couldn't help but think she should be the one on that bed, arms wrapped around him and content with the world. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and rolled over, burying her face in the motel pillows.

After a moment, she felt the bed shift under her ever so slightly, one of her earbuds pulled out by rough but gentle fingers, and warm breath whisper into her ear.

“Maybe we should trade sides.”

She rolled her head over to find the owner of the voice, and he pulled back from her slightly to give her some personal space. For being a complete ass, every once in a while Jack managed to surprise her with a small but genuinely nice gesture, and then it was never to be spoken of again. She shook her head though, rejecting his offer with a faint half-smile as her overdyed red hair fell into her eyes. No, she could deal with this; she needed to deal with this.

He frowned at her, reaching his hand towards her face but freezing and letting it drop back to his side instead; she bit her lip, trying to decide what she wanted to do next.

Slowly, she reached for his hand and pulled it back to her, pressing his palm to her cheek and nuzzling it gently as her eyes fluttered closed. It was terrible of her to do to him, she knew, but she couldn't help it; she wanted the affection, even if it was coming from the wrong brother. And Jack was so warm, she wanted to scoot closer and pull his arms around her like they would do at home when no one else was around and they weren't nearly as drunk as they pretended to be. She couldn't bring herself to do it while Taylor was so close, though; the thought of him seeing her with someone else was absolutely terrifying, as though as long as he thought she was free there would be a chance that he would somehow come to his senses and choose her instead. If he saw her with anyone else, especially his own brother of all people, that chance would be ruined.

However, a rather conspicuous glance in the redheaded man's direction made it clear that she may as well go for it, as at this point a riot could have broken out in the motel room and he would have been too preoccupied to notice. Her grip around Jack's hand tightened, and she felt him shift again to figure out what she was looking at, a faint cluck of disapproval coming from over her shoulder when he realized.

Risa wasn't all that pleased with herself either, stuck on the scene playing out before her with a sort of sick fascination. Clark and Taylor were abiding by the rules they had laid out earlier that afternoon, but it was obvious to all that probably wasn't going to last for much longer as fingertips brushed down bodies and featherlight kisses were left on bare skin. It felt so forbidden to her, like she was some sort of Peeping Tom in the room she had booked and helped pay for, but she couldn't pull her eyes away.

The hand, her only hold on reality, pulled out of her grasp, and she felt the mattress shudder with movement once again. “I need some fresh air,” she heard Jack announce, as fingers wrapped around her wrist. “And you should come with me.”

She looked up at him, bemused. “Why?” she asked, eyes darting back over to the couple on her left, who seemingly hadn't even noticed the man's declaration. “You're a big boy, you can go alone, can't you?”

He looked down at her seriously, giving her a slight shake of his head and tugging on her wrist in an attempt to get her to stand up. “Nope, I can't. Come on.”

Grudgingly, the woman pulled herself to her feet, only to be dragged off the bed entirely by the suddenly overzealous brunette. Before she had a chance to grab a sweatshirt or even say anything to the other men (though in hindsight she doubted they would have appreciated the interruption), they were out the door and practically sprinting down the stairs.

“What the hell was that all about?” She snapped, more confused than angry.

Jack's pace slackened once they reached the bottom of the staircase, his fingers loosening from around her wrist and casually sliding down to wrap around her hand. “I didn't want to sit around and listen to two dudes bone, or almost bone, or whatever, and I couldn't tell if you were going to go slit your wrists in the bathroom or ask to join.”

She glared up at him, pulling out of his grip entirely and crossing her still-bare arms across her chest. “Have I ever mentioned you're an asshole?”

He sighed, stretching his own arms out behind his head. “Takes one to know one. Next time I'll just let you wallow in your misery for a while.”

~~~

Short(ish) story using the characters from Millennials. Unlike the last sectioned piece, this was written in order, and is just really fucking long.

[JIL] Beach Vacation, Part 1

“The hell are you doing?”

“What's it look like?” Really now, if he was going to ask bonehead questions...

Risa sighed, finishing the last few letters of the word she was spelling out in the sand. She peered up at the dubious-looking Jack, the full moon hanging low in the sky barely revealing her smirk from the darkness. “I'm writing cryptic things in the sand. Just to fuck with people.”

The man nodded sagely. “Ah. Should have known.”

Taylor's birthday was soon, and his roommate had decided that the man needed a vacation (and so did she). The only problem with this perfect potential getaway with her cute, vaguely twinkish cohabitant was that he, well, had a boyfriend. It would be more than a little difficult to explain the concept of her taking his boyfriend on vacation to this stoic man who always seemed to have a face of mild disapproval set on his features as though it had been chiseled there a long time ago and would stay there for all eternity.

And then, there was the matter of Taylor's older brother.

Risa and Jack, well... It was nigh impossible to explain the sort of anti-relationship that the two had managed to forge through fire. Risa didn't particularly want to be stuck in a room with the man for how ever many days they ended up out of Seattle for, but at the same time she didn't want to be alone with just the roommate she might or might not have a bit of a thing for and his boyfriend of all people, and if the three of them left without Jack she would feel sort of bad. And considering how much the brunette man hung around her and Taylor's apartment already, he may as well be living there too. So it wasn't as if being stuck in a room with him would really be that out of the ordinary.

In fact, the only thing that would really change was the setting.

So she let the older brother in on the plan: a road trip down to the Oregon coast, away from the big cities and the pollution and the sales tax. A couple days down in some thousand-population burg where all the stores closed at nine pm and the main street was not only the highway but was only five-hundred feet from the edge of the beach.

Of course, getting the schedules of four workaholic young Seattleites to coincide for long enough for this magnificent feat to occur was a challenge in and of itself.

Eventually, after getting everyone in on the idea, they had found three days that all four of them could manage to get out of working, by hook or by crook. Risa pulled some strings and brought up some favors, Jack essentially told Fresh Mart that they could go fuck themselves, Taylor had a week off from performing anyway, and Clark did... whatever that man did to get his way. More than likely some sort of stare down along with a quiet reminder that he was the adopted son of the head of the corporation. Risa didn't ask questions, especially when she would rather the stern (and in her opinion, boring as fuck) man didn't even come along at all. The fact that he was invading her unofficial territory wasn't helping matters.

Then, of course, there was finding a place that was not only affordable but actually had vacancies. This, given the fact that it was the middle of August and peak season for the coast tourists, had proven to be no easy feat. The fact that the group consisted of one girl, two brothers and two men who were dating, made the whole ordeal even more difficult.

Naturally, the only place that had availabilities for both nights only had one double room, meaning that the four of them would be stuck together, two to a bed.

In all honesty this wasn't that big of a deal, but to Risa, the notion of sleeping in the same room with Taylor and Clark was more than a little off-putting. She didn't mind sharing a bed, even if it was with Jack; if push came to shove she could always just sleep in the tub in the bathroom. Or make him. The boys were probably more weirded out by the notion of Jack and Risa sharing than she actually was (or just the idea of sharing a room with heterosexuals who could potentially do things – ew – regardless of the fact that they claimed to hate each other), but it wasn't as though it was the first time they had slept in the same bed.

The trip took nearly five hours in the faithful little VW Jetta stuffed full of people and suitcases, and not a second was wasted in unpacking the car and dragging the contents, both animate and otherwise, up the stairs and into the little room, after checking in and getting the key.

Almost as soon as they had gotten unpacked, Taylor and Clark seemed to have disappeared. Risa knew this was going to happen, given that, well, who else would you want to spend your vacation with if not your lover? Even that revelation didn't do much to ease the stings of betrayal and jealousy, so she tried to force it out of her head by inspecting the room a little further. It was nice enough, she supposed; the bed was bigger than her own and there would be enough room to share with someone else with space to spare, even including the difference in frame size between her and Jack.

Well, whatever the other two were doing, Risa needed food. Not to mention the fact that there was a whole thousand-foot stretch of main road and shops to explore, along with the seemingly endless stretch of beach. But, she wanted to save that part for later.

She flopped on her side of the bed and looked over at the remaining male in the room.

“Got anything planned for the rest of the night?”

He looked at her like she was stupid. “Oh yeah, while you were prowling around like a caged tiger inspecting every inch of the room, I was waiving my handkerchief off the balcony and collecting numbers and invitations to parties in this giant bustling metropolis. Why?”

She glared at him. “Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to find some food with me. But, obviously you have other plans...”

The brunette man shrugged. “Eh. They can wait, I suppose. The party don't start 'til I walk i-” he stopped himself mid-sentence: quoting Kesha was unacceptable at any time, and especially while sober. “'til I'm there, anyway.”

“Sure thing,” Risa murmured, stifling a giggle at the man's near pop-reference. “I didn't bring any food, so we should try to find a little store or something, too.”

Honestly, she was glad he was coming with. Even in a town as small as this one, where crime was likely nonexistent, she didn't particularly like walking around alone. What was the point of being out on vacation with her friends (and Clark) if she didn't spend any time with them? She grabbed her wallet and stuck it in her back pocket, considering leaving a note for the other males, but deciding that if they couldn't be bothered to say where they were going, she wouldn't bother telling them, either.

“Do you want to eat out somewhere, or just buy groceries and eat back here?” Jack asked, pulling on a sweatshirt despite his shorts and flip-flops and waiting for her by the door.

Risa shrugged. “There was that pizza place we passed when we pulled in, if nothing else, but let's take a look around and see what's here, yeah?”

She smiled faintly at him, made sure the door to the room was locked, and closed it behind her.

It quickly became apparent that not only were there maybe twenty-five shops total, but most of them were on the east side of the road. It made sense when she thought about it, considering the west side of the highway was practically already on the beach, and what solid ground was available was taken up by motels, condos, and 'sea cottages'. The number of new-looking condominiums on sale was staggering; the housing bubble had burst even down in this tiny community, perhaps even worse than in the big cities.

Risa walked along the side of the road, hands in her pockets and eyes wide, oogling everything from the new buildings blocking the view of the beach to the smoked-seafood vendors she couldn't eat at.

“They should just rename this place 'The Middle Of Nowhere With a View',” Jack murmured appreciatively, insisting on walking between her and the road, despite the rather infrequent traffic.

She giggled, despite herself. “Only in some places, though. I think that's the only reason we got our room for as cheap as we did – they built condos in between us and the beach and so they can't charge for the view anymore.”

“Yeah, because that twenty-five feet you have to walk to actually get onto the beach itself is so rough,” he added, rolling his eyes.

“People are retarded?” she asked, looking up at him and waggling her eyebrows.

“People are retarded,” he echoed appreciatively.

Sometimes, she thought that was the only thing they could agree on.

They had managed to arrive at their destination so late that it seemed as though everything was already closed. That was another problem with tiny towns like this – everything seemed to be closed by 8pm. It was only when they had gotten into the sole grocery-type place in the city that she realized that there was no way in hell she would be able to maintain her vegan diet while she was here.

“Shit,” she murmured, berating herself for being stupid enough to not take that into consideration. It really was The Middle Of Nowhere With A View; how did she expect to eat out here if she didn't bring the food herself?

Surprisingly enough, the store did carry a single brand of veggie burger; but she would have bet anyone a million dollars that if she had asked around for soy milk when they were less than twenty miles from the Tillamook Cheese Factory that she would either be laughed out of the store or stared at as though she was sprouting a second head from her neck.

She sighed, shaking her head a little. She refused to starve herself while she was here; she would just have to deal with the dairy until she got home.

Risa had lost Jack somewhere in the store while she was lamenting the hiatus of her animal-friendly diet; she found him a moment later oogling the meat case as though the chicken breasts were mammalian and not poultry.

“Gonna take that back to the room and microwave it?” she asked, peering over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow.

“Psh...” was his non-answer as he rolled his eyes and straightened up, looking back at her. “Find anything?”

She shrugged, yet again. “I say we backtrack and look at one of those restaurants again. I'm not going to be able to eat anything here at all if I keep up the vegan thing.”

Jack smirked. “Should I order us a couple corn dogs for the road, then?”

She shot him a death-glare, though much to the woman's chagrin he didn't drop dead on the spot. Really, she needed to work on that. “I'm still not eating any meat.”

“Oh, I bet you'll be changing your tune tonight, when it's the middle of the night and you're cold and snuggling up to me. 'Oh Jack, oh Jack, I want you, let me have some of your meat-stick...'”

Risa laughed derisively, a short, bark-like noise, pointing to a jar of pepperoni sticks set on the counter of the sole check-out stand. “I think one of those would be more satisfying.”

Jack scoffed. “That's what you're used to dealing with? No wonder you're such a bitch all the time. Sorry, your dates must have been horrible.”

The woman shook her head. “Yeah, we're done here.”

“Psh, you just don't want to admit you want me for my hot bod.”

“Oh yeah, you're spot on, there. I think most women would kill themselves before they ever admitted to something like that.”

“That's not what the hot Swedish twins told me last niiiight...”

“Last night you were passed out on my couch by 11:30, and the only pussy on your face had whiskers and a tail. Didn't I say we were done with this?” Really, his listening skills were on par with that yippy dog that lived three units down that she was tempted to chuck off the building and watch splat onto the asphalt.

It was his turn to shrug. “Just because you're a bitch doesn't mean every chick in the world is. Some of them actually, dare I say it, enjoy life.”

He really wasn't going to let this go, was he? “I enjoy life. I just don't enjoy you being an idiot.” Well... That wasn't entirely true. She did quite enjoy when he was an idiot, as long as it was constrained to him making a fool of himself and didn't involve her doing anything besides possibly pointing and laughing from the sidelines.

“Coulda fooled me,” he muttered, shooting a last longing glance at the meat case before following her out the door.

They meandered out of the parking lot, snickering at the tsunami evacuation warning signs and taking a look back up the strip of road they had walked down. “There's ice cream, candy, more ice cream, a bar, and some Mexican. Take your pick,” she said, stuffing her hands into her jean pockets and looking up at the head-taller male.

“I'm always good with Mexican, especially if the waitress is hot,” he replied, nodding slightly.

“I don't think they employ a lot of Swedes at Mexican restaurants outside of maybe Ballard,” Risa pointed out with a smirk.

“Yeah, but do you really think the Mexican restaurant is actually run by Mexicans here? All two of them that live in this whitewashed little burg?”

The man had a point.

The pair strolled into the little restaurant, only realizing just how small it was once they were inside. There were maybe eight tables in the place, and a single (unfortunately for Jack) male waiter was bustling around, attending the needs of the snobby tourists in Seaside sweatshirts mispronouncing the names of the plates. Jack and Risa exchanged glances, the usual oh god we're surrounded by idiots look that was a knowing nod and a slight eyeroll. It was right about then that the waiter finished tending the other patrons and had gotten to welcoming them.

It was also right about then that Risa noticed the man was hot. The town was too small for any of the stores to really require a strict dress code, so the server was dressed in a black short-sleeved button-down shirt and dark blue jeans, and had that cute boyish smile that was probably infinitely popular with the ladies.

“Just the two of you, then?” the waiter asked, flashing that goddamn smile at the redheaded woman.

“Um...” Always the queen of eloquent replies, she was. It took an elbow to her side from the exasperated man on her left to get her to snap out of her sexy-induced stupor. “Yeah... yeah. Two, please.”

The server sat them at a little table in the corner with a smile and a wink and a promise to be with them shortly, while Risa gazed after the man dreamily and Jack glared. First at the man, and then at her.

“What the hell?”

“Hmm?” Once again, it took her a minute to get back to reality.

“Why don't you just ask him if you can bang him in the walk-in fridge really fast?”

A flurry of dumb responses rushed into her head. Do you think this place is big enough for a walk-in fridge? I'm not nearly drunk enough for that... Do you think he'd say yes? She took a deep breath and shook them off. “What? I'm just looking, there's no law against that,” she retorted evenly, breaking her gaze from the man's adorable butt and looking down at the menu. “Since when do you care, anyway?”

“If you're just going to sit here and make googly eyes at this dude all night, I can go next door and hit on with some drunk tourist chick. Preferably blonde and with a strong Scandinavian accent.” The man shook his head slightly, going down the list of plates on the dinner menu with his finger and not looking up. “If I wanted to see awkward and vaguely disturbing flirting, I'd just watch my brother and the Princess.”

She ignored his jab, picking the menu up and squinting at the printed letters so they would focus properly. “What are you going to have?” She asked diplomatically in an attempt to get him off the subject and onto one that wasn't as likely to end up in a bitch-fest.

He looked up, apparently recognizing her attempt at a cease-fire. “Chicken enchiladas, I think, not that that's going to help you any. Why?”

She shook her head slightly. “I dunno. Still trying to decide what I want, I guess.”

While she had been browsing, the waiter had returned to their table with two glasses and a pitcher of water, pouring a glass for each of them, before setting a basket of warm tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa in the middle of the table. “Is there anything I could get either of you to drink besides water? In addition to food we also offer a full bar, though I'll need to see your IDs if you order anything alcoholic.” Despite the fact that the waiter was probably one of the whitest men she had ever seen, she couldn't help but imagine him speaking with a Mexican accent and tossing random Spanish words like agua into his speech.

Risa flipped the menu over to take a look at the booze offered, but in what had to be one of the rarest occurrences known to man, she didn't feel like drinking at the moment. “No, I think water's fine for now,” she replied, looking up at the man and flashing him a smile.

Apparently she was not the only one who felt this way, as Jack echoed her sentiments to the waiter and returned to the food side of the menu. The man nodded, winked, and was off again, presumably to steal the hearts of all the other women in the place. He probably had more ones than a stripper at the end of the night from all the tips left.

“Wow,” Risa murmured, despite herself, “We're actually electing to stay sober? The world's gonna implode.”

“I know right,” he replied in a vaguely mocking manner; Risa half expected him to blow a bright pink bubble from his lips while curling a piece of hair around his finger. Did she really sound like that, or was he just continuing on with his 'you're-acting-like-a-stupid-highschooler' shtick? “I'm surprised we haven't already caused a rift in space-time or something equally nerdy and obtuse.”

“Obtuse?” she questioned, raising an eyebrow. “It's good to know that theater degree came with a large vocabulary if not any real job opportunities.”

“At least I'm not selling my soul to the devil as my employment of choice,” he retorted, folding up his menu and setting it to the side of the table. “Little miss 'oh, sell out, sell out!'”

“Hey man,” she replied, mimicking his actions and setting her menu on top of his before stretching her arms over her head. “You can do more damage to the system from within than without.”

He rolled his eyes and took a sip of the ice water. “Uh huh. I'll remind you that you said that in fifteen years when you're living in your cookie-cutter suburban house with a minivan and two-point-five kids.”

Risa made a face at him, sticking out her tongue (revealing the neon tongue-ring) and wrinkling her nose. “Hell no. I'm gonna be dead by-”

He cut her off. “The ripe old age of twenty-seven. Yeah, I know. You've only told me a thousand fucking times.”

She shrugged. “A thousand and a half, now,” she murmured into her water glass, taking a sip before setting the glass back down and toying with the assortment of condiments and hot sauces that stood like a sentry below the window. Salt, pepper, a bottle of Tapatio and a couple different kinds of Tabasco... for being a little hole-in-the-wall they had more variety than some of the bigger places at home.

~~~

Short(ish) story using the characters from Millennials. Unlike the last sectioned piece, this was written in order, and is just really fucking long.

Juliet on the Playground [Complete]

There wasn't a lot of space.

Well, no, that was a lie. The park was huge, one of the biggest she had been to. But, where she was now... it was rather cramped.

He sat on the platform, back to the metal slide that was the only other means of exit aside from the steps behind her. As it was, she was standing on the top step rather than the platform itself, looking down at him and his crossed legs. He was in her spot; her brows furrowed as she attempted to come up with a remedy for this particular problem.

She didn't like bringing boys to this park – her park. It wasn't even a territorial thing; they'd always come here as a couple eventually, and they'd always break up not long after. It was a sort of strange phenomenon really, when this was her favorite place to be, the thing closest to her heart, and as soon as she showed it to a 'special someone' things would inevitably go downhill.

“You'll be different.”

She crouched down and looked at the boy, her brown eyes meeting his blue. “I mean it.”

Before he had a chance to question her bizarre but matter-of-fact statements, he found himself shoved, propelled backwards, arms flailing for the blue-painted safety rails far too late for the action to do any good.

He landed on his back in the woodchips, converse still kicked up on the bottom edge of the slide, and stared up at the circle of sky visible through the treetops to regain his bearings. After a moment of lying in the less-than-comfortable position, he pulled his sneaker-clad feet back under his torso and propped himself up against the no-longer-shiny metal, ignoring the girl leaning over the safety-railing who was intently gazing down at him and preoccupying himself with the study of an illegible piece of graffiti scrawled in black sharpie across the side of the structure instead.

Finally, having gathered his wits and what was left of his pride, he looked up to face the usurper of his claim.

She quirked an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly, running a hand through her over-bleached bangs in a silent taunt. It felt like straw to her, a grand culmination of split ends and heat and chemical damage, but he didn't seem to mind particularly much when he took a piece of flawlessly flat-ironed hair she had woken up at five in the morning to perfect and twirled it around his finger while he murmured into her ear about nothing in particular. She rested her elbows on the blue piping, leaning down slightly and resting her chin on the palm of one hand.

He shook his head a little, accepting the silent challenge with an overly-grim face. But, she had the high ground, and if there was one thing Star Wars had ever taught him that carried over surprisingly well into real life, it was that attacking against the high position was never an easy move to execute. If he came around from behind and used the steps, she would probably just slide away; it could be argued that they were too old for the playground slides as it was without adding an impromptu round of tag to the mix.

He narrowed his eyes from under his mop of shaggy hair and in a swift movement hopped over the edge of the slide, running up the not-so-slippery surface. Luckily for him, the converse were new enough that the rubber traction hadn't been entirely stripped away from the bottom as was wont to happen to overly-worn pairs. And, even though he had been too busy ignoring the pushy wannabe music snob seated on his left passing judgment on the contents of his green iPod mini (back when when iPod minis were still somewhat new and no one realized that companies besides Apple actually made decent mp3 players) to actually pay any attention to the lesson in Freshman science, friction was on his side.

He snatched at the waist-high railing with his fingers. His gravity-defying stunt had successfully surprised the cocky girl and he smirked at her, feet perched on the apex of the slide's curve. His expression stayed that way for a moment before fading into a true smile as he took a good look at her face while the setting sun illuminated it from over his shoulder, his hands creeping from cold metal to warm skin and wrapping themselves around the smaller, feminine pair.

“I don't think Romeo was supposed to climb the balcony.” A set of fingers with not-quite-perfectly-manicured nails wriggled from his grasp, pulled a woodchip out of his hair, and flicked it over the edge.

“Does it look like I care?”

“No, I suppose not.”

~~~

A random drabble I wrote almost a year ago. Complete.

[JIL] Laser Show, part 5

“Oi, Risa.” He turned to look at her again, scooting over slightly to whisper in her ear. “Do you even like Pink Floyd?”

Her eyes flickered to meet his, darted back to the ceiling, and returned. “No, not particularly,” she confessed; even though he couldn’t see it in the dark he knew that there was that goddamned evil grin plastered across her face, too.

“I should have known you just wanted to get me alone in the dark,” he smirked, ignoring the fact that they weren't alone at all in any sense except that she was the only other person close enough for his eyes to register in the blackness of the dome. As it was, he could barely make out her silhouette and face, only visible thanks to the glow of the lasers flashing on the ceiling above them. But, he could tell she was inching her way closer, her thigh touching his in the just-barely sort of way usually reserved for under the tables in high school: enough to make contact, but not enough to warrant or solicit a negative reaction from the other party.

“And what if I did?” she breathed, voice unnervingly close.

No, wait a second. She was just messing with him right? She'd pull back in a few seconds, giggling like she had just proved some major point by acting like a tease. “Then I suppose I would have to oblige.” Fingertips touched, followed by shoulders, and Jack gave up pretending to actually watch the lights, or anything else for that matter. He couldn't even count the number of times this had almost happened to him, even with Risa, sitting next to each other at a bar stupidly drunk and giggling like schoolgirls. But now, here they were, both completely sober and...

“Oh good.” Soft lips vaguely tasting of mandarin oranges pressed against his, completely halting his thought process. Clearly, they were no longer in a hypothetical situation; he reciprocated the gesture, eyelids fluttering closed. No, this wasn't the first time, was it, even though neither one of them would have ever admitted it had the subject arisen. It was, however, the first time they had kissed sober, and that made all the difference.

Needless to say, he didn't pay much attention to the rest of the show.

The last song on the album ended, but the lights stayed down; Risa ended the kiss but her face lingered close in the darkness while he licked the remnants of lipgloss off his lips.

“So, you guys want an encore?” the peppy radio-personality voice asked in an almost sultry manner, almost as though he knew what was really going on while he made little points of light flit around the ceiling.

The crowd cheered and Jack found himself joining in, for no apparent reason other than the fact that he could and the adrenaline rushing through his veins told him it was a good idea.

~~~

A short story written with the characters from Millennials. I didn't write this in order, for some reason, and so there are several parts that are incomplete that need to be pieced together. I'll post them separately, in chronological order and link to all of them at the bottom. If I ever finish it, I'll consolidate it into a single post.