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 Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:22 pm
Today was not a good day.
Some days it was easier to pretend, to get up, to go to work, to come back home and sleep without a single thought.
Other days, he found it entirely too easy to sympathize with Ciro, bottle in hand under the watchful eye of one Carnegie or the other, staying up until the late hours of the night as the conversation grew shorter and shorter. He didn't make a habit of it, but he'd learned to appreciate the rare occasion, as much as the alcohol still tasted horrible and burned his tongue.
He must be profoundly stupid. He'd done it for her sake, but it'd been so long since he was alone that relearning how to survive that way was agony. He'd gotten used to it by now, though - just a dull ache that underlay each day. Something bearable.
Sydni wasn't helping.
"No!" The toddler was not on his Nice List right now, pudgy arms crossed and head turned away obstinately. Murphy was giggling, man-like, behind the cover of his hand.
"You - shut up! And you-" He turned back to his sister, frowning. "You v'ill be eating your peas, now."
"No!!" Her voice screeched up to another decibel, shattering what was left of his ear-drums. He did not look pleased, and Murphy stood up to intervene, sweeping in to pick Sydni up in a spin.
"Now, now, lil' monster," he soothed, tutting, "If you eat'cher peas, we can climb that tree together." Murphy pointed up at the metallic branches wreathed above them, and her face lit up at the prospect of adventure.
And so it was that, a few short seconds later, the peas were gone, and Vale was left to watch his psuedo-brother and little sister climb the artificial tree of the roof-top garden.
Huffing at getting replaced, he flopped back on the cement, soaking up the sun of the day and enjoying the last remnants of their picnic, crunching down grapes between his teeth.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:35 pm
Quinn stood proudly, stretching as far as he could to create a perfect eclipse of Vale's sun as he towered above him, casting a long shadow across the cat boy.
"Doesn't the flat concrete ever hurt your back?"
Quinn was trying very hard to completely forget the effort it had taken to climb up to the roof. Conventional methods, of course, were not allowed, and he had read a book in his house about 'Parkour', and had decided to try to use some of its methods to get up the building.
He had quickly discovered that textbook explanations did not make for real world examples. Wall-Jumping was a lot prettier in the illustrations.
In the real world, it was about the same, but it was more like falling. To the ground. Ground-Falling. Many, many times.
He cast the memory out of his head and returned his focus to the cat boy in front of him.
He could practically feel the sun happily singing his pale back as he spoke, and knew he needed to get to the shade as soon as he had sufficiently annoyed Vale if he didn't want to look like a mutated lobster with feathers.
"Or maybe that's just another example of your amazing talents as a feline freak of nature."
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:43 pm
There was a disturbance in the Force. A shadow, long and dark, stretched across him, causing him to crack open an eye in offense, chomping a strawberry brutally in half.
"Quinn," he muttered, glaring up at the feathered boy. "My sun. You are in it." He tried to squirm a few more inches to the left, but Quinn's shadow was, somehow, far fatter than Quinn himself was, and denied him the precious rays of warmth.
Oh, but he was too lazy for this. With another bite at his strawberry, he stretched, and the shadow stretched too - conveniently passing around his form, rather than on top of it, blessing him with sun once more.
"You look scruffy. You did not use the ladder, did you?" He squinted critically up at the other.
"Better a freak than a fool," he dismissed, carefully picking another strawberry out of the bowl of fruits curled possessively in the crook of his arm.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 3:50 pm
"Better a fool than a king with no kingdom!" He paused. "That sounds like an actual quote. Dunno where it would be from. But I mean, don't be so full of yourself. I think." He stretched, himself, twisting around to pop his back.
He frowned at his shadow moving out of the way, and let himself fall down into a push up position around Vale's lazy body, kissing the top of his nose.
"I want a strawberry!"
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 4:13 pm
"Says the pot to the kettle," he shot back. If Quinn wanted an idiom war, he would get one.
But the matter settled there, in as much the same fashion as Quinn settled atop him. Body heat was a far sight different than sun-heat, but Vale supposed he could allow it for now. His nose scrunched at the kiss, and his arm curled tighter around the bowl, hiding it into his side.
"No."
These were Vale's strawberries and grapes and delicious oranges. Quinn could not have them.
"You do not eat fruit, anyv'ay. You are a chocolate-creature. Unless this strawberry is dipped in chocolate, you v'ould not like it. It v'ould be a v'aste." He knocked Quinn in the side with his knee, nudging the substitute-blanket up. "And get off. You are all sweaty. You really did not use the ladder?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 4:21 pm
Quinn wriggled further onto Vale, dropping all of his weight on Vale instead of holding himself up. He nuzzled his nose against Vale's neck.
"Pleeeeeeeeease?" he dragged it out like the five year old he was deep down inside, his hand slipping down to stray into inappropriate territory. "You know you want to give me a strawberry."
His nose became even more dangerously nuzzly, and his other hand found ears to scratch.
"I really want one!"
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 4:33 pm
He scowled, breath whooshing out when Quinn fully flopped onto him, eyebrows dropping skeptically and withstanding the ticklish force of Quinn's nose brushing against his neck.
He was a rock. Nothing would move him. These past few weeks had seen him grown, solidified into a lean, mean, independent, alcohol-drinking machine--
Quinn's hand slid down.
"Okay! Okay!" His voice hitched an octave, pushing the bowl at Quinn in quick surrender.
In the game of Chicken, Valeriu had lost. Badly. Coming to terms with the loss of his freshly cut fruits, he settled for the meager reparations that were offered: the ear-scratchies.
"If I didn't know better," he muttered flatly, shifting his shoulders so that the texture of the cement shifted against his skin, "I v'ould say you are trying to catch me on the rebound. But I know you are only after the strawberries."
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 4:41 pm
Quinn sat up, any attempts at a seductive pose cast aside as he shoved his bony butt into Valeriu's stomach. He grabbed a handful of strawberries and nibbled on them. "Mm," he said, overdramatically, "I love things that aren't chocolate if they are strawberries."
Quinn shrugged. "I've moved on to bigger, better, more mature prey, Vale. You were too easy. I need a challenge. Catching you on the rebound would, once again, be too easy." He ran a finger through his bangs and flipped them, looking down his nose in a very high-school-girl fashion at Vale.
"Cuter, too."
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 4:55 pm
He grunted as bone met stomach, rolling his eyes and letting Quinn gorge himself on the strawberries.
"Ah," he snarked, shifting to sit up on his elbows. "The poor b*****d. I feel for him, whoever he is." He tried to steal one of his strawberries back.
"And good. I do not v'ant to be cute. I do not v'ant anyone to think of dating me, ever again." If he was cute, girls might think he was boyfriend material, and Vale was anything but that, he'd come to decide. He was a lone wolf. He would spend the rest of his days in bachelor-dom.
"So who's the unlucky fool this time?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 4:59 pm
"Jerk." Quinn threw one leg over Vale's head, so that he could slide down and sit in his lap, facing him. Quinn began answering without thinking.
"Sea-- side houses are pretty this time of year, huh? I was thinking about selling my house and moving closer to Harbor." He laughed nervously and wrapped his arms around Vale's neck, hiding his face against the catboy's shoulder so his nervous blush wouldn't show.
"Who he is isn't important. You don't really care."
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:09 pm
Vale threw him a disgruntled look, ears pricking up suspiciously.
"Have you even seen the Harbor?" he asked. Valeriu would not define the sea or the seaside houses as pretty, that's for sure.
His limit with Quinn's sweaty skin and body-heat was swiftly reaching its end, leaving him shifting uncomfortably as his t-shirt started sticking to his skin. If there wasn't pets involved, he did not feel like being a cuddly kitty today.
"Hn. You are right. I do not," he admitted, loftily, though a small part of him did very much care, a part which he promptly ground down into the cement. That was for regular, human men, and right now Vale was trying his damnedest to get as far away from human as he could. "It is your own business, da?"
And Vale would rather not think about which notch he was on the bedpost.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:22 pm
"Whatever. The water is pretty. Shut up." Canster rolled onto Vale's shoulder and formed into a giant sweat drop making a sad face, imitating Vale's sweatiness. Quinn laughed.
"Yes! It's my business! And I wouldn't want you ruining things with Seamus, either."
His eyes widened. He really needed to think more before he spoke.
"Uh, I mean, The sea MUST either be right next to the house or just sort of nearby. Which do you think...is...prettier?" It was weak, even to him.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:37 pm
The affected haughtiness dropped from his face, leaving something close to solemnity in his wake. He pushed himself up more fully on his arms, giving Quinn a hard frown.
"Look, Quinn - Seamus is like my brother. He is a v'onderful man, and deserves the best." He hesitated on how to go on, though plunged ahead. "If you, if you are not going to be serious about him, then I v'ant you to stop, right now. He is not-" like me, he almost said, but bit his tongue on that one when unwanted feelings ruffled up. "He is relying on you. Don't play v'ith him, please."
Of course, this was only if Quinn somehow miraculously got Seamus to like him. Which was a very slim chance, knowing Seamus.
"And if you hurt him, I v'ill have to kill you much sooner than I have planned," he added, seriously.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:42 pm
Quinn frowned. "I'll try very hard to have any idea what you're talking about. Right now I have no clue." He glared at the ground, angry at his own mile-a-minute mouth.
"I am serious about him. I poisoned him to make sure he hung out with me, you don't think that's serious?" Quinn looked thoughtful for a minute.
Maybe that hadn't been such a hot idea.
He blamed it on hormones.
"Please don't kill me! We've been through too much of that." Quinn sighed and leaned back on his hands, allowing them to acclimate to the heat of the concrete before pressing them down fully. "I'm going to get a sunburn. Can we go somewhere in the shade to talk about this? Carry me!" He fell like a ragdoll back onto Vale, not holding himself up at all.
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Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:52 pm
"Right," he drawled, giving Quinn a dry look at the ragdoll maneuver. "Of course. No clue, at all."
His legs were going to fall asleep at this rate.
Huffing, he reached out. Quinn was no tiny kid anymore, but then again, neither was Vale; with a little effort, he managed to drag the other onto his shoulder, standing up with an exaggerated groan at the weight that was not entirely faked.
Quinn was definitely no small fry anymore. He brought the man to the trunk of the tree where the shade was thickest, toed the picnic blanket over, and set him down.
"There."
From the corner of his eye he could see Murphy pushing Sydni on the swingset further away, decided their activities were safe enough for now, and let himself at least lean against the tree to keep an eye on both Quinn and his sister at the same time.
"Shade. Talk."
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