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 Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:20 pm
Life was stressful enough for Tag. His professional life was just as busy as ever, and tying closer than before with his life in the Negaverse as he conducted the interviews and composed all the pieces for his upcoming documentary launch. But as if his professional life weren’t demanding enough, his personal life had been flipped upside down twice. Between his shock and heartbreak over Chelsea’s marriage to Mike – an elephant in the room he was trying his best to ignore lest he completely fall apart, and now living with a punk teenager, Tag was feeling torn at all limbs.
It had only been three days since Dylan Van Hootensberg – now Dustin Harlow – had moved in to his apartment, and things already weren’t going well. Dustin was, well, incredibly difficult and a complete a*****e. Tag understood that there was some adjustment period between losing his identity and joining the Negaverse, but he didn’t have the patience to deal with it, and he needed space in his own damn apartment. But he did his best to try and bond with the kid, bringing home a six-pack of beer on his way back from work as a good effort.
As Tag returned home and approachd his apartment door, an old familiar smell ran across his nostrils.
“Please let that be a neighbor,” he muttered as he keyed open his door. “Dustin?”
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:21 pm
Ugh. Being Dustin Harlow sucked. He already missed the days of being Dylan Van Hootensberg, the apparent third-in-line heir of Hootensberg International. Now he was a ******** nobody. His family wouldn’t recognize him, nor his friends. There were some advantages to the fresh start, he supposed, but others just sucked. But it really wasn’t all bad – he had his memories, and there was one number he remembered well: his old dealer Haley.
He didn’t have any money of his own anymore, but he found a bunch of cash just lying around Tag’s apartment. There was a disturbingly wasteful amount of cash hidden around his apartment, and that was coming from a kid who got a Maserati for his birthday. When he was ten.
In general, Dustin found Tag’s apartment to be a weird place. There wasn’t much in his apartment that indicated there was any room for him there – he had to sleep on the couch, and he didn’t have room for so much as a toothbrush in the bathroom without moving the fifty self-grooming products that lined his counter. He had a whole room that could have been used as a bedroom, but instead was essentially a shrine to himself, including a portrait and a cabinet of awards ranging from local media awards and spelling bee awards from the eighties. Dustin wasn’t sure what was more grossly vain – that or the mirror above his California King sized bed.
He checked out of the creepy temple of Tag Swagger early in the afternoon with four hundred bucks in his pocket, and when he returned a few hours later he had just twenty bucks left – but had a shiny new bong and a supply from Haley that should last him a long while. There were some hours to kill before Tag got back, and a fridge and liquor cabinet to rummage, not to mention whatever was available on OnDemand. Perhaps he could get used to this life after all.
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:22 pm
The six pack of beer dropped as Tag’s eyes focused in rage and shock. There were bags of chips opened on his coffee table with crumbs all over the floor, crushed into his carpeting. There was a spilled beer on his coffee table that his newest house guest must not have made a single effort to clean up. There was porn playing on his OnDemand, and he had made a cocktail out of his son’s sippy cup. And Dustin just sat there, staring at him as he took a hit from his bong, stinking up his entire apartment with his pot.
“GET OUT,” Tag hissed. It wasn’t a quiet, contained hiss. It was the awakening of a beast. Tag was livid, the only thing keeping him from swiping the teenager’s head straight off was the even bigger mess that it would make of his apartment. He stromed over to the teen and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, pulling him out of his sacred apartment, lecturing and grumbling all the way. “Get the ******** out of my apartment. Right now. And don’t ******** go any further than the hallway before I figure out what the hell to do with you, you little s**t.”
He slammed the door shut in the teen’s ********,” Tag grumbled as he looked around the place that he would have to pay someone else to clean up. Where did Dustin even get the bong? With what money? --- Oh s**t.
Tag hurried to search for his cash and found hundreds missing. That little <********>. Tag took the bong out to his balcony, ready to chuck the thing off his highrise.
“Aw, ******** it,” Tag groaned as he pulled the bong back, took out his lighter and took a quick rip. It had been a while, but at least Dustin bought some good stuff. Still, it was inexcusable and the kid had to go. He placed the bong down on the table outside and headed back to Dustin with one idea of someone who could take the punk in.
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:23 pm
For every bit as angry Tag was, Dustin was equally pissed. Perhaps he had no right to be, but from Dustin’s perspective, Tag was being absolute p***k. He had nowhere else to go or anything else to do. It his fault he lost his entire life and found himself in this situation to begin with, the least he could be is a little more understanding and lenient. So what if he stole a few hundred bucks to buy a bong and some pot that he smoked in his apartment as he made a mess of it and watched some porn? He used to do that all the ******** time back in his own home.
Dustin paced the hallway of the building fuming with rage until Tag got out.
“You’re such a ******** a*****e, you know that?” Dustin spat. What was that smell? “What the hell, did you just smoke? What a hypocrite. What the s**t?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:24 pm
“Shut the ******** up,” Tag ordered as he grabbed Dustin and pulled him into an elevator. “You’re going to someone who can be a better role model, or at least would have more patience to deal with your stupid s**t.”
Hopefully that would be the last of the Dustin problem in his life.
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