24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev

✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
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“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 9, 2021 0:42:34 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jan 9, 2021 0:42:34 GMT -5

p i e t r o .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

Faded remains of my makeup marr my face in such a way that it looks as if I've been crying. Maybe I have been, could have easily there in the dark of the house party but I don't know. Red and white paint stain the tabletop where I was resting my cheek against its cold.

A milkshake sits in front of me, birthday cake, and when I look up, there's a girl there on the bench across from me. She's got ginger hair and I don't think I know her name. I don't even know if she's just come from the same party as me, I just know that she's staring at me, expectantly.

Because I was telling a story, shit.

The clock on the wall lets out a cheery whistle from its neon face, then two more. Three AM. We're at Crazy Red's. I can already smell the egg and fries sizzling in the back for me, my usual.

"You never told me your name," I say after a long moment. Maybe if I play it off as a natural break she won't know that I only just made it back from whatever the hell I was on.

Last Edit: Jan 9, 2021 17:11:51 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

compendium / avriel
clown car / pietro
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Stare
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Pronouns: she/her
last seen Feb 15, 2024 23:43:11 GMT -5

and i will hold you tight / like the moon in the arms of the sky

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 9, 2021 12:42:46 GMT -5

Post by Stare on Jan 9, 2021 12:42:46 GMT -5

[googlefont="Poppins:400"]

Koi would have killed her if she had come home drunk again.

It hadn't been a huge party, in her defense - just something she'd heard about at one of the pubs, a little bit of fun to cut through the dullness of winter. Evelyn wasn't sure what exactly had happened. She'd done too many shots, certainly, and then wandered about until she latched onto someone who seemed like a party and followed him all the way to... here. A diner of some kind.

And then, sometime in the middle of a rambling story that she'd only been half following as she reminisced about the time that Koi had taken her to a diner and they'd gotten into that argument before he reached out and held her hand for the first time, her companion asked her what her name was.

Her face flushed. She was sure he had no way of knowing that she'd just been daydreaming like some ridiculous little schoolgirl swooning over her first crush, but she was embarrassed nonetheless. Her sisters would have had her head if they knew how ridiculous she'd become. She'd once been as hard and jagged and wild as Four's cliffsides, beaten and molded by the sea.

Evelyn took a sip of her strawberry milkshake, which somehow tasted better than any milkshake she'd ever had before, before grinning at him. "I did, but we're both pretty far gone, huh?" Laughter hummed in her chest as one of her eyebrows lifted. How was it that everything seemed so much funnier after the third shot? "It's Evelyn. And I'm certain that you didn't tell me your name, tadpole, so let's hear it."

✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
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“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 9, 2021 17:33:12 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jan 9, 2021 17:33:12 GMT -5

p i e t r o .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

"Pietro," I tell her, "But I kind of like Tadpole better." Something about the warmth of a pet name makes my toes curl in delight. Maybe it's just the realization that she hasn't learned to dislike me yet. New friends are like that, so innocent and helpful. We'll hit a wall eventually and she'll realize I'm too much for her, tonight or maybe next year, doesn't matter, but for now, I'm Tadpole.

Her fingers tug at her straw and I slide mine up and down in my cup, getting little bits of edible confetti stuck in it. "Think I maybe had a little much," I say, "but I'm good now. You good?" I ask her. Then I think about how easy a lie 'good' is. It leaves the tongue without a farewell.

There's something magic about 3 AM in a diner I guess because I rest my chin in my hand and stare across the table at my new semi-stranger companion for a moment, I think it'd be alright to retract it. Something about her eyes tells me that she knows what good really means. It's taboo to call it out, taboo to share real feelings. I'm always confused about that. I don't know who I'm supposed to be honest with anymore. Something tells me if it's not a stranger at Crazy Red's Diner at 3 AM then maybe it's no one.

"You ever have an existential crisis mid-milkshake?" I ask.

Last Edit: Jan 9, 2021 17:34:25 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

compendium / avriel
clown car / pietro
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Stare
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3,105 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Feb 15, 2024 23:43:11 GMT -5

and i will hold you tight / like the moon in the arms of the sky

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 9, 2021 19:33:30 GMT -5

Post by Stare on Jan 9, 2021 19:33:30 GMT -5

[googlefont="Poppins:400"]

Tadpole's taken she almost informed him, then realized that if she reserved every nickname she had ever given Koi she would have any left for anyone else. He was Bird Boy first and foremost so she silently agreed to let Pietro keep Tadpole for the time being. Maybe she would change her mind once she was sober.

She tilted her head thoughtfully, gazing at her own half-finished milkshake as if it might hold the answer. "Anyone who says they haven't had an existential crisis mid-milkshake is clearly lying," she declared sagely, taking another sip and musing at the sweetness of it. Normally Evelyn didn't like overly sweet things, but at 3AM with her head still swimming and the lights looking shinier than normal it was like ambrosia. "Or maybe they're, like, aliens or something, because they clearly can't be human."

Evelyn was never very good at feelings, a fact that had landed her in more than one bad predicament, but she wasn't so hammered that she couldn't tell Pietro was going through something. Drinking always made her more sentimental, so instead of bolting like she might have if she was sober, she leaned forward onto her forearms. "Want to talk about something or... something? No one better to tell all your secrets to than a drunk stranger, right?"

✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
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“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 9, 2021 21:11:41 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jan 9, 2021 21:11:41 GMT -5

p i e t r o .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

And just like that, I'm in love with her.

It's not hard for me to fall for anyone, in fact I'm always falling for everyone. Evelyn has hair like sunlight through the window at four in the afternoon and words that twist around mine too easily. "People must just fall in love with you all of the time," I tell her, chin still in my palm. A smile creeps across my freckles and Katrina, the waitress, drops my plate of fries topped with an egg between us.

"It's like hashbrowns with eggs," I say, and as I do so I distinctly remember yelling it at her at the house party already. "Just longer ones," I add to make the sentence unique again.

I pick one up and dip it in the big yellow yolk on top before taking a bite. It's gooey and salty and full of carbs and perfect as usual. I can practically taste the grease from the fryers. I know I could do this all night, just dance around her questions when they're anything deeper than surface level but there's no fun in that.

"Just sometimes I think that I might not exist," I tell her, "I can't hear my own heartbeat."

compendium / avriel
clown car / pietro
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Stare
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3,105 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Feb 15, 2024 23:43:11 GMT -5

and i will hold you tight / like the moon in the arms of the sky

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 9, 2021 23:27:40 GMT -5

Post by Stare on Jan 9, 2021 23:27:40 GMT -5

[googlefont="Poppins:400"]

Pietro was being silly and drunk and of course Evelyn knew that she wasn't easy to fall in love with, but his words struck a chord of panic in her chest anyway. Things were complicated enough with Koi - she certainly didn't need anyone else that Ophelia could threaten. She laughed his words off, still very glad that Koi couldn't see the ridiculous state that she'd fallen into.

Existentialism was over her head on a good day and certainly beyond her grasp when she was drunk, but he just looked so adorably lost in that moment that Evelyn couldn't help but feel that she owed him an answer. So she smiled and reached across the table to grab his hand, pressing his fingers against the inside of her wrist. "But s'okay, right? 'cause you can feel mine!" A part of her knew that her existence certainly didn't solve the question of his existence, so she dropped his fingers and returned to her milkshake thoughtfully.

"I think," she said after a long moment, picking up a fry and dipping it in the frosty pinkness, "it's like this, see? This milkshake is really delicious. I'm really, really enjoying it. So why should I worry about if I exist or not if this milkshake is really damn good? I should be focused on that, not worrying about other things. And - " she was on a roll now, or at least she felt like she was " - so what if we don't exist? It's not like we can help it one way or the other. But for the record, I think you do."

✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
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5,831 POSTS
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last seen Apr 17, 2024 14:37:45 GMT -5

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

24hrs 7 days a week /pie+ev Jan 21, 2021 1:09:35 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jan 21, 2021 1:09:35 GMT -5

p i e t r o .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

I can always feel the exact moment I've broken the precious thing I've been threading. It's as if I can see the eyelet of the needle but I can't thread it, I can't just let a moment be what it is. I have to ruin it or I'll lose it. Good things blend all up together into this weird blur and I lose them. I don't know why, maybe I can't bear the idea that I could be happy.

I wouldn't be funny anymore if I was, I don't think.

Evelyn indulges me, sweetly. She takes my fingers and puts them on her wrist and I feel absolutely nothing. Would I though? If I were a still-life? I'm just a picture of a boy, a caricature where a person should be. You can tell by the cracked paint on my cheeks. She is right though.

The salt of the french fries grounds me and I'm grinning again with her, the joy of being always coming and going as smoothly as the tide. I just wish I could predict them. "But if it doesn't matter if I do then why do you say I do, cause it doesn't matter? I-" laughter erupts and I dip my head over my shake, shoulders shaking with the weight of it. "I don't even know what I'm trying to say!" I tell her.

"You're brilliant, Evelyn."