HE(ART)

“Art is anything you can get away with” –Marshall McLuhan Nicole "Nick" Brooks 24 // North End // Freelance Artist

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thenameis-kev:

He allowed Nick to wrap her arms around him. Not like there were too many other choices, but after a second, his own arms found their away around the girl’s waist, burying his face in the crook of his neck. It only took a few seconds before Kevin recovered his footing, never liking too much when he cried in front of people, not because he was fearing their judgment, but because he usually judged himself. “No, no. I’m sorry. It’s just a lot going on and I can’t even figure out where to solve all this shit,” he said, gently ridding himself of Nick’s arms and leaned back against the wall. “To be honest, I think this place looks so much better now,” he chuckled dryly. “God, the landlord is gonna kill me– then again, he doesn’t have to know it was me, right? Us, I mean. I could just plead ignorance, that I was here before this happened– yeah, it’ll work. He’s so fucking slow anyway,” he sighed. “I don’t know what I want to do, honestly? I just came here to get some clothes and… Oh,” Kevin mouthed, eyes opening widely and pretty much stormed into his room. Seconds later he came back to the living room, a little bag with all sorts of smoking paraphernalia in hand. “I knew I had some left,” he said almost proudly. “I must have a joint and a half in here. You up for smoking this with me?”

Nick released Kevin once he pulled away. She understood that not everyone was as keen on physical contact as her, but what else was she to do? Nick looked around the room, satisfied at their act of rebellion. “It’s art, really. You can’t get in trouble for art.” Nick thought everything was art, and in a way, it was. “But, yeah, you can always say uh... It was raccoons? Rats? Or that you left the door unlocked when you left and someone came in and trashed the place? I mean, they cant think you did all this by yourself.” Nick was pondering a few more scenarios that could get them off the hook and hadn’t noticed Kevin’s absence until his return. She grinned at his stash, though it was small. “Oh, fuck yeah.” She made grabby motions with her hands, “We should get outta here, though. Take this shit up to the roof.”

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dani-hayes:

“Mind lettuce? I definitely haven’t heard that one before.” She laughed. “You’re going to need to explain.”

“Uhm...” Nick hesitated. In her own mind, her previous statement was self explanatory, a common saying. “Ya know, lettuce is all healthy and shit, books are like healthy lettuce that the brain eats to get healthy. A brain salad.” Now she was just making shit up. English was her first and only language, but sometimes it was as if she forgot how to use it.

[blackcoin-deactivated20190409]

Taking a deep sip from his coffee Wilcome through the window to the street outside. He still couldn’t believe that he was in America. Let alone New York. Putting the coffee down Wilcome returned to his class preparation. Chewing on his pen he muttered out loud, “Now what play should I put forward to be performed this year?” Flicking through his notes on the many pre approved scripts. “I just don’t want do Shakespeare or The Crucible you know?” Wilcomes heart skipped a beat at the reply

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“What about Hairspray? Or West Side Story?” They were the only plays she knew, her experience in drama extending only so far as the high school performances she painted scenery for. “Musicals are so much more entertaining.”

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aiden-brady:

“Smooth enough,” Aiden repeated for himself, a scoff escaping him involuntarily. “Coke and vodka sounds like… Like it would be like coke but diluted in alcohol– Fine. Coke’s in the fridge, yes?”

Nick cleared her throat and let out a satisfied aaah, as if she had just drank from a nice cold glass of ice tea rather than cheap, lukewarm vodka. “Hey, lighten up, Thirsty Thursday is meant to be fun!” She commented at the scoff. Liquor, for Nick, could improve any situation, yet it didn’t seem like the other was amused. “Pour me a glass too, would ya?” She called after him as he went to the kitchen. Nick could handle her drinks straight but a chaser never hurt.

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Nerves || Madison & Nick

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madison-bridges:

“It’s no big deal.” She assured with a chuckle, squeezing her hand back. “So how you wanna handle this?” Madison asked, deciding that subtlety was useless at this point. “Just friends? Or friends with benefits? I hate the term, but that’s basically what I’m asking, and honestly, I don’t wanna beat around the bush.” She asked, her voice was still quiet and soft because of course asking a question like that would make her nervous and awkward, but she didn’t want there to be any confusion either, so in the end it was easier this way. “I just figure that with my situation… It’ll be easier with someone I’ve…. Done that shit with. Maybe boost my confidence or some shit… I don’t know, Nick. But at this point, I don’t really know anything.”

Nick’s grin returned and she slipped back easily into a more upbeat demeanor. Doom and gloom never stuck with Nick for long, usually because she always buried it deep down until she forgot about it, but in this case, she was just happy. Genuinely happy. “Oh, benefits. Definitely benefits.” She punctuated her words with another kiss, but this time to Madison’s neck. Nick moved slow, still very cautious, although she had told her not to be. “Boost your confidence?” She spoke against Madison’s skin between light pecks, “Mads, you know you’re still so fucking gorgeous, right? Nothing’s changed.” 

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dylanrutherford:

She had managed to get locked out of her apartment – again. All she’d planned to do was step outside for a minute, at most. Dylan had intended the trip to be so short that she hadn’t even grabbed her phone. She knew, was absolutely sure, that it was sitting uselessly right beside her stupid useless keys on the table right beside her door. “Useless. Goddamn useless.” She muttered, giving the doorknob one last attempt that she knew would be unsuccessful. Stepping back, the blonde eyed the second story window she knew was unlocked. Blue eyes scanned the streets before she sighed, rolling an empty curbside garbage bin toward the window. She climbed onto it very slowly, trying her hardest to avoid breaking her neck in addition to breaking and entering. She had just steadied herself and reached up to open the window when she felt eyes on her. “Look, whatever it is, I don’t have it. I don’t have change, I don’t have time to talk about Jesus, I don’t have it. Everything I have, including my stupid useless keys, are in there.” She said in a long, exasperated sigh before steadying her grip on the window’s ledge and slightly turning to give the other a tight-lipped smile.

Nick had been on her way back to her own apartment but stopped to watch the spectacle before her. She had experienced many break-ins in her time in North End, but the culprit usually wasn’t blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Not to say that anyone with those features couldn’t commit a B&E, but to do so in broad daylight in mid-afternoon showed the other’s inexperience. Despite her better judgement, Nick approached the stranger. “Unless you’re trying to trash a cheating ex-boyfriend’s place, there’s really no reason to be breaking into someones spot, okay?” Nick would never call the police, but she could try to be a good Samaritan on her own.

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elijah-parrish:

“If my girlfriend asks, I got held up late at work,” Elijah stated, almost as if he was setting up the rules for himself more so than his new, unwitting partner-in-crime. He just didn’t feel like going home quite yet, and the idea of actually hanging around at work was too depressing to stomach. 

“Alright. Lying’s gonna cost ya, though.” Nick teased. She wasn’t one to ask her friends for money, no matter how much she needed it, but she wasn’t ashamed to take payment in the form of food; burgers, pizza, fries, anything greasy really. Nick rocked gently to and fro on the old swings in Westbrook Park, her favorite place to smoke in the later hours of the day. Once the sun was gone, she practically had acres of land to herself, though sometimes she did share it with company, just as she did now. “Trouble in paradise?” Nick asked as she pulled a freshly rolled joint and lighter from her pocket.

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thierrylaurent:

❛ – I helped a child across the street earlier and I’m positive his mother was hitting on me. ❜ It certainly wasn’t out of the ordinary for Thierry to think that he was hot shit but it was somewhere along the lines of the woman swatting him on the bottom when the child wasn’t looking and telling him that she would return the favor later that truly had him convinced. ❛ An experience I never want to relive, I assure you. ❜ 

“Was it the age or the flirting that turned you off? Ageism is the new sexism, you know.”

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jackacoop:

“Hey wait!” Jackson called out after the person who’d just left the line in front of him, “you forgot your change.” He held up a ten dollar bill. “If it was twenty years ago, and we were talking about teenage me– god would this have been my lucky day. Sucks growing up.” 

Nick grinned at the site of bill in the stranger’s hand. It wasn’t often that she had cash to throw around, and even more unusual for her to forget about said cash and leave it behind. Nick snatched it back rather fast, but her words were full of gratitude. “Oh shit, thanks.” She could have left then, but just had to ask. “You mean you’d turn in money you found just because you’re older? If the situations were reversed, I probably woulda pocketed it.” She did just that, placing the bill in her back pocket.

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clem-cohen:

Clem was on her way into the office that morning, potentially the most important and exciting day of the year for a sports agent who represented baseball players - Day 1 of the MLB Draft. She stopped to get a coffee, knowing that she could take her time getting into work since she’d be there late (though of course, she was already tapping away at her phone, answering emails and trying to keep things organized). Honestly, most of her work was going to come afterwards, negotiating deals, though several of the high schoolers and college students she represented who were waiting to see if their lives were about to change were seriously stressing her out. “How does one day have so much anxiety in it before nine a.m.?” Clem said out loud, looking up to see the person in line front of her looking back at her. “Seriously. Everyone needed to wake up this morning and meditate or go to yoga or something. I can already feel my blood pressure rising.”

Nick was fighting a terrible migraine. The large black sunglasses she wore inside blocked the harsh lighting but did nothing to stifle the loud hustle and bustle of the town’s early risers. “I normally avoid the a.m. hours, which gives me less time to panic over the futility of existence and man’s insignificance.” Nick was just spewing words, stringing things together that, in her head, sounded profound. In reality, she was only half awake.

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Nerves || Madison & Nick

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madison-bridges:

Madison could only laugh at Nick’s words. As she calmed down, she smiled at her ex and shook her head. “Nick. We haven’t spoken in basically three years. If you think I’m stupid enough to just jump back into a relationship with you then you’re crazy. Three years is a lot of time. People change. Things change. Right now I’m not looking for a relationship. I’ve got too much of my own shit to figure out right now. I have to find a new place to live, I need to find a way to pay for an in-house nurse, I need to figure out a new career, I’m still getting used to that chair. I don’t have the time or energy to be focusing on anyone but myself right now.” She admitted with a shrug. “I wasn’t hoping that kissing you would end up with us back together. Right now, you’re the only thing familiar to me. You’re the only person I feel comfortable to be myself around. I was just hoping to make out for a while. Work on being friends for a while, maybe have some shit on the side if you wanted. And then, in a few months time, or a years time, or… However long it takes for you, me, or both of us to figure our shit out, if we’re both interested then sure, I don’t see why we couldn’t date. But right now, I’m not looking for that.” Madison explained, hoping that she’d understand. “I love you, Nick. I do. That much has always been true and that much will always be true. But right now… Right now I just want a friend I can trust.”

“Oh...” Admittedly, Nick felt a bit foolish for placing so much weight on their simple act of kissing. She had thought, that by rejecting Madison now, she could save them both the trouble and heartbreak of the future. But if that had never been the intention in the first place, then... Nick gave a great sigh of relief, her shoulders slumped, “Wow. Uh, yeah, me too.” She was referring to the whole ‘still figuring out my shit’ part. “A friend, yeah, I can do that.” She squeezed Madison’s hand and gave a sheepish smile, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go all rom-com on you.”

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calmitchell:

          “Don’t laugh.. but I might have, accidentally, opened a Tinder account just to see what the fuss is all about and now I really want to know how to, one, un-swipe the people I accidentally swiped right for and, two, how to deactivate this thing again. Preferably before my publicist finds out what I did.”

“You accidentally created a Tinder account? It’s okay if you were just looking for a quick fuck, we’ve all been there. No shame in that. I say keep it.”

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thenameis-kev:

Kevin went into some sort of trance. Never did he think he would have so much anger in him, but in that moment he could feel it in his stomach, crawling his skin and fingers as they kept on tearing up pieces of wallpaper, groaning ever so often as he did. It came to a point where his fingertips started bleeding in some parts from the effort but he kept going until he didn’t feel it anymore. He leaned forward, closed his eyes and felt it all coming in the form of tears. For a moment he even forgot about Nick in the apartment until he felt a piece of something touch his leg. He turned around to see what Nick had done with the couch and Kevin stared in mild shock. “That couch sucked ass anyway– and not in a good ass sucking way,” he chuckled, followed by a deep sob. “I’m sorry– I’m just a fucking mess.”

It wasn’t until she heard the tragic sob that Nick stopped trashing Kevin’s place, her hand froze with a large clump of cushion held between her fingers. Perhaps she should have asked Kevin if he liked his couch. Maybe it had been what he’d come to retrieve in the first place and now she’d ruined it. “Oh, Kev…” She dropped the couch stuffing and rushed over to him, quick to pull him in a tight embrace, “Hey, hey… I’m sorry, shh… it’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. And Nick had done nothing to help, only to make a big mess that would probably end up causing more trouble for Kevin. “We can do something else... Wh-what do you wanna do? We can just ditch this place a-and go…” Somewhere… Running away from a problem was the best way to solve it, she thought.

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Nerves || Madison & Nick

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madison-bridges:

Madison had no idea that Nick was feeling the way she was. She was too caught up in her own emotions. This was the first time she had felt anything more than empty since her accident. Since her return. She finally felt what it was like to be human again. And immediately, it was ripped away as Nick withdrew from her lips. “Wh-” She started before stopping herself and just sitting there. Madison saw the frown and she knew whatever Nick had to say wasn’t good. She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to listen to it, or hear it, or have anything to do with what her ex was about to say. Madison just wanted to keep kissing her and let the world disappear around them. She didn’t want to think about the consequences or the inevitable downfall of the two of them. “Nick…” She finally responded, her eyes still locked on her ex’s. “What’s going on?”

Nick groaned and threw her back against the couch. She placed her hands over her eyes and sighed. “I... I shouldn’t have called you here... I-I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish.” She let out a dry chuckle but her face stayed hidden in her hands. She was too nervous, too ashamed, to look her ex in the eyes and say the next words, “I don’t think I can do this again.” ‘This’ being them, whatever they had been before. A couple, sure, but maybe something more. “I’m...” a coward, “...sorry.”

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dani-hayes:

“Well, I do need rent money and groceries, so I still work at Westbooks. But I like to think I’m cheating the system by getting paid to sit behind a counter and read books all day.”

Nick was being hypocritical. She, too, had a job. And though it wasn’t 9-5, and she took any available opportunity to blow off her shifts, Nick still ran to bank to deposit her check every two weeks. “Ah, books. The minds lettuce.”

[istanbul1997-deactivated2016031]

she said time is an abstract concept i said bitch where, she said underneath the illusion of existence i said bitch..none of this is real

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Nerves || Madison & Nick

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madison-bridges:

“I know…” Her voice trailed off, unsure of what else to say at the end of that sentence. It felt like there was more to be said there, but she just couldn’t find the words. “Yeah… I hope so…” She couldn’t say she knew because, Nick had left before. So she stuck with what she was comfortable with. Hoping that she wouldn’t run away again. Although, Madison wasn’t sure she’d allow it this time. This time if Nick tried to ignore her or distance herself, Madison would wheel herself all the way down to her house and force her to talk. They could work through anything if Nick was willing. Madison smiled when she saw the other’s nod. Her hands slid from Nick’s cheeks around to the back of her neck, draping over her back loosely. Madison’s lips then gently pressed against hers. She hoped with all of her might that Nick wouldn’t be afraid this time. She wasn’t weak and she didn’t want to be viewed that way.

Previously, just a few moments ago even, Madison’s touch would have brought such comfort and peace. But now, Nick felt like a caged animal wanting to escape from a gentle, loving prison. It was as if Nick could see into their future. The two lovers would reunite, rekindling a flame that had long since burned out. It would be good-- no, great-- and Nick would feel the sort of love she’d been chasing after her whole life. But not long after, it would inevitably end, most likely in a similar way to how it ended before. For the love she’d been craving was also the love she feared most.

Though Nick often defaulted to a state of denial, deep down she knew herself. She  could never be the steady support Madison needed. She could never be the selfless person that the woman deserved. Nick knew that she could never make this work. She thought of all this, of course, while kissing Madison. Eventually, though she managed to pull away. “Madison...” She began, a frown on her lips.