SAVAGE SON

patrick austen. since you took it right on the chin, you have lost that bright toothpaste grin. var sc_project=11809180; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="fb6b68c1";

[patrickausten-blog]

marlowe-onthedownlow‌:

The perplexed look on Patrick’s face was like a mirror in which Marlowe could catch a glimpse of herself. She was acting rather erratic, she understood, and his apparent confusion was justified. If the series of suspicious events weren’t lined up as they were, all the way up to Patrick suggesting that Irene was kicking Marlowe to the curb, Marlowe would have probably reacted differently. She would have either laughed or shrugged it off and went about her dandy carefree way. 

If Marlowe could rely on anything when it came to Irene, it was that she was, for the most part, a sensible human-being. Irene was the conservative, law-abiding type who often fussed about “presentation” and “class”. Marlowe hoped that Irene’s obsession with said class would make her conspiracies just conspiracies – that Irene wouldn’t have the cojones to do such a horrific thing such as lock Marlowe out of their shared apartment. Then again, it probably wouldn’t have much of anything to do with class or cojones. Irene was, after all, a cunt. 

“Not yet…” Marlowe gestured by holding out her forefinger, as if to imply that a proverbial pin be placed into the option of assassinating her roommate. “I swear, I will help you find the best fucking roommate of your life if you help me do this thing – 

and it won’t be Irene because we’ve already established that she’s a cunt,” she interjected, rummaging through her tote. “Hopefully you’ll be wrong about Irene and – and she’ll let us in without much fuss, but if push comes to shove – I’ll need for you to help me brake into my apartment.” 

“Alright, Irene’s out of the picture,” he agreed, as if to solidify Marlowe’s promise to not drag the other woman over to his apartment. Except... clearly whatever favor she was asking for still involved Irene and Patrick was quickly realizing that he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. “I don’t follow,” he said after a beat of silence. “Did you just have half that conversation in your head with yourself, because... --” Maybe he really should toss out the phrase ‘schizo’ just to see what sort of reaction he’d get.

Patrick shook his head, shifting forward in his seat once again to spread his palms on the tabletop. He craned his neck slightly, trying to take a peek at whatever Marlowe was hunting for before continuing, “Where’s this escalation to breaking and entering coming from? And why?” Sure, he’d suggest murder, but going through the effort of sneaking into someone else’s apartment needed justifiable reasoning.

[patrickausten-blog]

laragrahamx‌:

“Moving out would be too much work,” Then again everything was too much work for Lara, she was a lazy person and on top of that, she was very unmotivated, so everything seemed like a hassle to her. “I can assure you, after years of living with six people, you end up hating that feeling.” She didn’t count Lena’s husband, because by the time Levi moved in, Lara already left for Brown. “God, that’s so strange. I can’t imagine you bonding with your roomies. I assume you barely talk to them, otherwise they sure wouldn’t stick around.”

“Maybe that’s just because you were living with family.” His eyebrows raised, flicking the filter of his cigarette to let ash tumble over the handrail. If he was forced into the position of living with his divorced parents and step-brothers, Patrick was absolutely confident that he’d have to blow his brains out -- no questions asked. But, enduring the company of strangers (or estranged friends in most cases), he actually enjoyed. He snorted at Lara’s observation, a smirk curling at his lips. “My last roommate and I slept together right before she decided that was the perfect time to fuck off, so you might be onto something there.” Patrick shook his head, cigarette lifting to take another generous inhale. “Or the sex was just that shit, but clearly, we knew each other too well.”

[patrickausten-blog]

hallyumade‌:

“Yes! I’m so glad you get me.” Sabrina replied, laughing despite the sarcasm that dripped through her voice. She rarely took Patrick’s sardonic demeanor to heart, since most of the time there was no real bite behind it. “Photoshoot and interview!” Sabrina squealed, dancing in her seat while she pulled out her phone to show him the cover.

He shook his head slightly, an amused smile curling at his lips as he watched Sabrina pull out her phone. With the cover in question pulled up, he leaned forward to take a look. “Congratulations,” Patrick said, tone genuine. He looked at the photo for a few seconds longer before glancing back to the other. “Did you get to do this recently or did the magazine just come out?”

[patrickausten-blog]

franxdexlaxrenta‌:

“It’s much easier to heckle you than go to cooperate.” Slapping Patrick’s lifted hand in a high five the man didn’t ask for.

“Get the fuck outta here.” He responded, “That’s my baby sister, I have to make it up to her somehow. Every day past her birthday means interest. If a… whatever the fuck here,” He flicked the beauty blender, “– Or a mocha the size of her head there buys me more time till I find someone to sell my soul to then we’re kosher. – That’s probably what I’d use craigslist for. Sellin’ a limb.” 

“Thanks.” He paid in cash holding the bag out for his sister who approached. Standing side by side, Fran’s baby face might suggest he was closer in age to her than he actually was. They held the world record for freckles, “Pat, Georgie, Georgie, Pat.” His sister played shy behind his shoulder, which Fran found amusing, “I’ll keep thinking about your roommate situation. If I find a candidate I’ll text you. It’ll be just like the dating game.”

Fran’s emphatic speech about his sister made a full-blown grin break out over Patrick’s features. He snorted a breath that was close enough to a laugh, shaking his head as he focused on the register until everything was bagged and rung up. “Well, you’ve got a heart of gold,” he jokingly answered, making quick change to hand back with the receipt. “But if you start selling body parts, the dark web might serve you better than Craigslist.” 

With everything bagged and the transaction finished, Patrick’s attention shifted for just a moment when Georgie was introduced -- and much more shyly than he would’ve expected for someone slipping secret items into a shopping basket. “Nice to meet you,” he said briefly, giving her a quick nod before he blinked back to Fran. “A way more lucrative dating game,” Patrick agreed with a brief smile. “But, yeah, let me know. I’ll see you around.”

[patrickausten-blog]

marlowe-onthedownlow‌:

“Shit,” she put the pinkie finger of the hand Patrick left hanging into her mouth and nervously began to nibble on it’s nail. Marlowe kept silent for a moment. Her glance shifting from left to right to up and down were signs of a of tug of war being played between conflicting thoughts in her head. 

“You think she would do that?— What am I saying, of course she would,” she stated flatly, finally. Marlowe never gave it much thought until Patrick said it out loud, but Irene had been acting strangely lately. Today, Irene asked Marlowe to do the groceries. Marlowe, excited to finally be trusted enough to handle the groceries for the first time, accepted it without much thought. 

“Holy fuck!” Marlowe exclaimed with wild panicked eyes, already jumping to conclusions. “I paid this year’s rent upfront,” she looked to Patrick hoping to find some solution to this current predicament, “I let her convince me because I suck at … paying on time,”  she hung her head, “Oh Marl, you daft fuckwit,” she muttered under her breath. “Will you do me a favor?” She looked back at Patrick. 

Marlowe endured an incredibly quickfire round of emotions -- realizations? -- that Patrick couldn’t quite keep up with and didn’t really try to, either. He simply stared across the table at her, his eyebrows slowly starting to climb towards his hairline while she made conspiratorial glances back and forth. If he didn’t know her any better, he probably would’ve made an annoyed jab about her going schizo. Instead, he tried to parse out where her wild thoughts were leading. “Well, you were the one who said she’s a cunt...”

Patrick hadn’t been entirely serious when he’d suggested that Marlowe’s roommate was trying to boot her out, but it was a realistic possibility on some plane of existence, wasn’t it? And, after all, it certainly was making for an funny experience with all of her mutterings. “Is it a small favor or a huge favor?” He asked in return, head taking a slow tilt as he exercised the single ounce of caution he had in him. And a split second later, it was gone. “Fuck it -- sure.” Patrick shrugged, elbows dropping onto the table top. “What is it? Do you wanna put a hit out on Irene?”

[patrickausten-blog]

ncabrams‌:

Noah blinked a couple of times, “I don’t use ebay, don’t need a site for hookups, and my family would never trust a site called Craigslist to find any help.” HIs voice carried a nonchalant tone. He didn’t think it was so surprising that he didn’t know of or used this website. “I see old people read newspapers on long flights. Airlines often have a pile of newspapers you can take from when boarding an international flight.”

“Do they?” He found himself asking again, waiting a beat before shaking his head. “I don’t fly enough to know, but considering that I’m looking for a roommate, I don’t think I want to be advertising to old people anyway.” The last thing he wanted to do was live with a seventy-year-old grouch with eczema -- talk about hitting close to home. “But it wouldn’t be the worst to live with someone that was always on the go.”

[patrickausten-blog]

hallyumade‌:

Now that the issue was settled, Sabrina released a heavy sigh, relieved over the fact that the taller of the two had his next move planned. And if he needed help, he knew where to go. “Hectic, I don’t think I’ve ever been this busy. Wait no, I have but it’s surreal because now western media is interested me. I did a cover for Paper Magazine, which was exciting. Would you like to see?”

“So, you’re so busy that you can’t even remember what it was like to be busy before, too?” Patrick’s eyebrows raised as he spoke, his tone verging on light sarcasm. A smile was quick to break through, though, and he shrugged in reply. “Yeah, sure. Was it just a photoshoot kind of thing or a whole interview?”

[patrickausten-blog]

franxdexlaxrenta‌:

A laugh, “Yeah,’less you want to wake up in an empty apartment you better leave Craigslist alone, man.”

He shrugged, “I get it. It’d be too quiet if I lived by myself –” A smirk of his own, “You say that then put all this crap right up by the register, y’all know what you’re doing” He motioned to the chargers and candy bars, magazines and gum then glanced over his shoulder to watch his sister off in the distance texting away at her phone with the skill only a 15-year-old could possess. “Not everywhere.” He looked through the stuff (of which his only contribution was really some dish soap, a lighter, and prescription sleeping pills – the reason they were there in the first place) before pulling out his wallet, “…You can go on and ring everything up.” Looking back at Patrick, continuing in a low voice, “I been trying to figure out how to make her quinceañera happen. She says she doesn’t care but of course she does. It’s her quinceañera. So till then, she can have whatever she wants.”

“You can’t blame me,” he said around a chuckle, raising his right hand as if he was about solemnly swear on a Bible’s cover. “I’m not the one who dictates what we peddle to the masses.” But, unfortunately, Patrick did still find himself restocking the shelves and rushing through go-backs at the end of closing shifts more often than he should have. As Fran reached for his wallet, his eyebrows raised, surprised to hear that everything that had been snuck into the basket was getting through. With a shrug, he started the rhythmic scanning and bagging, listening to the other’s clandestine tone. “That’s pretty generous,” Patrick answered, a teasing smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I think I’d do the opposite -- she gets nothing until the party situation is figured out, but... that’s just me.” He shrugged, total rang up.

[patrickausten-blog]

aramintastylings‌:

— ✴︎ Araminta shrugged, “ there are sites specifically for apartments. You could also post it on social media. Or post a link to an actual site, on social media. ”

“Mm, I dunno,” he started, lips pursing together before Patrick shook his head. “I don’t really do social media --” Which sounded a hundred times more hipsterish than he meant it. “I have a pretty inactive Facebook, but that’s about as far as I’ve ever gotten with all that. It changes up too quick for me.”

[patrickausten-blog]

ncabrams‌:

I didn’t even know what Craigslist was until there was a Craigslist killer…” Noah admitted with a shrug of his shoulder. “Newspapers are definitely outdated, flyers too but I feel like flyers are more useful than newspapers these days. Plus newspapers are all online now. Flyers can help those that don’t have a strong internet presence.”

“Are you serious?” Patrick’s eyebrows tugged together, shooting the other a disbelieving look. “I feel like everyone used it for everything -- local eBay, hookups, handymen.” But, at this point, it seemed like every site and app had individualized and specific purposes that he just couldn’t keep up with. He nodded along, giving in, “That’s a good point. People at least still glance at flyers, but I can’t remember the last time I saw someone reading the paper.”

[patrickausten-blog]

aramintastylings‌:

— ✴︎ “ I’m not sure, I’ve never had the need to try to use it. I imagine I would have stopped using it because of the Craigslist Killer, though, ” she gave a slight shrug. “ Why not use a different site than Craigslist ?? ” 

Patrick shrugged as well. “Are there better sites than Craigslist when it comes to listing an apartment?” He imagined that there were, but navigating anything online seemed like a feat within itself.

[patrickausten-blog]

marlowe-onthedownlow‌:

She nodded, forming a silent ‘ohh’ with her lips in a way that said she understood. “Well then,” She straightened herself in a self-important manner. Now giving him her undivided attention, she clicked her phone ‘off’, slipped it into her pants pocket, and looked her neighbor square in the face. “Tip number one, don’t put ‘free’ anything in the ad — unless, of course, you are in fact looking for a ‘life full of freeloaders’.

“ — Also, option two,” she said as if options were being listed prior to this moment, “we skip all the advertising headache, and I give you my roommate, Irene. – She’s amazing!” She advertised. Marlowe hated her roommate, and most people who knew them were aware that they did not get along. “She cleans, cooks. Sometimes she’s a ‘bit’ of cunt, but aren’t we all?” She added the last part as quick as she waved it off. 

“Technically, it’s her apartment and she’s renting it out to me, but that’s something we can discuss when we get there. So, what do you say? You’ll take her?” Marlowe put her hand out for a hand shake, confident that her offer couldn’t be turned down.

“-- Noted.” He may have had the least (and worst) experience with the internet, but this was far from the first time that Patrick was trudging through the task of finding a new roommate. He wasn’t about to make the rookie mistake of even inferring that the rent would be cheap. For half a second, though, he was almost convinced that Marlowe really did have the perfect solution for him -- but that didn’t last long. Patrick snorted and shook his head, unable to imagine a more grandma-esque name than Irene.

“You know how I said that I could use less freeloaders in my life? The same goes for cunts.” And cunts who had their own apartments were even less likely to want to endure the mess Patrick thrived in. He shook his head again rather than shaking Marlowe’s hand for any kind of finalized deal. “I’d be careful, if I were you,” he started to warn. “Irene could be trying to kick you to the curb right now while you’re attempting to pawn her off on me.”

[patrickausten-blog]

hallyumade‌:

“And that’s just the tip of the iceburg, my sardonic friend.” Sabrina laighed, understanding his reluctance. Social media in this new digital age was a labyrinth that even the most resourceful user had trouble mastering. Sabrina knows she did. “I don’t see why your way wouldn’t work. Maybe you can print some off and hand them to your friends, in case they know someone.” The short haired brunette suggested positively with a smile that could put the fluorescent lights they were under, out of business. “Sure, no problem, I’ll help in anyway I can.”

Social media as a whole was overwhelming to Patrick. After falling behind when Facebook became the new norm of staying in touch, there was no way that he could jump back on the bandwagon. “I’ll have to do something like that,” he said with a nod. Even if he pinned up a few flyers around coffee shops in the city, it was always a better bet to wind up rooming with a friend of a friend, rather than a complete stranger. Patrick mirror Sabrina’s smile before continuing, “Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I’ll let you know. -- How have things been for you?”

[patrickausten-blog]

franxdexlaxrenta‌:

While his back was turned, his sister could be seen behind him, sliding nail polish and a beauty blender stealthily into the basket by the chair. “Yeah, I think it’s just for hook-up nowadays. And I got a feeling that’s not what you’re into.”

He thought for a moment then, moving to pick up the basket, “No one I think wouldn’t get on your last nerve.” He sat it on the counter, resting his arms on it, looking up a the taller man and attempting to not be bitter about it, “Do you really need a roommate though? I mean, you got a good gig.” reaching his hand into the basket he furrowed his brow as he pulled out some sort of face mask. A sigh, “UGh Georgita…” sifting through the five extra items in the basket, “I swear she thinks I’m a cash machine.” But it wasn’t like he wasn’t going to buy what she wanted. He hardly could say no to her.

“Yeah, that’s not really what I’m looking for.” His gaze strayed, sliding to the side to watch beyond Fran where could see the other’s younger sister sneaking around. In Patrick’s naturally unbothered state, he didn’t rat her out, either. Instead, he watched as she slipped a few bonus items into the basket, making sure she’d darted off back to the shelves before blinking back to friend to continue, “And I don’t think too many people on Craigslist are looking to fuck and then get an invite to move in, too. I’ll nix the internet from my advertising options.”

He could appreciate Fran’s honesty in not bothering to recommend any possible roommates -- it would save them both time in the long run. “Well, not really,” Patrick admitted with a shake of his head. “So, I’m not in a rush, either.” Watching as the other hefted the shopping basket onto the counter, he cracked a smile. “At least Walgreens prices won’t totally bankrupt you,” he pointed out, waiting to see what would wind up being discarded from the basket. “Does she do this everywhere you go?”

[patrickausten-blog]

laragrahamx‌:

Lara rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms against her chest. Of course Patrick didn’t miss the opportunity to announce his dislike towards art and artists. Someone could argue, get mad even but Lara simply didn’t care. That was just his opinion, he was entitled to have it even though it was a wrong one. “Right.. I forgot about your fun job.” She said sarcastically, nodding. “So you are basically lying,” With a shrug, she pointed out. They both knew Lara was the last person who could question Patrick’s challenged morals, so it was obvious that she was somewhat amused. Her nose wrinkled in distaste as he continued, she sat on the window sill. “Comforting?” She scoffed, knitting her brows together. “How?”

“Sure,” he said with a matching shrug. Lying, as far as Patrick was concerned, was just part of life. At the end of the day, who cared? He had a tendency to bullshit his way through most conversations in life and if he just happened to lie about being in a rush to cut ahead in line or pretend he didn’t smoke, then that was on whoever was dumb enough to believe him. “They’ll figure it out and either not care or move later.” Patrick definitely didn’t plan on keeping up this charade for long, because hanging out his bedroom window to smoke all winter wouldn’t be ideal. He hummed low, mulling over Lara’s scoffed question while watching her lean back against the window. “I don’t know,” he answered unhelpfully, shrugging again. “I like the noise -- the feeling of having other people around.” But did he ever want to be spoken to? No way. “I've never actually lived alone for more than a few months at a time.”

[patrickausten-blog]

giovanaduffy‌:

“I don’t think think I’ve even heard anyone talk about Craiglist since I’ve been in New York, and I got here five years ago.” Giovana replied knitting her brows together slightly as she looked up at the much taller male. “It may be mid-90s but at least it’s safer, and I mean there’s always ebay?” She offered, shrugging a little. 

“I’ll take that as a bad sign.” Patrick nodded decidedly, crossing Craigslist off of his mental list of advertising possibilities. It was his turn to furrow to his brows, though, glancing back to the brunette uncertainly. “Ebay is still a thing? Somehow, I would’ve seen Craigslist outliving that one, but... -- I should probably just go full ‘90s and put a flyer on every corkboard I can find.”

[patrickausten-blog]

helloveronicax‌:

Veronica stayed silent for a moment as she considered his suggestion. She did have many resources that could lead her in the right direction. It wasn’t a bad idea at all. “I’m sure my dentist would chop my head off, but I might actually just do that. Thanks, Patrick,” Veronica said with a smile. “Anyways, enough about me and my chocolate. What have you been up to lately?”

Patrick’s smile pulled wider as he let himself chuckle, shrugging as he answered, “Yeah, no problem. -- And if you do go with it, just tell your dentist that he should be glad for the extra business.” But, for every ideal version of adulthood, it was probably a better idea to not be ordering candy wholesale and they both knew that. “I’ve been up to a lot of the same. Working, hating the cold weather, considering moving before realizing that it’s too much work.”