happy thursday

@sashasmiths

Sasha. 22.

502 posts

tysondobbs:

He should feel some type of way he guesses, though most of the time he just has a tendency to go numb with moments like these. His own dad’s funeral, and then the remembrance service or whatever the hell Angie took him to 3 years later, both feeling that way. Years ago though, that all had been. Here though, he tries to channel what she’s feeling, where they are, looking down at Paul Smith’s tombstone and trying to imagine what kind of person he was, what kind of man. Someone who tried to do right by his daughter, despite all the shit life threw his way? If he had to guess. Someone who - he hoped - kept her away from that criminal element in his life, the same way he tried to in his own life. Part of the reason he ran, why they’re even here right now. Sasha thanks him and Tyson in return kisses her on the top of her head, squeezing where he’s holding. He’s in no rush to go anywhere so he’ll stay where he is, let her decide when they should go. Will be here with her for as long as it takes.

Dipping a hand back in her pocket, Sasha pulls out another cigarette, lighting up with what should be thoughts of her dad that really just aren’t. She’s not sure what she’s thinking, if she’s even thinking of anything at all. Her mind always seems to go empty with these things. Lifting the cigarette to Tyson’s lips in offer, like a ritual she realizes right after with an internal eyeroll. Not her intention, but make of it what you will. And then everything is quiet, between them, around them, almost still except from a middle-aged woman passing them by on her way to a grave three spaces to their left. She wonders if she’d be feeling it more if she was here all alone, this loneliness she’s been choking on since she lost him almost four years ago, if Tyson is her source of calm or if this spot in her soul is just battered and bruised enough to stay numb for the rest of her life. Only to decide that it just is what it is, finishing her cigarette before turning around right in the embrace to return it. Her face in Tyson’s chest, Sasha takes a deep breath, letting him fill her lungs as a hand rubs up and down his back. “I’m good now. You wanna get out of here?”

tysondobbs:

Here they are, with all their belongings in the trunk of his car, parked on the edge of this cemetery, in Cleveland. Visiting one Paul Smith, the father of the girl he loves, strange and odd in a sense but at the same time a familiar scene. Not a stranger to death, Tyson, not at all. Once they find the right spot he hangs back, watches from a distance, unsure whether to stand here with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie or to do more. Deliberating approaching her because although she looks fine from here, he feels like she wants him there, with her. Already taking a step forward when she beckons him, like their minds are in sync as usual, reading one another’s and acting on that. Tyson, the taller of the two by a head and then some, comes up behind her, stands behind her. Gazes down at the tombstone. Silently and wordlessly his arms go around Sasha, protective, and his head rests on top of hers.

Like he read her mind again, by the time she turns to face him Tyson is already closing the distance between them. That too warms her up in ways not even the walk in the sun her cheeks are still flushed from could. By the time she’s done crushing the butt of the cigarette with her shoe her back is met with his chest, his arms around her, his body a shelter. Again. Sasha leans back, into him, her hands squeezing the arms framing her. Like the cigarette, that too helps, but in a very different way. Her eyes running over her father’s name and his dates, not much else on this tombstone to focus on. Not a very sentimental family, hers, and not one for metaphysics either, opting for no lyrics or bible verse to go with where they laid him down to rest. Just the basics. He’d probably like it this way, Sasha thinks, the only song she remembers him getting sentimental at being Wild Mountain Honey. Almost feeling the urge to hum it. Tyson’s chin the softest pressure on top of her head, the sensation makes her smile. If she was anyone else she’d probably say it out loud, dad, here’s my family, if you can worry about anything where you are take this one off the list. Instead she lifts one of his hands to her lips to kiss the knuckles, wrapping it back around her before speaking again. “Thank you.”

tysondobbs:

“Yeah, it does. There’s a map. It looks like this,” he says, and lowers his phone so she can see it too, the picture of his headstone. God bless memorial websites. He tries to find where they are in relation to the pinpoint on the map next, and it takes a moment. “I think it’s somewhere North of here,” he says, pointing the direction, which on the map is west. Walking that way with her. “On the right side…” Looking that way, eyes scanning all the different inscriptions as they walk past them for the right name, wondering if they’ll find it, tossing his cigarette with a flick once he comes to the end of it.

Tyson lowers his phone for her to lean over, the photo taking a moment to register. She doesn’t remember much of that day, nothing of how the surrounding tombstones looked, no funny looking patches of grass or weird flowers to frame it with something to fixate on. That photo on Tyson’s phone one that could have been taken the day of or yesterday, could be anyone else’s tomb and she’d be none the wiser. On a screen it’s just a tombstone. The map too, she’s always been shit at using, the way they have to go North but North isn’t North? And yet they make do somehow, walking side by side, smoking, in relative silence, heavy but somehow not awkward.

There’s no visceral reaction, no buried memory resurfacing when the map tells them where to stop, in a part of the graveyard that looks exactly like every other part they passed through to get to it. She has to look around, eye every surrounding tombstone before finding the one. Then and only then letting go of Tyson’s hand with a last, parting squeeze, walking to the thing itself, hand already in her pack. Unsure if she should sit on the side or kneel, if she should be fixing the withered flowers surrounding it or maybe taking them away. Only then realizing she didn’t bring anything to leave on it. Her hand wraps around his Zippo, thumb brushing over the enamel BEWARE OF DOGS as she pulls it out of her jacket’s pocket to light that cigarette. Maybe she should be talking to him, she thinks, but she’s terrible with talking to the living, never mind the dead so she just stands there instead, smoking in silence in front of her dad’s grave, mind empty of thoughts. And then, when she’s smoked that cigarette down to the filter she turns to look behind her to Tyson, lifting a hand to beckon him closer.

tysondobbs:

“Yeah. This site goes by county,” Tyson says, mostly absorbed in the task of trying to find a Paul Smith on this site, in this cemetery. A lot of Paul Smiths in Ohio, apparently. He narrows down the years to the last 5 years, and there’s less results now. “I found a Paul D. Smith. 2017, November 24th?” he asks, wanting confirmation if it’s the right one. It only hits him reading out the date, just how recent this all his for Sasha, compared to his own. Really makes everything seem that much more immediate, heavy. Makes him squeeze her hand without realizing he’s doing it. Pausing to pull the cigarette out of his mouth and take another drag with it.

She nods, once again letting her boyfriend do the heavy lifting and feeling all the worse for it. Her eyes finding a bird perched on a tree to follow, a red car driving past the cemetery, the remnants of a paper bag being swept around in the wind until Tyson finds something, his hand squeezing hers before Sasha can even confirm the obvious. And she loves him for it. “Yeah”, is all she says, returning the squeeze. “Does it say where he is?” That queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach returning at what is now only a matter of minutes.

tysondobbs:

He takes the cigarette Sasha offers, lights it with her light, and wonders how the hell they’re going to find this grave. There’s nobody around, no groundskeepers to ask, nothing, just them and these rows of graves. Tyson slips his hand into Sasha’s free one, not even sure why, but it feels like the right thing to do. To walk in step here, with her, past rows and rows of headstones, names that don’t seem familiar, none of them a Smith. And then he remembers you can look up graves online. Cigarette wedged in mouth, he pulls out his phone from his back pocket with the hand not in Sasha’s. Searches up a thing. And then another thing. And seems to stumble on something. “What county is Cleveland?” he asks her, unsure.

This helps, the hand in hers, more than her need for it had her anticipating in a way. Somehow the fog behind her ears clears, a slight shift but helpful all the same, nose wrinkling at the question it takes a couple seconds to answer. But she knows some things. “Cuya— hoga? I think?” And then, after another moment and another drag, a little more confident, “Cuyahoga. Yeah.” Still nobody around. This place really is city run, isn’t it? “Why, does that go by county?”

tysondobbs:

She moves over his way and Tyson licks up barbecue from his fingers, doesn’t wanna get her sticky now they’re all clean again, uses a napkin to dab at his mouth and Sasha’s on him again, his own arms around her, hers in his hair. Comforting arms that spelled out home. “Stop thanking me,” he says, softly, barely there. “If you’re good, I’m good,” and that’s the truth of the matter here. His heart all tied up to hers with a red string and he’s pretty sure it’s gonna stay that way for the rest of his days. There’s a kiss here, or whatever other bullshit they get distracted with before remembering it’s checkout time, packing up all they’d brought with and exiting the hotel room. Last nice place we’ll stay in for a minute, or so Tyson has the feeling in his gut, but it’s whatever. Wherever they go from here on out they’ve got each other and that’s all that fucking matters. In less than an hour they’re out, on the road again, and driving towards the cemetery, Sasha helping navigate along with the maps on his phone. Eventually they find the place, the front gate, drive in and park. It’s hot again, somewhere in the 80′s if he has to guess once he kills the engine, rolls the windows back up again and opens the door to get out, pausing just before he does to look over at Sasha. Eyeing her up and down silently, trying to gauge whether she’s still okay.

It looks uglier than she remembers, she thinks when the cemetery surfaces to fill the view, her heart picking up beats as she glances over at Tyson on the driver’s seat to find him already returning the look. Swallowing hard, awkwardly, she scoots out of the car too, as much finality in the move as she can muster. A sensation taking over like her shoes are melting into the cement, steps heavy like lead when they cross inside. A quiet place, nobody around to ask for directions and she’ll be damned if she remembers which turn they took between the almost neat lines of tombstones to lay her dad per Brenda’s orders. Another mild sting then, at the thought that she should have maybe done more for him, even when she knows well enough that wherever he is, he could care less about who pays attention to his slab. She pulls out her pack, turning to Tyson to offer a cigarette before she lights hers, smoke sucked in with enough urgency to make her choke. Or almost. What she really wants is his hand in hers, but she can’t bring herself to reach for it, make an even bigger thing out of this stupid idea. “I don’t even know how people find a grave”, she admits in the end, mid-release, voice thankfully back to a less than alarming monotone.

tysondobbs:

He asks the question and the change in demeanor is notable immediately, Sasha moving around like an automaton, Tyson almost wishing he hadn’t asked because he’s brought on whatever this is, mild to borderline anxiety attack he’s all but given her. Reminding her to open the window for the smoke — don’t wanna set off any alarms, to pay a pricey fine, she sticks her head out the window and he watches her, finishing off what’s left of this chicken in her wake. He nods to her question, more than enthusiastically, a couple of times. “Yeah. Of course I would, baby.” He’d walk her to it, wait there as long as she needs, anything. “We…we don’t have to go today. Just ‘cause we said so.” Not sure if this is helping or doing the opposite of, but oh well, it’s worth a try. To take that weight off her shoulders she’s so readily placed there. “Not to make a dick joke or anything, but he’s not really going anywhere. We could always come back.” He thinks of his own father, buried in some shitpit cemetery the next town over. They sure weren’t going anywhere.

When she turns back to face him it feels like she’s looking to rest her eyes somewhere, somewhere nice and safe and not pressing for a decision the way the view from the window is. Wanting just to be back in his lap now, have the rest of the world quieten down a bit, like that full night’s sleep already got used up. Snorting at his joke, though that other voice in her head is only using it as proof of him having had enough of this. “I know”, she mumbles. “But we are. Can’t exactly go back and forth in and out of Ohio waiting for me to get my shit together.” Her eyes stay on him for a long moment before she closes the distance to stand in front of him, kneel on the bed in the space between his thighs and lean against him, pressing her stomach on his chest. “Thank you for this.” Her hand is in his hair, fingers brushing through it absent-mindedly. Considering just hitting the road again without even a drive through her parts of the city and forgetting they even made it here in the first place. But this is the only reason they’re here in the first place and it just doesn’t sit right. “Let’s get this over with, right?”

tysondobbs:

They eat, and Tyson’s glad they didn’t order even more, what they already had presenting a challenge. But a good tasting one, the chicken sandwich hitting so good he’s almost convinced he’s never had a better one in Chicago. Says as much. They don’t get through all of it, whatever they don’t pushed aside to the desk, and then it’s back to tasting each other, naturally, for the third time today because that’s just what their bodies demand. Probably hearts too. Oxy fuelled he’s even more take charge than usual and calls the shots, going in from behind, grabbing her by the throat, declaring she’s his at the same time as he drives into her, feeling the same way he felt the first time they did this and he heard it echoed back to him from her lips. Sleep comes late but eventually it does, on soft clean sheets with face pressed up against his girlfriend’s back, holding onto her like a child holds an emotional support plushie. Waking up again after a good and decent amount of sleep, with an hour or two to go until checkout. Tyson takes the opportunity to shower again (no clue where the next will come on the road so better do it), and though their stay comes breakfast inclusive, he can’t find it in him to go down into the lobby of this three star hotel for it. So it’s leftover BBQ chicken and that’s fine as well. He sits cross legged on the now-made bed, doesn’t want to be the first to bring up The Thing, but that’s what they’ve got planned next up. “Do you know the way, babe? To the cemetery?” he asks, mid bite. Hoping it’s not a touchy question. Hoping it’s alright to ask. Wondering whether she’s changed her mind after all. Deciding to add, “I’m taking you there after we check out, right?”

No longer fugitives, this time they go to sleep wrapped in each other, in sheets that smell half-fresh and half like them together, like warmth and safety and home. Full with hometown chicken, with oxy still dissolving in their bloodstream and the rest well and truly claimed by each other, the night is a glimpse of a world so sweet it hurts. Lulled by her own hand running up and down the length of Tyson’s arm thrown around her Sasha drifts off, not caring about what’s about to happen tomorrow, what happened yesterday or any part of the present existing past the edges of the bed. A peaceful night, the best sleep she’s had in years.

And then tomorrow comes and with it an empty stomach, the oxy’s ebb, her dad’s grave. But also a shower, surprisingly dry clothes, leftovers and Tyson, still here by her side. Her boyfriend handling everything her head is even more foggy than usual to handle, leaving her to squeeze a towel around her still damp hair and scarf down the more than generous amount of last night’s leftover chicken now that her appetite is back with a vengeance. Eyes flicking up to his mid-bite at the question, Sasha can feel her stomach twitching into knots again, no longer hungry. Whatever, she was almost done anyway.

Wiping her fingers on the back of the towel still wrapped around her hair before tugging it undone to pull over her shoulders as she nods. “I think so. I should.” Wanting nothing more than to back out right now. “I guess so”, she says instead, crawling off the bed to find her cigarettes, the plan that was to blow dry her hair after eating forgotten in the moment’s panic, and so is the cold outside that’s practically a headache button. Lighting up, that first inhale exhaled somewhere above downtown fucking Cleveland, her voice only comes back mid-second drag. “Should be like twenty minutes or so by car.” Twenty minutes and then how much once they’re there? Twenty minutes more, thirty, to find her father’s grave? Less than an hour for them to get from here to the car and less than an hour to get from the car to the grave. Less than two hours before she sees her dad. By the time she reaches for last night’s empty pop bottle to throw the butt in her face is the color of curdled milk. “If I asked you to walk me to the grave would that — be okay?”

tysondobbs:

She piles on sweetness after sweetness on him, with kisses and words, and it warms him just as much as the oxy if not more. Fuck, he loves this girl. He’s gonna marry this girl. Just wait. One of these days, it would happen. Nobody else he needed, not now or ever. Her own admission immediately has him raising a brow, opening his eyes. “Really?” Shifts his gaze from the ceiling to her, hearing the rest of it out. The last of it makes him smile, then laugh soft. “Don’t think guardian angels are supposed to dick down the people they’re charged with protecting…but I’m a multitasking angel,” he says with a wink, indulging her in that particular fantasy. His pupils are blown wide, a side effect of the drug, but also because of how much he feels for this girl too. “Love that though. That you did. That both of us wanted that but couldn’t put it into words…and if we did, shit came out all the wrong ways. Me thinking you were throwing pity fucks my way cause I looked like a sad, desperate motherfucker.” He smiles at that now, at how ridiculous he was to have thought that, knowing everything he knew now. That soft, warm musing of how much she reciprocated everything he felt back then is interrupted by a knock on the door. “Ah fuck,” he curses, the concept of food long forgotten, but kicking in now that their delivery guy was here. “I’ll get that,” he says, but makes zero motion to move, just stares at her, smiling, zoning out, looking at his own angel.

“Really”, Sasha confirms, just a touch more sheepish now than she was when she first put said fun fact into words. Laughing along with him when he does, a soft, quiet chuckle, a hand sneaking in his bathrobe to squeeze at his thigh. “I’m glad you are”, she plays along, the concept hotter than a joke should be, but maybe that’s just the oxy, mind running wild with angel and demon and whatever else metaphors that she thankfully keeps to herself this time. Deciding that’s enough fuck-themed blabbing off to this man, even if it’s coming from a mouth that still tastes like him. “I thought you didn’t want me. Like, I thought it was because of the whore thing, but after you said you came to Frank’s I thought you just weren’t into me. That you let me blow you out of pity.” She’s full on laughing now, whatever internal monologue convinced her of that back when it was happening impossible to conjure again, and then the door knocks and she forgets everything else.

Tyson offers to get it and Sasha nods, but then he doesn’t, just keeps looking at her with these eyes and it’s only a moment’s decision. “Wait, you stay put”, she tells him, leaning in to place a quick peck on his cheek before pushing off the bed. Her own backpack left abandoned somewhere by the door that she opens to a guy looking barely older than her, a person her eyes scan, seemingly of their own free will, for any signs that he might be someone she knows. Or knew. But no, this is a complete stranger taking her money, handing her their food, wishing goodnight and going on his merry way. Unsure what she’s thinking of, if she’s even thinking of anything as she drops the change back in her backpack’s pocket and makes her way back to bed with their chicken at hand, tugging at the covers so they have somewhere to place the food. Another bed picnic. Leaning over Tyson to kiss his face again as it hits her that snorting before food was a stupid idea, only remembering when she actually has to it the way oxy drains her of any appetite for food, but it is what it is. And leftovers are the bomb. “Dinner’s ready.”

tysondobbs:

That seems to do it and Tyson feels reassured, at least for the foreseeable future, that things won’t go to shit. He never really dwelled much until now, but now there’s something to be lost, something at stake. “I don’t know what the most expensive restaurant in New Orleans is, but I’ll take you there,” he promises, with that sparkle in his eye. “That one’ll be lucky.” She asks for the story and he silently concedes, has to now since he mentioned it. Tyson pulls away, not for any reason but just to shift perspective, laying on his back, pillow under his head, staring up at the ceiling. The oxy hits him the right way this way, with one hand under his head. “The party was good. It was, you know, a party. There was shittons of coke everywhere, obviously I had some. I ended up with this girl. She was in town for…some shit I don’t even remember. Maybe a dentists convention. Fuck knows. But she had a hotel room. We went back to it,” he’s telling the story, remembering however many Saturdays ago that was, the day when they were in that Uber, his hand on her leg, seated far too close to her and hoping the ride wouldn’t end too soon because it meant he had to go to the city. “I was fucking this girl, we were going at it…but man, my heart wasn’t it. Hell, my dick wasn’t in it either,” he adds, a laugh. “Like if I could look down at my dick and if it could talk, it would’ve probably said Hey man, can we wrap this up and go home? Just…all around shitty time. And I only realized when I got home and crashed that the girl was blonde…and short. I think I was so coked up I tried to pick a replacement you.” He turned his head off to the side, to look at her, all of this still hitting him in a surreal way. Especially when he remembered they were in Cleveland. What the hell was that about? It didn’t feel real. Tyson’s still looking at her as his own words break him out in a smile. “I think that was the beginning of it, when I thought holy shit, think I’m in love with this girl.”

Surprised to find a part of her is actually trying to read between what’s left unsaid, at the beginning at least, for any reason he might be still remembering a party hookup from months ago while lying in this hotel bed next to her. A thing only kicking in after she asks him to follow through with the story, one that’s dissipated again by the time he’s done, leaving behind it only softness and amusement. “That’s actually really sweet”, she tells him, trying to hold back her laughter for his sake, even if that part at least is more tied to happiness at his admission than the actually funny story. She leans closer to kiss his face again, her own staying buried against his temple for a moment, breath on his cheek. “Love both your beautiful heads for this.” That’s it, she’s laughing now. “I mean, I’m sorry but also, you know. Not that much.” Sinking back against him with an arm still around him, eyes closed, bad call considering there’s food on the way and an eventual knock on the door, but it is what it is. “I’ve said your name. A couple times. With clients. Very early on, before our first time. It got me going. Or well, as much as anything can when you’re not into the person you’re fucking. In a way you kinda like — meant a lot, were already looking after me, before anything happened.” Her face drops, just a little. “Or well, I guess, after something did. Like a guardian angel with a very nice dick.”

tysondobbs:

He doesn’t expect the answer, taken aback by it but if he feels that, it’s not apparent. Instead, he just teases back. “Oh so you do think there’ll come a time when you’ll get bored of me.” Continuing her joke that deep down he hopes is a joke and not truth disguised as joke. “Good to know I was right all along. When I told you it’ll all go shit after the 1st anniversary,” he adds, grinning. Or was it the 3rd anniversary? Whatever he’d said in those texts when he was trying to ask her out. The other question he feels a little less suave answering, more sheepish, dumb. “I don’t know. To drive home how much I feel for you or some shit,” he says with a funny face, like he’s judging himself for his own sentimentality, which he is. As if he hasn’t told her enough today about how he feels for her, hasn’t driven it home enough plenty. But guilt from his outburst back in Illinois still lingers, eats at him. He doesn’t want her to feel unwanted, even for a second. “It’s a stupid story about fucking somebody else so you probably don’t wanna hear it anyway,” he says, like a five year old ashamed of their crayon drawing, having second thoughts about presenting it to the class for Show and Tell.

“Nah, not really. Just a guess.” There’s still amusement in her eyes next time they lock to his, and disbelief aplenty. “I’ve never loved like this before.” It’s like driving on a highway for hours and hours and forgetting how fast you’re going, that’s how little she notices corny line after corny line at this point, the feelings he stirs now well and truly a part of reality, the stupid words assigned to them too. She laughs, remembering that conversation and how it ended. “Maybe it won’t”, she says, voice quiet, shivering at her own fate-tempting words. “Not before you take me to Alinea.” And fuck Alinea. Sasha shifts against him, one corner of her lips upturning. “Oh, now you gotta”, she teases. “I love when you do that.” She gives him a closer look at the admission that does even count as that? They barely knew each other back then, had done little more than eat each other out and have strange, panicked thoughts about it. “I mean, I don’t wanna like, pressure you into telling me anything. But I do. Wanna hear it. If you still wanna tell me.”

tysondobbs:

It’s a gamble, what they’d do to him if he went back like that, but as happy as J was to give him threats, he liked to think Cletus was a sensible man, wouldn’t do such a thing. Then again, crossing someone like him twice was probably ill advisable no matter who you were, and Tyson wasn’t anybody to them. Just some low order maggot. Still, thoughts best left behind, for now. Maybe he’ll wire that money one day regardless, someday, long after it stops mattering. As a ‘fuck you’. Or maybe a ‘thank you’, given that it’s led him to here and right now, probably the best choice he’s ever made in his shitty miserable life. There’s a kiss from Sasha he accepts gladly, leans into, dives in himself. Heartbeats slow and quiet like everything on the oxy has mellowed him out in a very calm, very sensible manner. “You’re tired babe, give it to me tomorrow. Or the day after. We got a lot of days for that…” kissing her neck, then slightly below it, whatever sliver of skin her robe exposed. And then a high thought, the question posed carelessly, casually. “You ever think you’ll get bored of fucking me?” She remembers the night he mentions, of course she does. Presses for details but somehow, it’s not worth saying anymore. Or something in him hesitates, for whatever reason. “Nah. It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

"If I ever do I’ll just fuck you less often”, she tells him teasingly, giving a shrug. Sex one of the very few things that mean at once so little and so much to Sasha, examining it like a virus under the microscope only to always come to the same conclusion, a resounding I don’t know, though. And yet there’s something in her that latches onto the question, reading into it, is she overdoing it? Is he indulging her? Wishing she could just scoot over to her side now without it coming across as the reaction it really is and marinate in that new thought. Not daring to return the question. The other though, she gives one more try. “Why did you bring it up then?”

tysondobbs:

“You did,” he says with a laugh, that kiss she leaves ticklish, has him flinching. Every single part of this feeling good, feeling great, their food here soon and that’s their evening sorted. Nothing to coast on but good vibes until tomorrow, nothing and nobody in the outside world counting or mattering. “Alright, I’ll try,” he promises, thinking of the alternative that would have been, how depressing it would really have been ending up that way. “I’d probably stay at my homie’s for a week. Regroup, refocus. Find a way to come up with that ten grand. A couple grand on top of that for interest. Then I’d roll back into town, give that fucker his dough and square off once and for all.” Everything else aside, he wasn’t the same person he’d been at 19, didn’t like owing anybody, having ripped off anybody. No matter if they deserved that treatment or not. “Then I’d come and see you, cause honest to god… can’t see a life without you in it. Woulda been a matter of time I’d probably realize that.” Figures the goodbye he supposed to have been for forever only a temporary one, because he’d be a fool to find her and ever let her go. It’s a heady admission, even on oxy, even by his standards, so he’s silent for a moment. “I just remembered that night I went to Eli’s birthday. At Prysm.”

She listens quietly, without interruptions. One of her hands tracing absent-mindedly the contour of a shoulder blade as her body melts into his, warm and seemingly without any defined limits after the lines. “Would they forgive you? Or would they take the money and shoot off your kneecaps for being late?”, she asks. Knowing what she knows of gangs it could be either, depending on many things, the thought leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. “It sounds so much easier this way”, she mumbles into his chest. “If it worked.” Then I’d come and see you, cause honest to god... can’t see a life without you in it. Woulda been a matter of time I’d probably realize that. Her first thought is that the oxy must be playing tricks, looking up at him with eyes wide, words refusing to happen. “You —” She pushes herself higher, high enough for her lips to find his, say things this way. “That’s — if I wasn’t about to literally fall asleep next to you tonight I’d be almost sad I didn’t stay back”, she tells him through another incredulous chuckle, meaning every word. “Remind me if we don’t die after we eat to give you what I’d have given you the day that’d happen.” Her legs tangle up with his as she scoots closer, burying herself where she can smell the sweet, clean scent of his neck again. “Huh. I remember that one too. What about it?”

#tyson #me phone's doing an update I'll be back in a couple minutes

tysondobbs:

“Then do a fucked up stick figure on me,” he says with a smile. Nothing he would hate being on his body permanently, because it would come from her. “Need at least one piece from my girlfriend, right?” That word spoken aloud feeling strange but also familiar, right. She does her own lines and now they’re off to oxyland together, Tyson settling somewhere half on her, half beside her, stroking pale blonde hair that’s still drying up from the shower, caressing her face as they deliberate what each would’ve done without the other. Grinning because her answer mirrors his, naturally. Or unnaturally. “I’d probably be in some parking lot, fighting the urge to send you texts about how much I already miss you. Probably losing to that urge.” Her next question he hadn’t considered. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” He arrived at the motel to see her with a plan to get out, direction and destination unknown. Nothing planned beyond that. “I’d probably go to Florida though. Got a homie there with a pretty dope place.” An idea comes to him in that moment. “I know what I’d do though. After I got there.”

“You got it. The freakiest stick figure for my beautiful man.” Getting goosebumps at being called his girlfriend and it shows in her face, cheeks flushing and eyes brightening. She shifts to make space for him, in her own space again, pulling the covers all the way up to where they’re leaning into each other, almost chest to chest. Not cold, just feeling the extra layer of cozyness. The warmth spreading still in her insides having her lips pull upwards in the dumbest grin. And there’s food on the way. Food that will taste like home. Her tears barely dried in her eyes, it seems like she fired up this part of her brain because she feels about ready to start again, this time from happiness. Except she doesn’t, thank god. Her hand finds Tyson’s again under the covers to lace their fingers together, hearing the smile in his voice, her own growing in return even if he can’t see it. “Fuck, baby, you went dark”, she giggles, kissing his throat again. “I saved you from Florida.” Only half a bittersweet joke there. “I hope we never have to be apart again but if for whatever reason — don’t ever fight that urge.” She pulls back, just enough to look up at his face now, brows knitting together, intrigued. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

tysondobbs:

“It’s just super common to get, like feathers or a compass or tribal, or god forbid all three.” A part of Tyson relished when his customers would ask him to give them horrible, offensive, just plain tasteless shit or even signs that amounted to hate crimes. At least it was different and off the wall, a deviation from his normal. Plus in his mind it marked the hate crime dudes as easy targets in society, to either avoid or pick a fight with, dealer’s choice.

Tyson watches her do a line with the kind of awe reserved for watching double-rainbow sunsets, baby animals playing or some other wonder of nature. That’s what she is to him, anyway. She’s everything. And now she’s his. And wants to get inked by him. A surreal dream, made real. “Sure thing babe, anything you want. You got it.” He didn’t bring any of his equipment with, but he’d buy needles and ink if she wanted to get one done on the road, they could totally do that. Thinking through the logistics now he’s itching to get something done on her, to work on her skin. He’s done so many people, hundreds if not thousands in his 4 years, just a routine surgical procedure with no feelings involved whatsoever. And yet, the idea of inking her skin by his hand, there’s something special to that. “Only if we exchange. You do me after,” he smiles. “And I mean a tattoo.” The other thing goes without saying, would happen without saying anyway. He watches some more in his dazey trance as she cleans up the menu with her face, hugging one knee, about as in love as a person can look. “What would you be doing right now if we hadn’t left together… if you’d stayed?”

She twitches her nose at him and it’s so adorable, Tyson leans in with his free hand and wipes off any leftover residue on her nose with his thumb. Naturally bringing it to his mouth to lick off. It tastes more bitter and worse than coke but it’s whatever, the drug already taking hold, a ghostly presence massaging and kissing the back of his brain in alternating waves. Like one of those head-scratchers that give all over body tingles and then some, multiplied by a thousand. It’ll be a fleeting sensation but this is what it’s all about, right here. “God I love you,” he mumbles, barely there, not sure if it even reaches her.

Her eyes lift to his again, squinting in a double take as she snorts down another line, genuinely confused. “Me? To you?” It takes another beat for what he says to fully register, warming her all the way to her heart before the oxy can even kick in with the actual physical source of warmth. Sasha shakes her head, fingers brushing the backs of his hands. She does say it though, it feels insane not to. “Baby, I can’t even draw. I fuck up stick figures." He’d be better off asking her to actually do him. Not that that would be a fair transaction there, trading him what’s always free and on the table for him, not to mention a thing she’d enjoy too, but it beats a permanent scar. And yet, her voice is full of amused fondness when she says it, touched as much as she is surprised. It’s a given that she’ll do it if he wants her to.

Her face drops at the question, that hand still on his wrapping around to tug him to her. She can feel the first tingling of the oxy’s warmth taking hold, the places between skin and blood turning into warm, liquid light. Feeling like she’s wasting the kicking in of the sensation if she doesn’t spend it lying in her boyfriend’s arms. “Dunno”, she mumbles, knowing exactly what. “I’d be at the motel probably, with the first dude of the night. Staring at the ceiling wondering if you’re safe. Regretting staying back.” Face buried in the crook of his neck she presses a kiss somewhere on his throat. “I love you too”, she mumbles, laughing into his skin. “Were’d you be going if you’d left alone?”

tysondobbs:

“We don’t have a Yelp,” he says, with the half-assed confidence of someone who isn’t sure and has never checked. Maybe they do. Who cares anyway. “Whatever, wherever I end up working they’ll never have fucking heard of Inkphoric. Dumbass name.” He’d always thought so. He tosses aside his phone on the bed, with one final glance to the delivery app that said their food would be here in 38 minutes, and then slowly shifts and extricates himself from her so he can get to the oxy.

“I’ll split a 60 two ways,” he says once he’s done fishing in his backpack for the pill. Keeping the dosage relatively low so his dick doesn’t go into seizures and stop functioning properly like last time, though it worked fine in other ways, he’s gonna hit someone if they have a repeat of that night (as fine as it had been in those aforementioned other ways and the fact he’d been too oxy’d up to care much in the moment). “She was getting a cherry blossom branch. If I had a dollar for every bitch that came in asking for one…” He grabs a razor blade from his kit, moves over to the writing desk with the lamp on it and switches it on so he gets an even, precision cut. You’d think he was cooking up dope with the amount of concentration he gives it, but it’s all in the name of an equal share. Tyson crushes up the two halves with an empty glass he picks up off the tea tray, does his lines and presents hers to Sasha on the leather Room Service menu, tucking a leg under him as he sits opposite her. He doesn’t expect the request but his eyes go wide when she does, like she just commissioned him to paint the Sistine Chapel. That’s what she is to him, her body a canvas a thousand times more holy, completely blank and he almost hates that he should be the first to tarnish it with his horrible hand, not feeling worthy. Asking with an unexpected childlike wonder, both in the way he looks at her and sounds. “You want me to? Of course I would.” Maybe a part of it is the oxy hitting, but also, not really.

“True, it kinda is”, she agrees about the tattoo shop’s name, sitting upright to give him space to untangle his limbs from hers before falling back on the bed. Her eyes following him as he moves around the room, mellow but giddy at the thought of what’s about to happen, almost more excited about this than the thought of hometown chicken. Okay, just as much. “Does that mean something? All girls I know that are big into cherries are on this like, jailbait shit or I dunno. Sounds like some kinda classier tramp stamp.” He gets the stuff together and Sasha pushes herself higher up against the pillows, watching the ritual with a soft, almost dreamy expression. Transfixed on the way he leans in first for his share, his movements, body language, everything about this part of the process firing up that other kind of hunger, the one rising only for Tyson himself. Her eyes are smiling when he comes back with her half on the back of the menu like some kind of offering, taking it from his hands to get straight to work. His question though has her gaze lifting to meet his mid-snort. “I do, yeah”, she agrees. “I want to look at my skin and see you. And the rest of the world to do too.” Really, she has no business laughing at anyone’s cage and runaway birds tattoo. She finishes her line, smiling up at him, nose twitching around the leftover dust. “That was real nice.”

tysondobbs:

“Yeah,” he nods. He had weed, but after being told twice by the lady at reception that this was a non smoking hotel and they charged people they found smoking (could probably tell from one look at him and Sasha, he didn’t blame her), it seemed the more appealing option. Though they could always crack the window open and take their risks if it came to that. “I got ways to score, don’t worry. Got a pretty fat stash for now, too.” They could worry about running out of drugs later, wherever they’d end up. If there was one thing Tyson was skilled at, it was finding other dealers. His features stay in a frown for a moment longer, as he opens the long train of a sentence that just came through. “I got a DM from a client,” he says, and opens it up to the full thing, scrolling to read. “Well… she’s not happy on me skipping town I guess. And leaving her tattoo unfinished. There’s like three whole paragraphs.” He reads most of it silent, but a couple of lines out loud for Sasha too. “I hope you never find meaningful work in the tattoo industry again because this is the peak of unprofessional behavior.” Smiling at his screen before he’s even finished that sentence, highly amused by it all. “Someone pissed in Tamra’s cornflakes today.” Well, he had, technically.

There’s still disbelief, in her eyes and behind them, because in the end this is oxy, not weed. And okay, she never had trouble scoring but then she never had to fucking forage for it, just exist on the bottom of things and wait for it to trickle down. Deciding though to just go with it and trust her boyfriend because if anyone can summon an oxy dealer it’s Tyson. “Okay”, she agrees. “I got my own too, in the bag.” Paid for in kind, the emergency way. Broke enough at all times to have to almost go hit by hit and it's probably the last barrier before getting into too much territory.

She shifts lower against him, waiting as he reads the assumingly strongly-worded DM, an entertained smile on her face even before he reads some snippets out loud that leave her snorting. “Oh, you in trouble. She’s gonna scorch you on yelp.” Her cheek stays pressed against the sliver of chest his bathrobe is no longer covering after her shuffling around. “What was she getting? That bird flying out of a cage thing?” And then, out of the blue, surprising herself in the process “can you tattoo me? When we settle somewhere?”

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