🌑

𝗂𝗍'𝗌 𝖺 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒔𝒉 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗅𝖽.

[sullngirl-a]

𝗪𝗛𝗢. fallon & moosh ( @mooshvalentin ) 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘. bend records, just before midnight

the new year’s eve bash hit its stride hours ago but as midnight nears, there’s a buzz in the room. to fallon, the idea that the clock striking midnight on this particular day is special feels too manufactured. tomorrow’s just another day in a long list of days that add up to a year that’s the same as any other. it also means she didn’t put up a big stink when she’d seen her name on the schedule for tonight. besides, sloane’s too busy enjoying the party to be too much of an authoritarian so it doesn’t really feel like work. and she’s getting time and a half. fallon’s just refilled the punch bowl when she spots moosh, all by his lonesome. she strides toward him, taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. “no luck?” a glance at her watch tells her that it’s twenty minutes to midnight so she raises her arm to show moosh. “clock’s ticking, you know.”

[fashionablyuninvitedx]

sorry for being weird and evasive. i was raised to believe that having wants and needs was a moral failing

[scrtissues-a]

victor responds to fallon’s deadpanning with silence. he takes a few strides in front of her and stops short of the scattered vintage vinyls at his feet. rolling his neck, he bends to take hold of one of the sleeves. he turns it over in his hand, inspecting it for damage before nestling it into the crook of his left arm and reaching for the next. while the comment on needing a phone doesn’t phase him, it’s the mention of juno that makes his head lift slightly. the only conversations between them that hold any weight involve her aunt. even then, it’s purely informational and only necessary when the weather or an extra shift he plans on picking up threatens their regular schedule. “i’ll be there,” he nods once in affirmation, his focus remaining on skimming over the vinyls. “tell her i’ll stop by after, too.” gathering the last of the stock, victor braces himself on the solid display shelf as he comes to a stand. “i left a note last time. for the food. she get it?”

[sullngirl-a]

the pair of them work in tandem, thorough and methodical and, best of all, without chit chat. if there’s anything fallon hates, it’s small talk, especially with her coworkers. she’s not interested in surface level conversations where she pretends to care about things like what they caught on tv the other night or god forbid, the weather. “mhm,” fallon hums, in regards to the note. juno calls victor a ‘nice boy’ though the bulletin board in java the hut paints him in a different, less flattering light. fallon’s not that idealistic, fatally distrustful and always one to look a gift horse in the mouth. a thief now doing work for free? of course she’s suspicious. fallon stands, dusting her hands off, and starts to work on rearranging the display. “a little overkill, if you’re asking me. it was a pretty pathetic turkey sandwich and some fruit.”

[spencerbeckett]

"We're both pretty good at that," he's not sure where the sentiment comes from or if it's even earned, for all he knows he's the only real liar of the pair. He'd lied so much in high school that at some point it had become second nature, almost pathological. Sometimes for necessity, other times for the hell of it, almost anything was easier than telling the truth.

Spencer nods, inhaling smoke past the lump caught in his throat. He is not going to cry at a fucking party, in front of Fallon of all people, over his broken dreams. That would be way too pathetic, not to mention cliche. "Yeah, I was," he clears his throat, shifts from one foot to the other, "You know what they say, those who can't do teach. Or uh- coach, I guess."

[sullngirl-a]

she narrows her eyes at that, and a sound of disapproval escapes her involuntarily. fallon’s a lot of things, very few of them favorable, but ‘liar’ isn’t a label that makes the list, regardless of her fib just a few moments before. “you think i’m good at lying to you?” this is what she’s good at: being direct, asking for the answers that she wants. her brows furrow when he clears his throat and suddenly, it feels like she’s in the wrong place, at the wrong time. a beat passes before she finally speaks. “so the dream you had when you were fifteen didn’t pan out.” fallon shrugs her shoulders, takes another drag of her cigarette. “you can be something else, spencer.”

[hayesonthecourt]

CLOSED STARTER for @sullngirl waiting to be picked up for an adventure of your choosing ( xo )

Zeke stands on the curb in front of his apartment, and when he sees the familiar frame of Fallon's car coming up the drive, he sticks his thumb out in the same manner of a hitchhiker trying to catch a ride on the side of the highway. When she slows to a stop, he whistles loud and clear and half-jogs to the passenger side of her car.

"Unlock unlock unlock," Zeke chants until he can yank the door open and fall unceremoniously into his seat. "Hey there."

He's beaming, his grin stretched from ear to ear. "I know I asked for a ride, but can I bum a cigarette off you, too? I promise I brought my own lighter." Zeke makes a show to present it, half-arching off the seat to dig into his back pocket and produces the Zippo to prove it.

"Or, if you don't have any to spare or cut with me, can we stop at a Krauzer's on the way? I'll buy a pack for each of us. As like a 'thank you' for your cab services. Offer valid for today only."

[sullngirl-a]

zeke’s more juno’s friend than he is fallon’s. most of the time, he’s got too much pep in his step for her taste but again, he’s juno’s friend. she’d have fallon’s head if fallon ever said anything about it. still, he’s a good person to have in her corner although that’s difficult to remember when he lets out a whistle as she approaches. “a ride and a cigarette? who am i, jesus?” fallon rolls her eyes but produces one anyway by reaching over to open the glove compartment. “you’re lucky i just stole a pack from juno. remember to roll the window down.” cluttered as she is, fallon’s car rules are not to be messed with especially when it comes to smoking in the car.

[easyryder]

The only reason Moosh doesn't start pushing it - talking up Juno's MILF status like a record he's trying to sell to a skeptical customer - is because he barely swallows what's in his mouth after being elbowed, and he's certain the next hit would be worse if he tries.

"Nah, nah, stay out of the kitchen for real, but you're totally the, like... Emeril Lagasse of making drinks, you know? This weekend, okay, I'll cook, you'll be potion master, and then we have to watch that new Holes movie. If we don't, I'll have to return it before we even see it and I hate paying for rentals 'n not using them."

Moosh leans into the hand on his cheek, somehow looking even more smug than before. "I'm not digging. I know I'm cute. Don't need anyone else to remind me." He lifts his head then, eyes catching on a passerby; they nod at him, pat their pocket, lift their eyebrows. He wants to purchase. Moosh's face drops a little and he nods once, though signals for the guy to wait. He's not ready to do business yet, to ditch Fallon for who knows how long.

[sullngirl-a]

beyond music, fallon’s knowledge when it comes to pop culture is nil which is difficult when moosh is always making references she doesn’t understand. “i don’t know who that is.” she shakes her head at him, wrinkling her nose. “but yeah, that’s fine with me. it’ll need to be at yours though, juno’s got appointments all weekend.” when moosh’s eyes wander, her gaze naturally follows, catching just the end of the signal. her hand drops from his cheek. it’s not that she disapproves (she’s not his mother), but she’s not entirely comfortable with it either. “go.” she nudges her head in the other direction, pursing her lips. it’s a party after all and she’s familiar with the part she plays, recites the next sentence like a line she knows by heart. “i’ll go claim a seat on the couch while i still can. i’ll see you later, yeah?"

[giantcd]

"Jeez. Morbid, much?" Milo asked, his arms folding across his chest like Fallon had just said something actually heinous. It was common knowledge, even to Milo, that he would be dead in the dirt one day, but he preferred to keep his mind off of things like that.

When she mentioned satantic rituals, his head snapped up. Did she really do that? Not that people didn't talk about what Juno got up to when her shop doors closed at night, but satanic? No way.

"You're cool with satanic rituals, but you draw the line at alcoholic beverages?" He let out a scoff, nodding her head. Still, it wasn't enough to deter him, even if he was a little wigged out. "We've got mixers? That's gotta count for something, right?"

[sullngirl-a]

“so sensitive,” fallon murmurs although it isn’t unearned. unsurprisingly, knowing which line not to cross in a conversation isn’t one of her strengths. she rarely participates in them to have much practice in it so it’s become a snake that eats itself. a pleased expression crosses her face at milo’s reaction. it’s not easy to tell when she’s joking, which is just how she likes it, but juno’s brand of bizarre is different from hers; personally, fallon doesn’t dabble much in the supernatural. “alcohol kills your brain cells. ‘least the devil is clever.” she says dismissively with a shrug of her shoulders, not caring to explain further. “sure. i think i saw lemonade?”

[merrittstone]

A satisfied little smile manifests on Merritt's face with Fallon's approval; she's proud of her success as it is, and having someone else - Fallon specifically - acknowledge the direct result of Merritt's work as impressive has her back straightening with gratification.

"Thank you. I'm glad someone around here respects a well-done hex. I'm hoping the next one will give him early male-pattern baldness. Well, like, worse than he already has it."

Despite the high she's riding, Merritt still finds a way to let embarrassment color her cheeks when Fallon addresses the basic math situation. "Right, right, totally, and I get that, I just meant like, you know, I didn't know if like, Vic was going to start siphoning funds out of the donation box. If my money's lining that twerp's pocket's I'm gonna' be so pissed."

[sullngirl-a]

she’s no randall fan either but merritt’s dislike seems especially pointed, and she’s not a generous enough conversation partner to open this particular can of worms. it’s easy to imagine randall pissing anybody off anyway. “he seems like the type to try and get ahead of it by just shaving his head.” fallon turns her attention back to sorting records, pulling out ones that have been stuck in the wrong place, a consequence of customers who held on for a record too long before deciding they no longer wanted it. “probably not. victor’s too busy trying to rehabilitate his image or whatever.” but fallon’s still convinced his old habits could resurface. “stella’s probably got stickier fingers, but sloane runs a tight ship.” tight enough at least that the staff don’t steal from her.

[genuineloner]

At the name “Adrian Mendoza”, Bunny tipped their head back and laughed. They’d known Fallon had gone to high school with them, but something about her calling the guy out was extremely gratifying. And Fallon’s following statement was absolutely true—Adrian did think he owned the place (or else he wouldn’t have been so weird about Bunny’s mere presence).

“Damn, you should’ve run with it,” Bunny commented on Fallon’s recent Adrian story. “Could’ve tested how bad his memory really was.” They added, “Or done one better and convinced him you were a Richie. He was always such a copycat with everything—you could’ve even told him Bend Records was cool and he would’ve spent money there the next day.”

At Fallon’s question, Bunny filled her in: “I actually haven’t even been here that long.” I don’t know the right time to show up for a party to save my life. “The half hour staredown with Adrian is honestly what I’ve done tonight. But congregating with you would’ve been my first pick.”

Bunny caught sight then of the second guy they’d seen tonight taking off his T-shirt.

“Okay.” They gestured to the guy covertly but so that Fallon could see. “Tell me if you know what that means. Is he…having fun? Is he not having fun and overcompensating? Is he doing it automatically, on some kind of timetable—like this is his thing, and he has to do it every time?”

And Bunny added, “My money’s on ‘not having fun’. I think the smile hides the pain.”

[sullngirl-a]

it isn’t fallon’s style to ‘go along’ with anything. under adrian’s barrage of questions, she’d been a brick wall, refusing to engage but he’d been too drunk to pick up on her obvious disinterest in the conversation. “i just left.” she took a sip of her drink, mostly to finish it before she took her leave. “i’m not wasting my breath on a washed up football player trying to relive their glory days.” especially not at a party of all places. she distinctly remembers leaving while adrian was mid sentence to go find another corner to stand in. her gaze wanders over to where bunny is motioning. she wrinkles her nose, rolling her eyes as everyone else whoops and hollers at the spectacle. “i think it means that he’s drunk.” a party, especially one thrown by the stone twins, is a good place to go when fallon’s looking for a reminder of why she doesn’t really drink in the first place. it’d be mortifying to think that she could even have the capacity to be so undignified in a public setting. “he’s probably having fun. but he’ll probably regret it in a few hours.”

[scrtissues-a]

he's down to the final drag of his cigarette when the quiet is broken up by the sound of quick footsteps and obnoxious laughter. as the suspicious group disappears from view and the door opens, victor closes his eyes and tilts his head against the brick wall. without glancing in fallon's direction, he shrugs at her demand. while he's grateful for juno giving him a second chance, his pressing need to break bread doesn't extend to fallon. his tone is flat as the last of the smoke fills the air. "sure." dropping the cigarette butt, he puts it out by dragging the sole of shoe along the cement. "sure," he mutters once more to himself. with one last tap against the ground for good measure, he follows behind. immediately his eyes squint at the heavy metal playing over the speakers, though he doesn't care enough to comment. instead, he scans the mess that was surely left behind by the richies who cut his break short. "for me?" he places a hand over his heart as he continues walking toward the knocked over display. "i'm touched. you shouldn't have."

[sullngirl-a]

the door’s caught just before it slams shut with victor’s footsteps following after. fallon doesn’t look back. it’s what she’d expected anyway. she’s a woman of very few words and the little she can spare errs on the side of unkind, but even she can acknowledge that he isn’t the worst person to share a shift with. he’s still pretty goddamn annoying though. “wow, that’s good,” she pans with a roll of her eyes before crouching down to start gathering the stock. “make sure to keep that for your stand-up routine.” fallon remembers something then, a note left for her on the coffee pot that morning with lots of smiley faces and hearts: snow this weekend. tell victor please!!! who juno associates herself with is none of fallon’s business, but it’d be less of a nuisance if she didn’t have to constantly play messenger for her or if victor didn’t insist on amish living. unfortunately, her aunt’s not one to turn free labor down. “you really need to get a phone,” she says bluntly, breaking the silence. “juno wants you to come by, before it snows this weekend.”

[giantcd]

Milo had barely made it three steps into the kitchen before Fallon turned it into a category five rummaging event. "Damn, Wu, you move fast," he murmured, leaning his shoulder against the doorway as he watched her dismantle the kitchen.

"Yeah, uh, sorry we're more of a... Lipton-in-the-summertime kind of household," he said, mouth twitching. He was about to offer another half-baked apology when she dove into the fridge and resurfaced with something that closely resembled mint. He couldn't even remember what that could have been for. A cocktail his dad was making weeks ago, maybe?

He pushed off the doorframe to get a closer look. "That looks like it's seen better days." Honestly, it was a miracle it hadn't liquefied in there. "But yeah, take it, man. It's your funeral if it's rank. What do you even plan on doing with that thing?"

[sullngirl-a]

her attention’s focused on inspecting the mint leaves for signs of rot. she frowns, pinching a leaf between her fingers before holding the bunch up to her nose. with a shrug of her shoulders, fallon shuts the door of the refrigerator. it’ll do for tonight, and dying by mint’s not enough of a deterrent for her to look for something else. “i’ll take my chances. we’ll all die sometime anyway.” “use it in some sort of satanic ritual probably.” fallon’s eyes flicker to milo’s, pressing her lips together. the sentence hangs in the air for a moment while she runs the mint under running water and presses the leaves between sheets of paper towel. “i’m making myself a drink. i assume you have non-alcoholic beverages somewhere?”

[ofbratz]

"Yeah, almost. It's apparently a year in New Jersey, so I've been countin' down the days," she grins. She really had been, had went to the library to look up the legal jargon and everything. Stella didn't think Sloane was going to change her mind, but it would still be nice to know when the day came that she couldn't. Not that there weren't other petty thefts she could still go down for, but those weren't from Bend.

"Ooooh, Fallon wants to pin it on one of the guys, I've underestimated you," she teases, "I think I've got a Redbull buried in the bottom of my bag if you want it."

[sullngirl-a]

it’s small, but it’s unmistakable: fallon lets herself smile. she knocks stella’s shoulder slightly. “please, i’m good at my job but i’m not above a little backstabbing to maintain my perfect employee image.” sloane’s not much for firing even the worst of her coworkers though so fallon’s pretty confident in the stability of her employment. still, she likes to cover her bases. “how long’s it been in there? as long as it hasn’t gone radioactive, i’ll take it.” she picks a pepperoni off her pizza slice, folding it in half before popping it into her mouth. “sure you don’t want it for yourself?”

[spencerbeckett]

Spencer feels like they're teetering on the edge of something, though he can't quite tell if it's good or bad. Bad probably. He wishes he could swat away the negativity, but at some point in the past ten years it's settled into his bones. He has a million other fuckups that he'd rather confront than what he would probably consider to be his biggest, but here he was talking to her anyway. As if he hadn't let her slip through his fingers twice.

"You mean you wanted to bum a smoke," he corrects, finally tearing his eyes away from her. It was easier to stare when he wasn't the one under the microscope, which is how he feels now, even after the simplest of questions. "Around the same time I stopped being an NHL prospect," he shrugs, reaching into his pocket for the rest of his pack, "Keep it."

[sullngirl-a]

“hey, i thought we were lying for sport.” this time, when her eyes dart to his, she doesn’t find him looking back at her. it’s a nice change of pace, and, self-indulgently, it lets fallon study his profile without interruption. she follows the lines and slopes of his silhouette, unfamiliar now to her. he’s changed a lot since she knew him. really, she doesn’t know much about him at all anymore. before spencer was afraid of being friends with her, fallon used to sit sideline for his games. she wasn’t much of a cheerleader but later, when the game was over and he’d finished celebrating with his team, she’d listen quietly as he recounted all of his favorite moments. “bummer.” it’s not the right thing to say, but she rarely concerns herself with that. she downs the last of her lemonade. “you used to be really good.”

[arwenla]

ARWENEVENSTAR @ SULL3NWU

ARWEN: earth to fallon ARWEN: it says your online, are you home yet???? ARWEN: i have a package coming, and it's very important you don't let that stupid UPS man leave with it again!!!!

@sullngirl

[sullngirl-a]

FALLON: oh FALLON: sorry i think that was juno on my account FALLON: did you get your package

[easyryder]

"She's way more MILF-y than you," Moosh promises, mindless about the way that comment might be received. He borrows the cup from her hand, fingers brushing in the exchange before he samples her mocktail. "Oh shit. That's rad, Fallon. Tastes, like, clean and stuff. Like, fresh. Making potions and stuff is cool, you know - being like Juno isn't so bad. I'm impressed you can make leaves taste good."

Moosh returns the beverage and leans hard against the wall with a thump. He's not drinking tonight because the last time he was cross-faded at a Stone party he jumped directly from the roof into the pool, and while it had been a successful stunt, the odds of him landing that sort of stunt twice are extremely slim. He is incredibly high, though, and when Fallon teases about his less-than-awesome work ethic, his eyes all but disappear under the size of his grin.

"I'm a great employee. Just, like, only with the customer stuff. Look, if I'm pushing wax, who cares? Last week I sold a hundred and thirty dollars worth of stuff to some prep shit's mom because she said I was a cutie." Moosh smiles - cutely, because he is. "Yeah, maybe I'm late sometimes. A lot. But, like, I'm way more fun to have around than that guy."

[sullngirl-a]

“don’t call juno a milf.” fallon drives her elbow into moosh’s side, with no care for the fact that he was currently ingesting something. “it’ll get to her head.” it’s probably already too late for that though; her aunt’s ego already takes up any room she steps in. despite all of that, fallon would be lucky to be anything like juno, to be even half as tenacious and unfettered. “of course. because i’ve always been known for my culinary instincts.” her cup is passed between them and fallon takes a sip while getting a lay of the land. she’s happy to arrive at a party at this time, when she doesn’t have to fight to get her back against the wall or get a cup in her hand. this early, moosh’s attention is easily kept although she rarely puts up much of a fight. she’d rather go off on her own than be party to the various conversations he finds himself in. better to hear about it all on the drive home. she nods once, patting moosh’s cheek right where his smile ends. “stop digging for compliments. it’s unbecoming.”

[genuineloner]

who: bunny and fallon (@sullngirl) where: the stones’ basement party when: night

Parties sucked. The Stones’ parties ruled. Both of these truths Bunny fully believed.

If you had stopped Bunny on the street (they’d walked here) and asked them, “Where you headed?”, they would’ve lied. Without a thought. One of the convenient things about being a Bend Records employee was that Bunny could, if and when they preferred it most, pretend that the activity before them was actually a requirement of their job. “I’m actually doing a little research for work tonight,” Bunny could’ve said to that hypothetical passerby. Or, if they were going for humor: “Turns out my coworkers are huge. Fans. Of doing your job right. And as it stands today…I’m that hard worker that can’t say no to the perfect lesson in exceeding expectations.” They would pause. “I’m kind of a mystery, and I exceed ‘expectations’ just by being normal for once.”

But it wasn’t for research purposes that Bunny was standing in the Stones’ basement. Nor, they realized as they stared straight at some would-be party king peeling off their T-shirt, were they here to surprise people. As fascinating and unique as that would’ve been (and Bunny was all about unique), Bunny was here to have fun.

Parties sucked…but everybody always said the Stones’ parties ruled, so why not benefit from that for once?

Mostly they were at the party to drink and listen to good music. (And the music was delivering.) But Bunny caught sight of Fallon Wu—maybe the last familiar face they’d ever be prepared to encounter in that basement—and they knew instantly, intrinsically, that they would be socializing a little more than planned.

Bunny set their beer on an end table (they needed a reason to come back to that particular spot, and it had been a great, unproblematic spot) and picked their way through the crowd toward Fallon. She was alone, thank Christ.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Bunny told her honestly. (This was unusual for Bunny to ever say, let alone think—they prided themself on being “glad” about very few things. “Glad” meant, as if it were plastered on the biggest billboard around, “I need this!”) “This is, believe it or not—actually, guess. Guess if I’ve been to this place before. I’ll give you a hint, and it’s that I spent my first half hour here tonight staring down some football player from my high school who was glaring at me. Genuinely glaring. I’m an acquired taste, but holy shit.”

The incredible, cool thing about Fallon was that she probably thought the party was somewhat silly, too.

[sullngirl-a]

it’s not her crowd— that much has always been quite clear. fallon’s less stringent than she used to be in high school, not by much, but she’s no longer the white whale of parties; she’s a step below that now, thank you very much. bunny comes to her at a time when she’s scanning the room for moosh to try and head home. fallon musters up something that isn’t quite a smile but isn’t the grimace that is her natural expression. “i’m not,” she answers back, taking a sip of the arizona she’d stashed earlier in the night. “adrian mendoza? yeah, i was there in high school too.” fallon knows she’s easy to overlook, but she didn’t realize even the outsiders thought she was invisible. “adrian’s just an asshole who thinks he owns the place,” fallon grumbles. “last time i was here, he kept insisting i was new in town and that he’d never met me.” he’d tried to hit on her too. rich, given that he and his friends used to throw their trash at her from his car while she walked home. “when did you get here? we should’ve congregated earlier, found a corner to hide in.”

[sullngirl-a]

𝗪𝗛𝗢. fallon & victor ( @scrtissues ) 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘. bend records

there’s mutual indifference between fallon and victor. juno’s gripes with him are stale but fallon honors them anyway by ignoring him whenever they’re scheduled for the same shift. neither are known for being companionable so it’s easy enough to stay out of each other’s way. even today, fallon’s got a book cracked open at the register while victor’s off taking a smoke break. the shift had been going well, uneventful— slow even, until a group of richie assholes swarm the store. she hears them before she sees them, impressive with the heavy metal she’s playing on the speakers.  they’re never there to actually buy anything, of course. they’ve got a few objectives on their list, all primitive, with the main one being to piss off as many people as possible. she’s supposed to ignore them, to withhold any type of reaction that they might take pleasure in, but they’re messing with the specialty items display and her patience is already running especially thin. “hey,” fallon barks, and the pack of them laugh, knocking everything over. mission accomplished!  when they finally empty the store, she sighs, closing her eyes. fallon goes out to the alleyway, holding the door open. “come do your job,” she snaps and turns to go back inside without waiting for a response.