overboard {parker & talon}

[Arrows]

I fucking hate sleeping.

People talk in tedious tizzies about the adventures their dreams bring in like a lighthouse to a shore, but I don't get it. There is only ever two things to gain from dreams: a nightmare way worse than actual life or a wonderful landscape laced with euphoria that just makes you depressed as hell when you actually wake up. Seriously, it's either get mind fucked or get depressed when you realize reality is back with another shovel to shove straight into your face.

Speaking of, my therapist thinks I'm a pessimist, but I disagree. I wasn't always like this. The pills, the joints, the lines of god knows what... absolutely my brand. Yet I wasn't always this... severe? No, that shit comes from your brother dying while you're high on some bluffs. That comes from emotional trauma and identity crises and failed relationships that leave you wondering whether you're worth loving and a long line of other things that usually end up back on the dead brother thing.

My eyes blink.

What time is it?

3:30 am.

I want to smoke.

Throwing off the complete canvas of swathed silk sheets, I stumble free from the shackles of my bed. Amid the awkward dance, something shatters as my off-balance elbow crashes across the bed side table. I get the growing feeling it was the lamp considering the room is now much darker than it was just several seconds earlier. However, I don't let myself mourn the loss for long as I pop something out of my pocket and into my mouth. Luckily, based on the feeling between my lips, it's one of my joints.

Next thing I know, I'm wrapped up in the robe they've provided me and I'm wandering down the hall. My Mom would smack me upside the head if she could see the way I just let myself into Parker's room without even a single knock. That's okay though, Parker will probably pay it back with a spear through my eye in a couple days anyway. So I'd count us even. Plopping myself right down onto the bed next to her without a single shred of doubt, I play with the joint between my lips. 

"Do you think they give a shit about smoking inside?"

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

It's 3:30 and you can't sleep.

That's nothing new for you really, but it never makes it any easier, never makes it any more enjoyable. It is always this: staring into darkness and feelings it look right back at you. Inhale deep, exhale and clench your jaw, at least the void is familiar. You stretch your muscles, lift your arms up over your head and feel every muscle pull against sinew, the pieces of you held together by such fine threads of fate. You roll over towards the edge of your bed and slip into child's pose, stretch your back and your shoulders.

Talon opens the door and plops down next to you, joint dangling between his lips, and it reminds you of rare nights with Zeke on the roof, a burning glow on both your ghoulish faces.

"No one really gives a shit about us here."

You reach out towards your right bedside table, grab the lighter and the pack of cigarettes there. Without looking at him, you flick the trigger and flame bursts forth, glowing between the two of you as you light the joint in his mouth. "Inhale," you command, even as you know he's probably already doing it. You don't want to analyze that. Something about power and control creeps into the edges of your mind, so you flick your cigarette case upside down and let one of your own joints spill out.

You only have two more.

"Almost my last one," you say, roll your eyes when you go on. "Be honored I'm lighting it with you."

Career boy who seems incapable of living up to the name, there's something about him that makes you need to look away.