now that you are broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters,

[Cicadan]

She clicked her nails against a metal handle. As quick as the impulse had fired off her neurons, the gun still freshly sizzling, she withdrew from the motion with a flinch. The din of the arrythmic drumline she'd randomized had been unexpectedly loud. Phil Collins minus the showmanship.

No good.

If she kept searching she was sure she'd find an alternative instinct to shoving her nails, polish or no, right into the gap between her teeth and squeezing until her stress tasted like scraps of pretty color acrylic. Nothing had worked so far: not finger drumming, not knuckle cracking... not that one game she'd watched other kids doing a bunch in the fifth grade where they tapped fingers together and changed the number of fingers they were holding up based on the number on their friend's hand, which she swore she'd completely forgotten about until she'd seen a TikTok of it, a ghost from her past as vague and jarring as the songs her parents used to listen to warbling onto life over the radio at the supermarket for half a second before the person in charge got bored and switched the station the moment she tried to turn the moment of recognition into a song name or artist.

She breathed out louder than she'd intended, then glanced around to make sure she wasn't being too loud on accident.

She was exposed as a gazelle on the savannah, with equal amounts of empty Quik Stop aisle on both sides of her that she'd have to bolt down if she had to make any sort of escape for any sort of reason. This was the section of the store that was too cold, a whole wall to wall row of glass doors built into the walls, crusted over on the inside with stains, scratches, and what she swore was the radial Harry Potter lightning bolts of a barely patched over bullet hole.

She was staring at cases of beers semi-neatly stacked, a few freezers over one way were the energy drinks, a few freezers over the other way were the other beers she didn't know as much about because nobody at school could afford them. She rotely scanned over the brand the same way she would a scantron, eyes flicking back and forth to make sure she picked the right answer, to repeatedly linger on the wrong answers just in case they were the right ones because everything was a trick question if she glared at it hard enough.

a) the Summit Extra Pale, b) the Dos Equis XX, c) the Michelob Ultra in the weirdly beat up carton, d) the Corona Light.
(Olivia Fischer, start)
Current Mindworm:
Bug Like an Angel - Mitski

Olivia Fischer made her choice gingerly as she always did. Doing this half a dozen times so far her senior year was not enough times to be any more comfortable with it, no matter how many times she confirmed- with her own eyes and her own sweaty palms barely unclenching from a particularly straight, creaseless twenty dollar bill long enough for the cashier to carelessly swipe it away- that nobody in the store cared about the age on her ID. As always she had grabbed just enough to add four bottles to whatever cooler was nearest when she entered the party to a few approving glares and thumbs ups. She'd offer one to the nearest face that looked particularly happy to see her. She'd keep one in hand, where it would likely live a lonely and neglected life until it was abandoned on a kitchen counter of some suburban home, to be hopefully not discovered by parents the next morning.

As usual she wasn't entierly sure whose party it was she was attending. These things happened like once every other week, somewhat different crowd of familiar and unfamiliar faces each time, so once a month an invite would end up in her DMs and she'd accept it with the same combination of excited emotes and empty real life sighs.

She softly coughed up another sigh, quickly checked her phone for any updates, any commands from friends to make some other stop with dad's car before making landfall at the unknown home. She slipped the phone back into the grey polkadot crossbody hanging off her left arm, then heaved up the case of beer and began to cautiously make her way to the cashier. It was a one handed job, but not an easy one, and she kept her other hand free in case it needed to fly into the rescue of her own frail elbows- less muscle and cartilage, mostly just brittle chalky bone.

[Carrion Queen]

Clear the path to drive to the store

A shape stepped up next to Olivia, and the weight of the box left her hands as it floated upward. A whole foot taller, he stood wearing a fuzzy, purple leopard print coat.

"Oh, be careful," he said with a small smile as he plonked the case down on the counter.

((Paul Smith start))

Under one arm was three cans of Monster energy drink. He blew a bit of hair away from his face, fluttering the strands of hair framing his eye patch. Paul scanned her quickly while the price scanner chimed.

"That's a lot of beer if you're planning to drink it alone," he mused, putting an index finger up to his chin. He closed his eye for about a count of two Mississippi. Paul bent forward slightly, put his hand up to his mouth in the international sign for a secret, and dropped his voice

"l know it's hard to tell, but I was giving you a wink just there."

[Maraoone]

"Welcome to Quik Stop, how may I help you?"

So intoned the drone behind the counter.

((Matias Juarez: START))

Matias Juarez was two hours into a 6 PM to 12 AM weekday shift that paid him twelve bucks an hour to take from him six hours of what little free time he had. Not yet at the halfway point, so he had no consolation that most of the shift was done already, because it wasn't, but long enough that the tedium of this seedy, grimy dump he called his workplace had really begun to set in.

He'd just set down on the counter a crane made of a dollar pulled from the till when the two walked in, one a minute after the other. The two were schoolmates of his, and he ran in the same parties as them, though in different corners. Olivia was a bit of a sweater girl that brought enough drinks and cards to make up for the milquetoast kindness she considered her personality. Paul made 'punk' music in the same way that Taco Bell made 'tacos', synthcore music with the authenticity of Halsey. Pleasant enough people on a daily basis, really, got on his nerves less often than not.

But, they were having a meet-cute in front of him, and were probably gonna go to some little party they'd forget about a week from now because they had all the time in the world and he didn't.

And finally another thing. They were the same age as him, and, legally at least, he wasn't supposed to be having any of this stuff. So, if he couldn't get any of this, if they were gonna have some fun,

"Ya have an ID, ma'am?" he asked Olivia, in particular.

then he'd get to have his too.

[Cicadan]

Current Mindworm:
The Deal - Mitski

The little bit of air in Olivia's lungs violently slammed up into the roof of her mouth at the same time her wrist finished flying up and out of her control.

"Paul?"

She started smiling even while the rest of her brain was still dripping with startle reflex. The smile she liked best wasn't too wide, the corners of her lips stayed stubbornly in place while she flashed enough of her teeth to make all the work she'd put into polishing them worth it. "Hey Paul. Love the fit today."

She bashfully withdrew into herself and away from Paul's body heat by a bit, her free hand offering a reply in morse as fingertips rested delicately against her collarbone.

"Don't think you get a freebie that easily," she chided in a playful sing-song. "A wink isn't worth that much."

With his help they did make it to the counter quicker. She was grateful for that, feeling buried six feet deep into the generic post-adrenaline buzz she'd suffered putting a name to a face to a hand knuckles deep into her personal space giving her help she hadn't asked for even if she'd entierly needed it. She liked Paul well enough, just like everyone else did well enough, but she'd always wondered why he never seemed really interested in her the way he was interested in other girls. She'd told herself it was just a matter of timing, the couple of times she'd thought about it.

Her money was already on the counter. The amount of time she'd learned you were allowed to pay attention to a freind over somebody making minimum wage had yet to fully lapse. The smile she'd turn onto the cashier, a bit softer, more lip than tooth, was primed. Smiling too wide at people you didn't know by some arbitrary amount was creepy.

"Ya have an ID, ma'am?"

She'd mostly forgotten to breathe in since she'd met Paul because she hadn't wanted to get too hung up on the sultry smell of guys she kind of detested for how self-conscious it made her feel. No air left to go up the wrong pipe this time. Her brain was sweaty and pale like it was the flesh of palms, once more, because she didn't know what the word ID really meant in the context of Quik Stop. It wasn't supposed to happen, and everyone knew that. Everyone came here for a reason, and Olivia had learned that from everyone and she'd started doing it too, so it was supposed to be safe. It wasn't supposed to change, and she wasn't supposed to be the exception to the rule, never ever.

"Oh, really?"

Already smiling. All lip, no brightness in her eyes for a long moment before she remembered the extra bit of effort.

"Hey there." Name, face, backstory. She knew enough of Matias' story to know that he was a troublesome person to run into at a party. He'd slept around, then his character arc had become bumming around and picking fights. She supposed it was unfair of her to color his aura with hearsay. It wouldn't be her best look.

She didn't know if anything about him was safe, all said. Not even his name.

"You're the only one who's ever asked," she laughed, and she listened to herself through her own skull to make sure it sounded flippant enough because it had to, "I figured it was some kind of policy or something."

[Carrion Queen]

Paul matched her smile, the corners of his lips turning up to give him a look somewhat reminiscent of a smug cat.

Olivia was pretty, classified in his mind as Goldilocks but not vocalized because he wasn't sure if she would appreciate that since they weren't close. In fact, he had kept a respectful distance just because she had struck him as someone who was social but could be skittish. Paul offered the help as an olive branch when he saw her struggling, and he was pleasantly surprised that she accepted it.

"'That easily'? I wouldn't have it any other way. After all, the best things in life are hard," he said, struggling and failing to stop his smile from going wider.

Before that path of conversation could go much further, the clerk asked Olivia for her ID for the beer. Paul vaguely recognized him and in the recesses of his mind, he knew his name was Matias, but he didn't know much else. Olivia responded with a tone of voice that conveyed "For real? You're IDing me? No one IDs here, that's why we COME here." The fact that she wasn't going for an ID right now meant that she wasn't prepared for this slim possibility.

Paul figured that he would step in a second time to save the lovely lady, a knight in shining armor rather than a one knight stand.

He leaned away from Olivia with a hand on his chest and looked scandalized.

"You're underage?!"

He put his elbow on the counter and closed the distance between him and Matias.

"I mean, you know how kids are these days. They're trying to grow up so fast. I'll take the beer," he said, and fished an ID out of his wallet, sliding the card over to Matias.

DRIVER LICENSE

DL: D7823019

EXP: 08/10/26

LN: WANG

FN: PAUL

7810 Audubon Road
Chanhassen, Minnesota 55317

DOB: 04/31/01

[Maraoone]

Matias picked up the card. He held it closely to his face, squinted his eyes.

Flipped it over in his hand once, twice. Weighed it, even.

"Hmmmmmm."

He was trying really, really hard to hold back a snort actually.

Paul's taste in music was kinda shit, yes, but he had an audacity? bravery? stupidity? that was either admirable, or remarkable, Matias hadn't quite decided yet.

And, also, he was kinda cute, he realized, looking at this ID picture. Sharp cheekbones, nice piercings and all. Not that his chances with him were particularly high, grapevine said he only ever slept with girls, but no one with a sense of fashion like that was 100% straight, right?

Maybe he should play nicer? Try to finesse something out of this situation? But, also, Olivia was fuckin' squirming, and it was a bit amusing to see, so, he said to Paul,

"I didn't know we had a... what is it, twenty-three? twenty-two year old? at Aurora Bay. Or that you're part-Chinese, apparently."

He pulled out a scanner from besides the cash register, dusty, something that most convenience stores had for exactly these sorts of occasions.

"Anyways, you don't mind if I run this through now, do ya?"

[Cicadan]

Current Mindworm:
they really be sooo quick to question #customerservice #serviceindustry #ocnj #restaurant #pov

They're trying to grow up so fast, huh? Finally, proof she wasn't the only one constantly thinking it.

But wow. Paul, baby. Sweet little child. The moment inflated- whole universe style- into a tongue twister mess almost so distracting Olivia forgot to smile vaguely and look pretty and pleasantly distressed while the boys postured at each other. Like she was supposed to.

She had noticed the ID instantly, and noticed as instantly with hawk eyes tired and bloodshot from years of staring at tiny gears, that it was... supposed to be funny? Maybe? Paul could have been held back four times over and could have been white passing biracial, but in one hundred and one out of one hundred possible scenarios he most definitely was neither of those things. Was there a trend she'd missed at some point? Purposely getting incredibly incompetent fake IDs for the purpose of some ironic hashtag? Some social media challenge she'd somehow totally missed out on despite regularly sacrificing sleep on an altar to the trendiness gods?

Matias was just going along with it too, like he was in on the joke. The ID scanner he was grabbing had more dust on it than Paul's average wardrobe choices. He was, as Olivia had suspected, likely the first employee to try to card someone entering the store in over two decades of faithful community service.

Olivia worried about things. A lot of things. Too many things, if self-help books were to be believed. But, fuck's sake, this was even stupider than all the other things she had to do to make sure people didn't treat her like she was a capital-KKK Karen.

Her first instinct, quicker than she could breathe, was to just go along with the possible joke too. If she didn't say anything she'd, at least, look cuter. Now, no self-help book said that- unless you read between the lines of the pretentious feminism- but it was one of those things she'd learned in her short time on this earth. Her face could say everything her actual words would fall short on. She pretended she hadn't noticed the ID, hadn't noticed the smug superiority in Matias' eyes, and continued to play her part in the scene until she could, God willing, exit stage left out of it. Maybe with Paul deigning to let her give him her number.

[Carrion Queen]

"What can I say, I'm multifaceted -- a man of mystery. Maybe you'd know more about my cooooool fucking backstory if we'd gotten to know each other."

Paul leaned with too much of his body over the counter and eyed the ancient relic that was the ID scanner, which looked to get about as much use as the pay phone on the corner. Matias was fucking with them, but the reason wasn't clear. Maybe he didn't like the cut of their jib, maybe the Quik Stop was the only place he got to exert power over other people, or maybe he had a bad day and he was going to make it everyone's problem. None of those reasons discouraged Paul. If anything, it pushed him forward because now they weren't just trying to buy something, they were playing a game.

"OK, maybe the ID is a little out of date," he said with a shrug. He looked back at Olivia and put his hand out to communicate "It's OK, I've still got this, baby girl."

Paul put the Monsters on the counter and reached into his pocket.

"Maybe this ID will work better. Paul Jackson," he said, pulling out a 20 dollar bill and holding it taught between both hands so it made a crisp SNAP noise. It was more than he had originally planned to spend, but it would have been the cost of a few drinks anyway.

Paul folded the bill in half and slipped it into Matias's hand. His fingers moved languidly, slipping across the lines and pads of his palm, letting the warmth pass between the two boys at the point of contact. The rough calluses of his fingers clung to the tips of Matias's digits as the contact was broken.

"Hmm?" he said, batting a single eye, which was hard to do with just the one.

[Maraoone]

Matias heard himself swallow.

Bold move, on Paul's part. Mr. Jackson here was also a strong argument. He'd eyed the bill, their hands entrapping the bill, for a second longer than he intended. But, he had just gotten started. It'd be a bit of an anticlimax if he stopped right now. Like, if Paul wanted to play, then Matias would fucking play, you know?

And also, one thing.

He saw the yearning look on Olivia's face. The impatient irritation, facial muscles held still, edges of her lips curved ever so slightly towards the ground, how she hated Matias so. But also, that insistent gaze, eyes fully stuck on Paul, how she hung onto every edge of his action, how she wanted him so.

She was watching. He would make her watch.

Paul had leaned in. Matias looked at her for one-and-a-half seconds, briefly, but just enough for her to notice. And then he leaned in as well, bracing his hands on the counter, halving what little space there had already been between their faces.

Matias picked up on something warm, sugary, Christmas-y, some oddly delicate perfume from somewhere. Paul would probably pick up on the herbal remnants of what Matias had smoked behind the back of the store, some ten minutes or so before his shift began.

He looked into his eyes.

"It might. Maybe, if we get two of those 'IDs,'" he said, air quotes in one hand, "I'll let it slide?"

A bit closer now.

"Or something else of equivalent value would do."

[Cicadan]

It happened while she watched, enraptured for lack of anything else to do or be- as far as she was aware.

Something occured to her.
Current Mindworm:
Jordan Peterson’s Surprising Take on Gay Marriage #Shorts | DM CLIPS | RUBIN REPORT

Name, face. Backstory. She contemplated the paucity of the rumors surrounding Matias all of a sudden- annoying to care about someone like that, but she didn't really have anything else to do besides stand around and watch the condensation run down the bottles that had been removed from the free market by the ego of a prick. Rumors were just little minds grasping at the unknown, trying to pull the masks off of shadowy Scooby Doo villains. One explanation was that he was a womanizer, but what if he was the inverse? A... man-inizer, or however that would be called. Smoke and mirrors, hiding one sin with another.

Fascinating from a distance. Olivia's eyes danced a ballet for a full theater of bored audience members- floor, little glimpses at Paul and Matias, as if their faces were the sun that people warned about staring too long at.

No heterosexual man looked at another man like that. Olivia should know- those were her eyes on Matias' face, that was her slightly off-center gaze as the radioactive scent of masculinity disguised by something prettier awoke the superpowers of the mind.

Again, she hated to be involved, but if she removed herself from the situation and played the role of observer in her own head... she kind of started to understand why there was such a mess of dribble written by heterosexual women about the love between two men. It had a certain charm, amateur, down to earth in its blatant objectification.

Olivia took the time to remind Paul, with a pointedly confused glance, that she was there. Lest the fiction spun get too self-indulgent. God was watching, after all.

[Carrion Queen]

Matias leaned in, in turn, allowing Paul to take in the faintly powerful with-a-chemical-bite smell of smoke. Close enough to hear the swallow. Instead of looking directly into Matias's eyes he focused on the dainty birthmark just below Matias's eye, then looked up and to the left coquettishly.

For Paul knew some things that could be traded, though what value one assigned them was dependent on the individual.

"What a pretty heartbeat," he said quietly, always listening with a musician's ear.

Paul glanced back over his shoulder at Olivia. He had to maneuver winning this interaction while still preserving his chances for the future goal.

His eyes roved almost theatrically to a colorful display just to their right. Paul rocked forward slightly with his hands also on the counter before rearing back and reaching past a hanger of sex pills to a row of shining rolls of paper hanging their tongues out. Paul plucked a square from one called "RED HOT CASH" -- each word in a totally different font but all licked by flames -- and put it on the counter along with a $5 bill.

"I'll give you a gamble. It's the thrill of a game, of luck, of stakes. I might not know much about you but I learned just now you like to raise stakes. Who knows what value you'll find in this? Maybe it's nothing more than the feeling of playing a gamble. Maybe it's something more. It's three chances, so we'll have more fun with more emotion. Ménage à trois."

He nodded Olivia over to the counter, and indicated at the minefield of blank silver squares on the card, and took a penny from the "Take a penny, leave a penny" dish, holding it out.

"Pick a square."

[Maraoone]

Paul looked at his birthmark, and Matias looked away, averting his gaze. Paul complimented his heartbeat, and Matias replied with a shuddered inhale.

He fully understood how Olivia could hang onto every action, how she could look at Matias with such envy, how she could be so fucking desperate, because right now, Matias could not help but track every inch Paul's fingers moved, as if each subsequent action held the promise of something better, something more. The anticipation was painful, at this point. He watched, very attentively, as his hands moved towards the sex pills— past the sex pills— towards the Red Hot Cash—

Oh.

Paul went into a speech about luck and stakes, talked of how Matias liked to raise the stakes. He did. The stakes had reached such heights, and now Matias crashed to the ground with such speed. He spoke in the same enigmatic, tantalizing manner as before, but it was harder to follow along, his heart just wasn't into it. Like, the only value this fucking Scratch-it card held to Matias was the deflating pressure in his pants, but no way he'd let Paul know that.

Odd, feeling this way. Because technically, he won, right? Paul blinked first, after all, and that's all this had ever been, a blinking contest. Yet, there was still a sting that was impossible to ignore. Like he'd been hoping for a grand prize and only got second place instead.

Not that he'd ever betray any of that to any of these two. There was losing with grace and then there was just fucking losing, and Matias wanted to keep his pride, at least.

Teeth clenched on the inside of his cheek, expression firm, Matias scanned the card with his eyes.

Matias had gambled with his heart and lost, now time to gamble with Paul's money and lose too.

These were fun, he had to admit. But, what you were paying for when you bought these was the momentary fantasy of striking it big, winning the jackpot, having all your worries in this world wiped away, the fantasy of finally being secure. That is, before you scratched off the paint and only found yourself five bucks poorer than before.

You paid for disappointment, essentially. So, better that Paul covered the cost for all of them on this occasion.

Paul held out a penny for Olivia. Ménage à trois, he termed it. Matias wasn't into girls, really, and he doubted anything more would come of this encounter, but if Paul insisted, he might have considered. Matias gave a slight smile out to her, failed attempt at a smirk.

"Ladies first," he added.

[Cicadan]

"What a pretty heartbeat."

Oh god, it was too yaoi.

Was she supposed to be impressed? Fawning? Clinging onto Paul's arm as his window dressing while he did his mating ritual? Olivia's eyes were slowly melting, draining through the corner like tears. Her fingers were tense, flesh riding up right against the bone. No finger drumming, no knuckle cracking. Not while other people were watching- implying either of them gave a shit about her as opposed to their homoeroticism.

Also. This was definitively not how she wanted to learn what those weird non-perscription (??) pills did. She had been curious before, seeing them on display a half-dozen some times the past semester, but in the same way one could be curious about how the blade of a gilloutine would feel kissing the back of their neck.
Current Mindworm:
Bigger, More Powerful, and Ready for Action!

Okay but maybe she'd kept things from going too far, at least. Reminding Paul who the prettier gender was had turned his drinking in Matias' pheromones into playing the lottery, which... huh? Okay? At some point, for some reason, their haggling over getting carded for alcohol had turned into a threesome. MMF but the MM stood for multi-million lotto. And they both seemed into it, enough so that all the sexual tension between them had evaporated like the drinks she brought to parties moments after they left her hands.

Something she was still one-hundred percent salty about, but of course, blaming people was the wrong move no matter how objectively accurate or good-feeling.

"Making it my fault if we lose everything, I see how it is." Olivia's tone was a playful chiding, that she managed to reconstruct from memory faster than she could be conscious of the words leaving her mouth. She had glanced at Matias for a short moment. Brief enough that the daggers that were actually how she felt didn't leave their port of departure.

How, after the twists and turns of this weird, overly masculine mess of an attempt at exchanging currency for goods and services, had they still somehow found a way to put all the pressure onto her specifically? Ladies first? First thrown overboard, maybe. She didn't want to be the girl who lost them five dollars and wasted any more of their time, that was not the role she had envisioned for herself those minutes ago grabbing a case of beers. Paul and Matias were vultures to her walking corpse, watching her for any signs of weakness. Waiting to blame the events of the past five minutes on her, to laugh and move on with their lives without caring about how she felt, like people always did when you gave them an opportunity to.

But she sighed inwardly where nobody could see. Smiled pleasantly otherwise, tapped her pinkie finger against the offered penny, then against a middle square.

"God willing," she murmured under her breath.

[Carrion Queen]

How to Play Red Hot Cash

The scratcher displays twenty silver squares on the card.
You must choose three squares to scratch.
Some squares reveal a and a dollar amount, others will reveal .
You must select three in order to win the prize money assigned to them.
Choose just one and you walk away with nothing.

Good luck.

Paul looked down and watched as Olivia uncovered her choice with the coin. She was teasingly disapproving of the imposition on her, but it was kind of for her sake in a roundabout way. This was a gamble to free her ransomed beers, after all. The silver was scraped away and after a few tense moments, revealed she had not lost them the prize outright at the first hurdle.

$50


"Good girl," he said in a low, smooth tone, beaming cheerfully at Olivia. Paul bit his lip and took the penny from her.

"My turn!"

With one eye, he focused intensely on the lotto scratcher with the coin in between his fingers. As he traced the outer edges of his chosen square with the copper corner, his nerves buzzed with excitement, matching the faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. The scraping became a melody that with each stroke stripped the silver surface sending a slight tingle down his spine.

A little laugh escaped from him and took some of the anxiety of the moment with it.

$50

"What can I say, I always get lucky," he said with a mischievous shrug.

Paul put the penny flat on the scratcher and slid them to Matias.

[Maraoone]

Matias couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy, a slight wish he was the one being called... 'good boy' didn't hold quite the same meaning 'good girl' did, felt more fitting for Fido than anything else, but whatever the male equivalent of that phrase was. But whatever, he'd get over himself, just had to be a big boy now and...

Paul passed the coin over to him.

...scratch this last square.

"Ah shit," he muttered to himself.

Why couldn't Olivia or Paul have fucked it up for him? Because, like, if they did, then boo hoo, shit outta luck, guess that's that, try again next time or never, you know? It would just be a bad thing that happened in front of him but not to him, something to make fake frowns at, and then he could wave them on their way. But now, it would be a bad thing that happened specifically because of him. And, it would happen because nothing good ever happened to him, his whole life had been nothing but a series of unfortunate events, a journey from the top to rock bottom to whatever was below that, you know? And now that this little card was contingent on actions he was taking... there was a tingling in his hands, and he both loved and hated it. That anticipation Paul had brought him before was coming back in full force, the way every second stretched on forever and ever, the way he could feel lactic acid burning in the fibers of his muscles even as he stood still.

"Here goes," he said.

He started scratching, the edge of the coin revealing their fate thin line by thin line.

And then, enough of it had been revealed that, even through the lines, he knew the outcome.



$100



"Oh shit."

He laughed to himself.

He laughed, and then he looked up at Paul, eyes wide and giddy, and pulled him in for a kiss.