[Closed] No matter where I go or whore my mind, I'll always stumble home

[ruineaxt]

CHARACTERS: mangemouth and ruineaxt
LOCATION/SETTING: 707, Badou's room.
DATE & TIME Aug. 14th, midday
WARNINGS Swearing, junkietalk, the usual. **also hardcore drug use** I warned you all seriously.
SUMMARY: Badou is back at the academy, and Shinjiro needs to sort his thoughts. For them, it's the equivalent of a warm reunion.

Comments

[mangemouth]

With Shinjiro's empty highs and tangled lows, Badou was probably feeling a pleasant middle ground in his liver -- a sense of apathy. He was glad to be back in Reims, out of the too-hot summer son of Andorra, out from under the pressurepoint of Tiedoll's nicotine blackmail and the sometimes-sad-but-mostly-conniving looks from Naoto and the never-sad-entirely-hateful looks of Kanda. He and Princess Number Two had traveled back together but gone their ways separately, and from the whole ordeal he'd gained solely new bruises, new aches, and several new bruises, including the black eyespot he was sporting on his good eye, and two cartons of cigarettes to hold him over for... maybe a bit over a week. Supply and demand didn't really work for him: more supply just meant more demand

[ruineaxt]

The jump was painfully pronounced in the rest of the still room, quickly getting his attention-- As well as the shiner and the marks on the pale ginger, but they went uncommented on. If Badou got into fights, it was none of his business, and if he was well enough to be back and taking pictures and jumping at the sudden intrusion, than he was alert enough to take care of himself.

In other words, the other man was probably fine. It might have been, on some level, a sort of relief: At least there was some aspect of normalcy and expectation that wouldn't get torn away. He waved a hand at the comment, stepping to the roommate's bed and sitting on the edge. As always, hands lurked in his pockets, picking at the lint and burrs there to occupy himself, and one knee crossed the other.

"Well that sucks. You gonna stay on as a ghost here, or what?" Not as though that would be the strangest thing to happen on campus, he felt.

[mangemouth]

"Hah, yahhh, I'll haunt ya."

Just him. The way that chip on his shoulder was probably haunting him, the way that longing was ghosting every inner organ and making it shrink painfully away from the cold. Nothing left to do but fire up, he figured, striking a match off his jeans with a filter between his teeth.

When he flopped down on the bed, it practically kicked up dust -- an old, rustic smell, and a creaking comfort that he knows what's his is his. Looking upside down, he recognized the big red circle on his cheap, full-frontal nudity calendar pinned above his bed and remembered just what day it was.

"Guess I'm back just in time, hunh?"

To save you from yourself. ...As if.

[ruineaxt]

A short snort of acknowledgment, the forced noise of amusement the only real response to Badou's comment of haunting. If he was going to be pestered by vengeful spirits, he'd hope they weren't gangly-ass gingers. The lit cigarette earned nothing more than a short glance, and he folded his arms

[mangemouth]

"Nah, I failed the fuck out last sem."

It was quick and immediate, casual as he cast a dozy, half lidded gaze, wondering why Shinjiro was still fucking standing up without his support, without Sanada's broad shoulder to lean on, without his family's familiar presence. It was distracting as he tried to mull over what classes he'd signed up for online.

"The only shit I passed was, uh, that Age'a Myth class an' photography." Only the things that interested him, marked off on a checklist and filed in those cabinets in his head, curiously picked apart and absorbed like a fucking sponge. With failing everything else came failing the whole grade entirely.

Entirely nonplussed about it, he was more irritated about the cigarette burning to quickly.

"You got hung back, yah?"

Maybe intentionally, which Badou got to chew over in his head for a few moments, too.