Jel tugs him over to a rather boisterous group at the corner table. She pulls a blond up by the back of his jacket. The man looks like he might retaliate until he catches sight of Cal.
"Dai," she says, then motions back at him, "this is Cal."
"Welsh," Dai says, as they shake hands. Cal cocks an eyebrow and looks faintly amused. Dai elaborates motioning to his nearly white blond hair and green eyes, "I'm Welsh not Japanese."
"Noted," Cal says, smothering a grin.

Cal finds her by the bar, draped over Dai, giggling madly. Her hands are tucked into the front of Dai's jacket and he can't help the wave of jealousy that shoots up his spine. As it is, it takes her a few seconds to notice him. When she does, grin wide and drunk, she makes an attempt to detach herself from her current branch and wobble over to him. Her hands press into the front of his jacket, and he stares dumbly down at where they clench the loose fabric.
"You're glowing," he says stupidly, unable to look away.
She pulls her hands away and holds them out in front of her, studying them in drunk fascination. Then she giggles and tugs on his jacket again.
"Oh yeah," she says, head tilted slightly to the side. "I forgot."
"You forgot?" he demanded, blinking quickly. "You're glowing!"
He grabs her hands and shoves them into his coat pocket, glancing around quickly. No one seems to have noticed with the flashing lights from the dance floor and he feels momentarily relieved. He looks back at her, unsure of how to proceed.
She's staring back up at him with an absurdly childish pout.
"I donno if we should be doing this here," she slurs, tilting her head. He's reminded of a puppy that has no idea what to make of a new toy. She blinks quickly. "It's crowded and all."
Cal ignores the continuing babble and pulls her toward the rest of the crew. He corners Dai against the bar.
"She's glowing!" he whispers frantically, gesturing at the giggling mess behind him. Dai gives a long slow blink.
"Just her hands," he says. He looks almost confused as to why this might be a problem.
"Glowing," Cal repeats, just to make sure the other man has gotten it. Dai shrugs.
"She's drunk," he says, turning back to the bar. Cal stares at his back. He was prepared for a lot of reactions. That was not one of them.
Cal turns back to her. She's stopped giggling and seems to be fascinated by the whirling lights. He sighs and digs past her hands to the bottom of his coat pockets, pulling out his winter gloves. She stares at them, nose wrinkled.
"Put them on," he orders. She complies, making faces and muttering in what she thinks is under her breath. After a scathing comment about his style of shoes, he grabs her coat from the back of Day's chair and heads to the door, tugging her after him. She drags her feet.
"Don wanna leave," she complains, pulling him back.
"Glowing," he points out. She shrugs and smiles sheepishly. Like it's a normal occurrence. Like she builds up a static charge when she's angry and glows when she's drunk.
"It's just my hands," she argues as if that's a valid point. And maybe in their warped world it is.
"I'm not sticking around and waiting for other parts to start," he snaps back, "Leaving now."

a/n: I have not slept in about 36 hours. Goodnight. Oh. And I blame this on loveclouds

"Hey, what if you're pregnant?"
She glances back at him, hair plastered to her sweaty forehead, completely horrified. Blood rushes to her face, but combined with the sickly green she's been sporting since last night, it only manages to make her look a more zombie brown.
"I fucking hate you," she moans, pressing her forehead to the toilet bowl. "I have the fucking plague and you have the nerve to make fun of me."
He's grinning at her when she raises her head again, but she's pretty sure he never stopped. She tries to glare at him, but it comes out as more baleful than menacing. He stretches back against the bathtub rim and nudges her knee with his foot. She ignores him, resting her head sideways on the seat, closing her eyes and taking a second to rest.
"It was just a suggestion," he chuckled, glancing around idly.
"If I am, it's not yours," she shot back, not even opening her eyes.
"Now you're just being mean," he whined, shuffling his feet against the tile.
"Stop that," she ordered, furrowing her brow. "I will not stand whining while I'm the one loosing all of my internal organs to a porcelain god."
"It's just cause I want cheese," he explained cheekily. She interrupts him with another groan, another wave of nauseous sweeping through her.
"Omg," she whimpers. "I just wish I would throw up so I can feel better and lay down."
"I guess this means we won't be making it to dinner with your parents," he said, shifting to get more comfortable. The cold tile has been slowly sinking through his bones and moving just seems to make the aches more pronounced. It's been a long night.
"Can you please stop bringing it up?" she demands, leaning over the bowl again.
"Food?"
"My parents, you dick," she snaps, voice stuttering unnaturally over another heave.

a/n: this is Jules_world, in case anyone else went who the fuck are you and why are you on my flist D:< I needed a change ^^
and yes. I fail at crack.

I didn't know what time it was when I opened my eyes again. Dim light slipped through the blinds, but I still wasn't familiar enough with the room to know the hour. There was movement in the corner of my eye and the bed sunk down beside me. Rolling onto my side, I tugged a pillow closer to my chest and stared at the wall. Gentle fingertips lightly traced my arm and my heart climbed into my throat. The wall across from me blurred.
"I'm sorry I said I hated you," I said thickly. The fingers stopped, but after a moment they ran gently through my hair. Each breath stuck in my throat, releasing with something close to a sob. "I didn't mean it. I love you, Alex. You're all I have."
He was quiet for another moment before giving a heavy sigh.
"All these years I've spent watching you," he began, "And I still forget how young you are... There's nothing to forgive. I should not have lost my temper."
The hole in my chest widened. With my heart somewhere near my tonsils, there seemed to be extra room for the loss and guilt to make a home.
"I know what you want me to do," I murmured, clutching my pillow, "but I can't do it. I can't do what was done to me, to him... I just can't."
"You'll fade," he said calmly. Like talking about the weather. His fingers never hesitated. "But you probably have not bonded far enough for him to fade with you."
"He's just so normal," I told him, closing my eyes. "It's not worth it to me."
"He will never be normal," he offered calmly. "He is your partner. Nothing in the world will change that, not even your fading."
"He said he loved me," I muttered miserably. "I didn't even realize what he was until he said it."
"Then something in him will fade too," Alex replied.
"You can't make me feel guilty about this," I shot back. The air around me crackled. "It's a stupid side effect. If I fade, it'll probably fade with me. Hell, maybe even his memories with it.
"He doesn't really love me," I continued, bitterly. "All the fucking side effects talking. He's a child who knew me less than an hour and got brainwashed by a bunch of old fucks who thought it would be funny to pair up potential partners. That's all."
"You are not potential partners," my guardian corrected mildly, "He is the only one you'll ever have. And you are younger than him."
"I shoot lazers out of my eyes when I loose my fucking temper," I bit back, nails clenching the pillowcase. "And that's after apparently loosing half my power to him. Another fucking side affect. Don't patronize me, Alex. I've earned my place. Even if it's the last place I ever wanted to fucking be."

His name was Andrew and he was adorable, in a geeky kinda way. I sat next to him on the first day of BCCC's Summer Creative Writing class and we smiled at each other. In most cases, friendships are built on one smile or kind word and years of experience, but it didn't happen that way. It was just instant connection. I wasn't until the break, three hours later, when we started talking to the girl behind us and she mistook us for a couple, that I realized I didn't know his name.
I have never met an Andrew I didn't like. I've met one or two that I never became friends with and I've known a few that are still close confidants to this day, but I've never met an Andrew that didn't like me. Just one of those things you end up considering years later.
It wasn't like I knew everything about him in a split second or felt the need to spill my life story either, but there was something there. Same wave-length. Same thought and frame of reference and same sense of humor.
There's a theory that somewhere in the world, everyone has a twin. To be honest, the theory doesn't hold a lot of water for me. Not in terms of physical appearance anyway. But in the end, that's the closest comparison I can come up with. He finished sentences that I started. We laughed over nothing just looking at each other before I even knew his name.
Maybe the theory does hold weight, just not the meaning that most people associate with it.

There was something in the way her hands flutter about his face, rippling air leaving butterfly kisses along his jaw. She couldn't help herself. An image of her warped mind or not, his presence is a reassurance. They lay on her bed, facing each other. He tucks his hands under his head, face impassive. His palms itch to reach out to one of the hands that is flittering at the edge of his peripheral vision, but something warns him off.
"Webs," she mummers. He allows his face to settle into a quizzical, yet passive expression. Slow, non=threatening. Her smile is full of fond memory as she adds, "Your hair was spider webs. Spider webs and silk."
He bites his lip hard, firmly prohibiting himself from showing disappointment, making up his mind to call it a day.
There's a gentle brush against his scalp. Shock and disbelief echo across her face as she jerks her hand away. He doesn't move, afraid to startle her even more. She drags herself away, off the bed, backing toward the window seat. She curls up there, face pressed to her knees.
He waits an hour or more, but nothing more happens. For a week, nothing happens. The snacks he leaves by her bedroom door, left untouched. The sun shines through her window, but it seems to reflect only the worst. He's not equipped to deal with this level of denial, but he's terrified to commit her. Anything is better than that shell of a human being he found in there. Still, only the empty glass in the sink keeps him from drastic measures.
Halfway through the next week, there's a violent summer storm. A tree branch, black from lightning, falls within inches of her window, striking his car in the driveway bellow.
And suddenly, everything changes.

Colorado is maroon. Maroon and Red and sometimes white. Not green, or yellow, or blissful stillness. Nothing the way nature intended. It used to be sunlight and wind. Still is, if she looks hard enough. But for the moment it's the jingle of dog tags and the empty maroon stretch of wall. There's a picture on her wall of sunrises and everything it could be.
Danny visited for a brief time. Brining with him colorful accents and a suitcase full of sunset shirts. For a two weeks she wakes up to the smell of him on her sheets and the absence of impatient toe nails clacking. He comes back smelling of nature and wildlife, dog laughing as they race to the house. His jacket is blue with silver streaks. At the end of the second week, he says it's for her.
The third week, she gets up early. She meets the friends he brought with him, their jackets green and orange and yellow.
Danny laughs at her when she brings up yellow. He's outside smoking and polluting the air with his foul language. He tells her there's no claims. More crudely, he tells her to sleep with him. He dodges the tennis ball thrown at his head, but the dog leaps after it with wide smiles. After a quiet moment, he admits he's only temporary, but it's something she already knew. She never thought she'd be considering permanence. At the end of the third week, Danny moves back into the hotel.
The fourth week begins with the smell of burnt rubber in the microwave. She opens the door and lights candles, but the smell lingers. Danny takes a slow drag from a cig and raises an eye brow over yellow's shouldering. His friend trips over the step, laughing, when he takes the pot to the garbage. The dog cocks his head in the way only a curious puppy can and seems unable to makes sense of the new addition to the group. It startles a laugh out of Yellow. She finds sunlight is contagious.

A/N: this seemed a lot longer when I was writing it. I have no idea where Danny came from.

The old-time clock pendent he gave her on their first anniversary presses against her chest. She's face down in a pile of pillows, expression anything but downy cloud and sugary dreams. He runs gentle finger tips over her shoulder. She flinches away, and his lips press to firm lines. Jagged gasps of breath startle him into action. She's having trouble breathing. He pulls her onto her side, shaking her awake. The pendent falls away, jagged lines and gears leaving a perfect imprint above her heart.

He's proud in a way she hadn't expected. Her husband's lover. Proud, almost haughty in the way his eyes capture her, and she wonders what she he sees. She knows what she would see.
The one who replaced him.
She hadn't meant to, though the excuse is moot at this point. She had stumbled into their marriage, smitten with her spouse and unaware--unable to conceive--the turmoil she had thrown into both men's world. A child in both age and maturity, playing dress up--playing the lady.
She didn't learn about him until much later.
He was and honest man, her husband. It wasn't in him to break his vows and it was completely against his nature to be unfaithful. Her husband had agreed to honor and cherish her, but not to love her. She just hadn't realized what that meant at the time.

My hands were a muddy green when he finally slid through the door. He caught sight of the canvases strewn haphazardly about the room and stood stunned in the doorway. Paint crinkled on my cheek, scraped across my chest and caked down my back. It was hard to tell what color the torn t-shirt had started in. I was the brightest picture in the room, the rest of the colors swirled together until all of the still drying paintings were a muddy brown and the rest doused in black. Dipped head to toe in all my color, I looked like I had fallen head first into a rainbow. Or at least rolled in one.
It could have been symbolic when the color slid from his face. But I wasn't really sure what the meaning behind it would have been. His first order of business is to rush across the room and demand if I'm okay. Which is ridiculous because of course I was okay, he was the one who, by all apprentices, looked like he was loosing his mind.

The man who wrote the number spiraling up her arm was blond. At least, he was kinda blond... Maybe he was darker. He was handsome. Of that she was sure.
She screws up her face, bleary eyes trying to make sense of the disarray of sharpied shapes. There seems to be too many numbers for it to be a phone number at all.
... Actually, now that she thinks about it, he could have been a dark haired woman.

My frame of reference has narrowed to the fading road and soothing tones from the radio. Illinois has been my favorite state so far with its loose turns and ez pass lane. I flick the turn signal and light up the empty, dark street, pulling into the right lane. I glance over to check on my slumbering companion. The puppy is sound asleep, unable to resist the gentle lull of the car. He has worked himself until he is flipped upside down, nose buried under the sheepskin. The lami had been mine once. He is sick and we should have been at the hotel hours ago, but the frequent stops couldn't have been helped. My eyes droop so I open the window and shift the song to something more upbeat. The bite of the cool air brings me fully awake again. There is a sound of distress from the ball of fluff to my right. I reach over to run my hands over his soft fur. He curls into my hand. I roll up the window. The time on my dash is wrong. I'm pretty sure we gained another hour. About the time I had matured from playing tag with the truckers. I check my phone instead. “You're moving to Bumblefuck,” Nichole says. “From Philly to Bumblefuck.” I protest climbing mountains. Skies as blue as her favorite shirt. When she rolls her eyes, it's audible two time zones away.

A/N: Write about something you know a lot about.

Taking off my
glasses
I forget the
world
can still see
me.

“Fuck you,” she hisses, pushing him into the cupboard and against the wall. He just laughs at her. Her eyes flair and she gives him another hard shove, pinning him there both hands outstretched, keeping him away. “Fuck you and your smile and your laugh and your hair. Just fuck you."
His laughter infuriates her and he knows it. And he continues to laugh as she spits at him, now too angry to even form words. He brushes her hands away and makes it so she doesn't have to.
The kiss is bruising and angry. It's like sky diving for the first time: frightening, exhilarating, insane, and all you know is you have to do it again.

A/N: got lasts line from somewhere, but can't remember where :\ it's been stuck in my head all day

"I think," she says after a long awkward (on her part because really he was asleep at least a minute ago) pause, "the bed has a leak."
He makes a muffle sound of agreement, but only after an (unintentional) jab to the ribs. Unseen in the corner, the cat opens one golden eye, disgruntled not in the least by a new person in the bed (in its spot no less). She frowns at his lack of reaction. She glances around the room and spots the cat.
"The cat's watching me," she says, conspiratorially.
"It doesn't like you," comes the response. He's only half joking.
"But it's watching us," she protests grimacing at it.
"Then it's going to be bored," his reply is half muffled by the pillow. She purses her lips and watches the ceiling fan turn.
"I-"
He flips over catching her off guard and she cuts off abruptly. He doesn't look half as sleepy as he sounded a moment ago.
"We have to be up in about six hours to catch our flight," he says sternly. "Go to sleep."
She pouts in a way that's too adorable for someone her age.
"Why couldn't we leave from my place?" she presses. He sighs with all the feeling of someone who has been asked the same thing a hundred times.
"Because your walls stare at me," he says, voice drifting with sleep again. He snuggles deeper into the covers. "Now go to sleep. And I swear, one more question and I will gag you."
She just opens her mouth and he pounces, a squeak escaping as his hand claps over her mouth and he drapes himself across her. The cat blinks both eyes disapprovingly as the bed rocks.
Less than two minutes later, a half snore, half deep breath, echoes and she rolls her eyes. Now she's never going to be able to sleep.

"And?" she asks, "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"You've been busy," he points out, motioning toward a snoring fluff. As if recognizing that he's been spoken about, the puppy glances up at her, opens and closes his mouth, and curls in tighter around himself. She sighs.
"Point taken," she says, but he's unable to tell who she's referring to.
"I know when I'm unappreciated," he sniffs. She can't hide the curve of her lips, even while attempting to smother it behind a hand and glance in the opposite direction.
"I'm sorry I've insulted your delicate sensibilities," she deadpans, "But I was hoping you were more mature than that."
"I'm only as mature as you want me to be," he points out. She cocks her head to the side considering. He bounces lightly on her bed, crinkling the perfectly straightened bedspread.
"I like this bed better," he says after a moment, gently playing with the fake ties on the bottom. His fingers trace the embroidered stars.
"Thanks," she says sarcastically, "I did too."
He scowls at her. "And your roommate snored," he pauses before adding, "Well actually you're louder than she was."
"I agree with your father, though," he continues while she reminds herself it's hard to strangle someone who isn't really there, "The poster is a bit of a statement."
"I like roses!" she protests, caught off guard and in a sore spot. "And the rest of the room is red."
"Just saying," he shrugs.
"The lamp is my favorite," she says with an absent smile. He nods in agreement. She scowls up at him after a moment. "So are you going to help me?"
He cocks and eyebrow.
"I still have no idea what I'm doing," she says, glumly. He shrugs. She sighs again. "I have ice cream in the fridge."
He perks up. "So what did you need help with?"
Next to her, the circle of fluff sighs.

Pausing in the doorway and pressing her hand against the frame, she studies her feet before saying, "How long is this going to take?"
"As long as it needs too," he murmurs, hugging the backpack closer to his chest. "It seems terrible, but I want him to suffer."
"College semester starts soon-" she mentions.
"I won't be there," he replies, cutting her off.
"Fine," she sighs and resists the urge to smack him for his childishness, instead running a hand through her hair.
"I know how it seems," he presses. "Just please don't tell him where I am."
"You know I won't," she says. "I know I wasn't followed either."
There's a beat where she collect her thoughts.
"You know," she begins, "Mathew is getting married in the spring. He'll be heart broken if you miss it." She grins. "I'll be heart broken if you don't miss it. I get to walk down the isle with his really hot brother."
A smile tugs at his lips. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'll be there. You'll just have to settle for me, it seems."

'Are you fucking crazy?'
'Have you finally lost what little brain cells football left behind?'
'Why must you torture ME?'
'I can think of a thousand terrible consequences that could come as a result of following your stupidity.'

All of these seem like excellent responses to the question in his raised eyebrow. Unfortunately, when his long fingers beckon her forward once more, she can't remember one of them. She slides her hand into his, locking her fingers tightly through his as he simply allows himself to fall backward, pulling her into him. Her breath catches and the light flickers off the waves stretching below them.
Her last thoughts are of warm hands and chilly weightlessness.