Sitcom AU

[keenly]

TESSA SULLIVAN

Texty text about background, career, hopes and dreams.

QUOTES, SONG LYRICS, WITTY THINGS, OR WHATEVER GO HERE

I WILL NEVER KNOW THE WAY IT FEELS TO BE JUST ANYONE

BENEDICT ARTEMIZIO

Texty text about background, career, hopes and dreams.

COLIN ANJU KEANE

Nursing student, future registered nurse. From Toronto, grew up in foster care etc etc will flesh this out

IT SEEMS THE VOICES IN MY HEAD I SELDOM GET TO CHOOSE

QUOTES, SONG LYRICS, WITTY THINGS, OR WHATEVER GO HERE

ALEX AGIAD

Texty text about background, career, hopes and dreams.

Comments

bail away, bail away, bail away

[keenly]

The household has been beautifully quiet all night. Serene. Colin rarely has the flat to himself. His study session went entirely interrupted. He cooked food for just himself. He even went to bed early and didn't lie awake to listen to whatever program someone was watching. All lights shut off, thoughts quietened, nothing between him and restful slumber.

He's wakened when his phone buzzes. Like a fool, he'd left it on vibrate instead of switching it to night mode. He didn't oversleep, did he? What time is it? He rubs his eyes and squints at the phone. It's not a number he recognizes. He nearly lets it ring, but remembers sales calls don't happen in the middle of the night. The phone is snatched up with a sigh and he answers.

"Mmmmlo?" he mumbles.

[altusimperius]

A little gasp of relief can be heard on the other end.
"Babe," wheedles a familiar voice, in a familiar tone: diminutives aren't generally Benedict's style, but that can change on a dime when he wants something. "Ooh, I'm so glad you picked up."

[sulahnan]

In the background, of course, Tessa's voice calls out:

"Oh shit is that Colin? Don't tell him I'm stuck."

[keenly]

The endearment raises Colin's suspicions. Tessa's background babble gives him a general idea of what might be going on, but he's gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and ask:

"Why are you calling from a number I don't recognize?" His fingertips come up to rub at his eyes. "At two AM?"

for Bene

[keenly]

The morning after the rescue from the drunk tank, Colin makes strawberry pancakes and scrambled eggs, enough for all three of them. Tessa is still asleep, so he keeps her pancakes on a warming plate. Once he and Benedict have finished and this can't be put off further, Colin speaks, gaze turned away and down.

"I...don't want to start something. But we need to talk about last night."

[altusimperius]

Nursing a headache and general sense of malaise from the night before, Benedict isn't convinced he slept enough; but for Colin, he decided to be a good sport and get up for breakfast, even if it means he's slumped on the couch now, taking up the full breadth of it with his feet resting on one end and his arms splayed lazily above his head.

He makes a sound of acknowledgment, part whine, part grunt, but doesn't argue.

[keenly]

Colin makes a little gesture to get Benedict to sit up long enough that he can sit on the end of the couch, then gently guides his head into his lap so he can finger-comb his hair. He speaks softly to keep from aggravating his hangover.

"I know you're not an addict. But you are brown. I know your parents can move heaven and earth to get you out of trouble, but they can't protect you from a bad cop who thinks we're all dangerous."

[altusimperius]

Benedict obliges, with a pleasant little sigh as his head rests back down. He looks up past Colin to the ceiling, enjoying the hands in his hair, though he winces at that revelation.
"I hardly look like a common criminal," he says with a little scoff, "it's the ones with baggy pants they're worried about. The worst they think I'll do is fuck their sons."

the evening of the previous thread

[altusimperius]

The day has come and gone, and Benedict, rather than risk sitting at any point in the first few hours, has actually done more cleaning around the place than he ever has in his life (he usually just doesn't remember, and if pressed points out that his parents are footing their rent, which by his logic extends to it being his contribution). But he's uncomfortable and definitely a bit embarrassed about it, even if he's in a pleasant enough mood otherwise.

Having had the time and presence in the apartment to actually change into his favorite Versace pajamas tonight, he goes to their room a little early so he can smoke his hookah and unwind a little before it's time for bed. The floor has pillows all over it for seating, and it's not like he hasn't had a whole day to recover, so he looks relatively comfy when he greets Colin with a sleepy smile.

[keenly]

Weed for Bene and homework for Colin, who comes into the room having tugged much of his hair free from its ponytail out of frustration with said homework. He tosses his books aside and sits down on their bed, flopping onto his back like he's about to make a snow angel in the bedding.

"Oof."

[altusimperius]

Bene watches him idly, the hose in his mouth as he puffs at it, taking a deep draw and prettily blowing it out before he speaks.

"Want some?"

If Colin lifts his head, Bene waggles the nozzle at him.

[keenly]

"We did it this morning, bae--oh." Colin blinks at the offered hookah before climbing back up to a sitting position and reaching for it. He draws in a deep breath and passes it back, holding it in for some time before sighing it out.

"Thanks." More tired blinking. "Feeling better, then?"

the call

[sulahnan]

It's been two months since Tessa gave Alexios her ultimatum: get clean or we're done. She'd held out hope as long as she could, longer than her therapist said was wise, longer than she thought she would because what they had was supposed to be casual and being fucked up about ending a casual thing...well, it's not very casual, is it?

But now, two months out and Tessa's given up hoping, given up checking her phone every three minutes to see if he texted her. She doesn't react to her phone ringing like it's a hornet on its way to sting her in the fucking face, either. It's business as mostly usual with a side of bummed.

It was Tessa's turn to cook tonight, so on the menu is whatever organic, too-expensive-but-totally-worth-it brand of macaroni and cheese was in the cupboard, a fat joint shared between herself, Colin, and Benedict if he ever shows his face, and a marathon of Great British Baking Show episodes.

"She didn't turn the oven on," Tessa says at the television, shaking her head and taking a bite of the cheesy shell pasta.

[keenly]

"She did not," Colin agrees mildly. "It's about to get real. The consequences in this game are dire."

[sulahnan]

"I like that the contestants help each other out, though. American shows always amp up the competition aspect and get cutthroat and it's like...dude, it's a fuckin' cupcake. Calm down."

[altusimperius]

Benedict is upside-down on the seat of the couch, the blunt in his mouth and his long legs draped over the back. He doesn't really understand baking, or why anyone cares this much about it, but he weathers the experience because Colin and Tessa seem to enjoy it.
"Why don't they all just," he muses, and lets the thought drift off as he exhales smoke, finishing the sentence in his head.

at some point when Tessa is off doing Alex Things (tm)

[altusimperius]

A few days have passed, and apart from things being decidedly Not Normal But Hopefully Not In A Bad Way in Tessa's neck of the woods, everything else has settled into its standard routine. Nobody's in jail, nobody's doing heavy drugs, Benedict is awake before noon for some reason, and life has been peaceful.

He's put the kettle on to boil (making tea is one of the few domestic tasks he not only knows how to do but insists on doing, because using a microwave is for savages) and is leaning shirtless against the counter, scrolling through his phone and listening for wherever Colin's gone off to.
It's not like their place is that big.

[keenly]

On the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table and laptop on the top of his lap, is a studious Colin finishing a final draft of a paper. He's being very quiet, but the tapping at the keyboard is fairly evident from the kitchen. Similarly, he can hear the water beginning to rumble in the kettle from where he sits. It becomes motivation for him to get this thing emailed to his professor in time to pour himself a cup of tea. It works.

The paper is sent, the laptop gets closed and set aside, and Colin ventures into the kitchen with a sigh. He pauses, squinting at what he sees.

"Tea and a shirtless boyfriend," he muses. "Did I do something right?"

[altusimperius]

Bene looks up with a smirk, tossing his head to get his hair out of his face now that it's at a different angle.

"It's your lucky day," he murmurs lazily, beckoning Colin forward for a peck on the lips once he crosses the distance.
"Back to being boring after?"

gang visits rehab

[hemitheoi]

Rehab was boring as shit.

All these people wouldn't stop talking about how they feel. It was infuriating. Couldn't he just... do something else? He was fine with the... stopping the drugs. The rest of it. Athessa had decided - and then he had decided.

( Rehab was a fucking nightmare - laying there sweating in the middle of the night, his teeth clenched to stop from chattering and as his body shook, demanded him to punch each nurse in the face when the door opened to get back what he so desperately craved, that every nerve was screaming inside of his skin, that worse, when the night terrors came, raw and bloody in the back of his throat, there was nothing to take the fucking edge off, and he screamed himself hoarse in the middle of the night and Athessa wasn't there to kiss his brow, tell him that there was nothing was going to hurt him ).

So here he was, listening to someone pour their heart out all over the floor, once again, and he promised the little nattering nurse that he would stay for at least ten minutes this time. But the second it was over - off he went. Straight back to his work out routine. Throwing himself into the only thing that distracted him - running, lifting. He refused to come out of this looking like even more shit then he already did from the - fuck, what hadn't he taken up until this point?

He really isn't expecting visitors. He'd have to have friends to have visitors, and he'd told Kass to Fuck Off from visiting him and giving him that sad desperate look about what he was doing today. Or that pitying look of 'Deimos, they have horses, - remember how Babas would take us? - maybe you could - ' or some other shit.

This was much better, as he hauled himself into the ninth pull up. Arms pulling his full weight up and down.

[sulahnan]

Apparently the staff weren't expecting him to have visitors, either. They asked three times to make sure she knew who she was asking after before one of them escorted her to the visitation area where she'd need to wait while they fetched Alexios.

The room looks like it was decorated by an algorithm that was only given hospital waiting rooms and Martha Stewart Living as inspiration. Clinically comfortable. Except it's not comfortable, because the furniture is too new, and the reading material too old, and she had to leave her phone at the desk.

So she's stuck looking like she belongs here, drumming her heels on the floor and paying too much attention to her cuticles.

[altusimperius]

Here to look deeply uncomfortable and very tall next to Tessa is Benedict, who's dressed impeccably as always, though it took him hours to land on the kind of outfit one wears to visit a friend's fuckbuddy in rehab.

He trails along after her, offering as much as needing protection, looking as though he's afraid the Addiction will rub off on him. There but by the grace, etc.

so please be kind if I'm a mess

[altusimperius]

Tessa isn't the only one with troublesome phone calls. Bene's grades are in, and of course his extremely controlling mother has insisted they be sent to her (never mind he's a grown man, for fuck's sake), and of course this means his phone is blowing up with calls from her no doubt demanding to know how he can have such a mediocre presence at such a prestigious university, doesn't he know he's the future of the family legacy, also when is he going to find a wife-- not that slut he lives with-- and doesn't he realize his entire lifestyle hinges on her generosity, does he want to be just like his father, etc etc.
He's lying despondently on the couch with his (state of the art) mobile device buzzing on the floor under a pile of blankets, a far-away look in his eyes and a Share Size bag of M&Ms in his hand which he clearly has no intention of sharing.

[keenly]

It is a situation Colin is quite familiar with. He sees it, and goes straight to the kitchen to make hot chocolate--the good kind he makes in a double boiler, none of that pre-packaged instant shit. When it's done, he pours a mug for each of them and adds a nip of Bailey's before bringing it over and setting one in front of Bene.

"Your mom found out about your grades?"

[altusimperius]

Bene's only movement is in his eyes, which lock on Colin's in a combination of gratitude and helplessness.
"She's going to kill me," he says finally, glancing back down to the vibrating blankets, "...like, actually. She can do that." His father definitely doesn't have connections to the Sicilian mob, something he tells himself so he can sleep at night.

He folds himself up to accept the hot cocoa with a weak smile that immediately drifts off his face. "...or she'll just take all this away." It's the much more likely outcome.