show me your teeth - ! {open}

[PERRY BUCHANON]

Perry usually wasn't the type of guy who read things; he didn't have the patience for it. What did he care about the words of some dead social critic hack who painted metaphors with similes or expressed the futility of the human experience through use of fucking semi-colons and independent fucking clauses - ?

No, it wasn't his scene. He was too lustfully arrogant, too childishly impatient to sit around reading books when every fibre in his being was constantly standing at attention and demanding, move! jump! fight! fuck! kick run scramble fall dance - !

But he was reading now, at some ungodly time of night, half-collapsed on a park bench at Half Pipe. It was a scrap of paper, just something he'd printed from the internet, and he was reading it aloud to himself in a low, rumbling voice, frowning down at the words as they registered in his brain (which was still reeling from a week of binge cocaine snorting and amphetamine misuse).

He finished reading it and lit himself a cigarette, an irrational but typically Perry-ian anger growing in the empty pit of his stomach. The flame of his lighter threw his face into stark, frightening contrast: the neglected shadows under otherwise brilliant forest green eyes, the neglected mess of his hair, the neglected, lazy five o'clock shadow on his jaw.

"Fuck," he muttered, looking down at the paper again, sitting slumped over on a bench, alone, elbows resting on his knees, back bent, curly hair falling like a curtain around his gently scowling face.

He read it again, swore.

Probably, he should head back to his dorm. Sleep it off. You'll shake the feeling by morning; these things pass. You're only twenty-one, not like this poor fucker. Only twenty-one. You've got time.

But he didn't move, couldn't, and he stayed sitting on that bench, doped up and on some level horribly frightened, suffocated by the isolation both the hour and the location were forcing on him.

He read it again.
Swore.

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt."

The suicide of an old man, that's all it was.
But Perry sat there reading it as if in a fever, until finally he swore again, this time loudly enough that some nocturnal animal in the foliage nearby bolted across the park. He crumpled up the paper, threw it to the ground, and ran both hands through his hair.

"Fuck," he growled out around his cigarette, but there was no one to answer him sofar as he knew, just the sleepy dark, taunting stars, and that fucking suicide note playing on repeat in his head, reminding him of the mortal clock tick tick ticking away.

He'd be twenty-two next year.

"Fuck."

[MARCUS OTTER]

Blood painted every step he took. There was no sure direction he was headed in. He thought maybe his dorm was the smartest place to go, wash off, clean the fresh wounds from the most recent fight Marcus had found himself in.

He didn't really remember what the fight had been about now. Drugs, money, general frustrations of the day boiling over. Whatever it was, it had escalated into a full-fledged fist fight- one Marcus had won, mind you. At least, that's how he saw it. He'd only woken up moments ago on the pavement, one side of his face dripping cold, fresh blood.

The others who had been involved had been no where in sight, and off in the distance he'd heard sirens. Not exactly uncommon for the side of Vegas he was on, but he had a streak of paranoia that told him otherwise.

For that reason, he'd left promptly, not minding the irritating pounding in his head that told him he should slow down, sit on the curb, let his head settle.

He ignored the strange looks and the numerous 'hey buddy need help?'s, continuing along the sidewalks, turning when one ended and another began. He was honestly just trying to get as far away from that sound of sirens as possible.

Watching the drops of blood trail behind him with mild interest he let his feet carry him where they would. Every so often he would wipe blood from his nose, lick the blood from his busted lip. He'd passed three or four drug stores which probably carried plenty of bandaging items, but he didn't have anymore money, nor the care to clean himself up yet. He was used to nights of trouping around bloody, probably spooking a lot of the late-night strollers.

As he came across the skate park to cut through to the main roads, he spotted a figure hunched over on one of the many benches scattered around the half-pipes and skate ramps. It wasn't an unusual sight, not really, but as he got closer, something started to seem strangely familiar about that figure. Marcus made to pass by, but stopped short when he heard the guy muttering to himself. Standing only feet behind where this guy sat hunched over a piece of paper he listened closely. Voice strangely familiar too.

Marcus had a feeling it was- but that was silly, Perry didn't sit and read things...at night...alone in a skate park, did he? Well, if it was Perry Buchanon, it was actually pretty possible. The boy did many strange things. Coming around the bench now and plopping onto the seat next to- yep, Perry Buchanon, he snatched up the paper, brows knitting together as he read it.

"Shit, man. What're you carrying this around for?" He asked, tongue running over blood trying to run down his bottom lip again.

Of course he'd stumble into Perry at a skate park in the middle of the night. It was so perfectly them. Perry obviously hopped up on some hardcore shit, and him bloodied and bruised. Nothing had changed.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

Perry didn't look up when he heard the shuffle off footsteps approaching his bench; he just bared his teeth irritably at the ground, contorting an old bruise on his jaw - a messily healing blotch of yellow and brown from a clever uppercut - and focused most of his attention on keeping himself from vomiting up all of his stomach fluids.
He didn't stir until he saw the scrap of paper being scooped up off the ground; the disturbance made him sit up, suddenly defensively self-conscious. "Give it here," he said sharply, but it was too late, the stranger had already started to read it aloud in a low, achingly familiar voice.

Perry scoffed and flopped against the back of the bench like he didn't care.

He didn't try to take the scrap of paper again; instead he squinted through the dark at the man murmuring the words he'd uttered just a few minutes before, trying to recognize the familiar facial markers.
His vision swam and he let his head fall back, adam's apple bobbing, eyes staring up at the stars. They glittered like a million cosmic diamonds, expanding and exploding from billions of light years away.

Perry lifted his head with some difficulty, straightening and looking at Marcus, staring into his face until recognition dawned on him finally; he smirked but the expression looked unnatural, exhausted. "Oh, it's you." Marcus' features had become sharp through the foggy haze of Perry's world, and he kept his eyes on the other's face; at the moment, it was the only thing that made a whole lot of sense.

"Printed it out."

He ran a hand through his hair. "You know who wrote that?" he asked, and then grinned lazily, green eyes nearly closed. "'course you don't, you don't like reading either. Doesn't really matter, anyway." He reached out and took the paper, smoothing it flat and looking at the words curiously.

He folded it into a neat square, slipped it into his pocket, and looked back at Marcus.

"You look like shit," he observed lazily.

[MARCUS OTTER]

Marcus had scanned the paper a good many times now, struggling in the lack of light (and lack of blood) to make out the words. Although, at this point he was mostly trying to figure out what kind of strange meaning this had to Perry. The boy always seemed to puzzle Marcus just when he thought he'd figured him out. Marcus had really given up on trying to fully understand Perry, and just accept all the strange things that he did as they came.

Running a finger along the words, mostly to wipe away a few drops of blood that had managed to slip down his lip and off his chin. Tugging at the end of his shirt sleeve he wiped the blood away and glanced back to Perry as the boy took the paper back.

"'Course it's me." Marcus stated plainly, shoulders hunched forward, head hanging lazily on his shoulders. He hadn't slept in a day or so, what with his fights, and that fatigue was starting to mix with the light-headed feeling of losing blood. Marcus was rather used to this feeling by now, though, and ignored it with ease, instead focusing his eyes as best he could on Perry.

Shrugging off the light comment about his disinterest in literature of any sort and sucked on the bleeding lip lethargically.

"So do you." Marcus smirked, eyes again scrutinizing the jittery look in the boy's eyes.

"So, is this what you've been up to, then? Park benches and death notes. Gee, can't believe I've been missing out on the fun." He sighed out teasingly, slumping down on the bench and blocking the light from the street lamp out of his eyes as it blurred his vision.

[PERRY BUCHANON]

ey mami omg i totally forgot about this rp! D: i'm sorry i haven't replied in so long!! silly ro get your head on straight.

[/i]

Perry couldn't help but grin a little, the expression somewhat distracted as his eyes moved lazily over Marcus' face, taking particular note of the blood, raising his eyebrow somewhat. "What the fuck does that mean, 'course it's me'? Doesn't look like you were out looking for me." He let his head roll dazedly to the side before he said gruffly, "Give me a cigarette."

He shrugged, seemingly unphased by Marcus' contempt for the way he'd been passing the time. "Too coked out to fuck anyone up, what else was there to do?" he retorted without much enthusiasm. He snatched the piece of paper back and shoved it into his pocket. "Surprised you could even figure out it was a suicide note at all, Marcus." He grinned tauntingly, all signs of his previous unease gone behind a mask of mockery. "Look at you, finally learning how to read~"

He turned his head slightly to watch Marcus slump next to him, and he reached out, tangling his fingers in the other boy's hair and tilting his head back some to get a better look at the damage. "Don't tell me you lost."

As if Perry won all the stupid dangerous fights he got himself into.
False.
[/size]