Last bites. Up and about, collect both plates, stacked up by the sink for attention in the indeterminate Later. Heather had more pressing types of washing on her mind. The poorly-concealed eagerness, those puppy dog eyes she’d come to enjoy… pun intended.

“Your loss, guess you’ll never know what my ...

As long as he knew that beneath the well-cultivated layers of ironic detachment and generalised hostility, there was a core of compassion with the door open to reach it as-and-when, Heather was satisfied to let the matter drop. Besides, speaking was cutting into valuable hot-and-fresh time for her ...

Did he really hit back with a… not even a your mom joke, just, laughing at the notion of saying the words your mom out loud? It was certainly one way to reassure her he was unbothered. In his lane and the rest of the meme. Put that concern more-or-less to bed then. Heather took another bite, chewed ...

“You said it, not me.”

Heather parried, flashing her own smirk back. She paused to enjoy a bite while the burrito was fresh and hot before continuing, and immediately her expression lit up in delight, brows raised and eyelids a-flutter

“Fuuuuuck me, that’s good. I was gonna say, if you’re that ...

Alas, it couldn't last. Manuel had to plate up and serve up, she couldn't just keep playing the trad...husband? Whatever the hell it was she was doing holding him by the hip, she wasn't really sure. Clinging to someone who seemed to get her in a way few others seemed to, despite their differences ...

"Looks good to me, wherever it came from."

She drew in closer, an expression of genuine approval gracing her usually-sullen features. If only everyone were so easy to bring around, at least as far as is willing to cook vegan food without immediately feigning utter disgust counted for such purposes ...

[Heather, arise .]

Her first thought on rousing was not of Manuel. It was to question the... silence? No, it wasn't silent. The soundscape was not the one she expected, but it wasn't barren. Typically, Heather would listen to the sound of waves to sleep, white noise to still her overactive mind ...

[ -> Heather & Manuel]

The short walk home, seeming to walk a few centimetres off the ground. Excited.

The smile he gave her, the smirk she gave back. Knowing. Flirtatious.

The jangle of keys, out from her pocket, into the door. A light creak, a quiet click, mindful of the neighbours late into ...

In a more lucid state, Heather might’ve sarcastically called this the beginning of a situationship . Many such cases for her, too many for her hazy brain to properly count just now. Maybe one that she’d venture to call anything close to a proper relationship. Everyone else? Sex was just sex not a ...

As she leaned back out, wearing a smirk somewhere between flirty and dangerous, Heather enjoyed watching the cogs turn. Did he know? She was reasonably sure the gossip must exist about her, what with her… everything, and how the boys she tended to go for did tend to seem… like that. Plus, it was ...

He was starting to seem less than present. A lot less than present? Was Heather really that much hardier? Maybe it was something else, he reacted differently, he hadn't eaten recently, something, but from her own perspective at least, Heather felt pretty confident she was the more lucid one. Not ...

The boy looked unsure, or maybe he was just processing. Hard to say, but he seemed not fully convinced. Not even fully lucid, necessarily? No, he was a big guy, this wasn’t his first time partaking, surely he was at least as in command of his faculties as she was, probably more?

Still, the seed of ...

Mona's fingers running through her hair, first synthetic , then real , then synthetic again . It took maybe a minute, maybe two, for which Leah-Kim tried her very best to stand still and not react to all the everything with the hands and the touching of the head and face and the presence of a really ...

Well, Meggy and Amber certainly made strong arguments, she sure didn't want to commit a crime and she didn't have $500 on hand to pay up, so in the hypothetical world where they were telling the truth and not just eager to hear Hope speak on... something, she'd surely be obligated to give a speech ...