All You Hear are Car Alarms (Openish?)

[dave]

The time of day was exactly half past two. It was clearly spring, plainly warm, but Dave was bundled, chin-to wrist. He was tall boy, rising to a generous six and three. For the lack of meat on his bones, he looked even taller, though he hunched with his elbows propped upon the bridge's rail beside the bottle he'd set there, gray-blue eyes glazed in thought. His brown hair hung, unchecked, in his eyes and brushing his shoulders. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt, bearing the unmistakable batman logo upon the chest. Beneath this lurked a Sepia Tone band-tee. A pair of black shorts were slung low beneath his hips, held aloft by a studded belt. The shorts ended just beneath his knees, revealing the extensive stretch of ink which had been permanently etched into his skin.

His right leg, ankle to knee-cap, was a flurry of color; fish, life-sized. Guppies. Goldfish, clownfish. They engulfed his entire calf, delectably life-like. Many of the guitarist's tattoos followed a similar theme. He'd harbored a fascination with fish since he was small, but most especially in the last three years. Higher on his body, hidden beneath his clothing, more fish lurked amongst his other tattoos, but not for the observer's eye. Not today.

The next decorated patch of skin to be seen was on his hands, both of which were committed to a subtle engagement of drumming to a rhythm which remained persistent in his head. His left hand was a maze of design, the ones he held dearest being six numbers, now barely legible, tattooed on the first segment of his thumb. Occupying the back of his hand was the wheel of a ship, painstakingly detailed down to the wood-grains. The wheel doubled for a compass, marked by ornate abreviations of North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West and North-West. On his right hand was an equally detailed revolver, positioned so that it's muzzle extended down his index finger. It was not uncommon to catch the ragged youth 'targeting' members of the Inhaling Sweet Exhaust audience miming the 'gun-shot' action.

The fingers of that particular hand were occupied, as it were, by a twist of paper and leaves. He wasn't particularly subtle about his intake of the illegal substances by any stretch.

"That's gonna be a beautiful sunset today," remarked his companion. Taller than David by a half and one inch, this man kept the same untidy brown hair and lean frame. He gazed down on the landscape which lay beneath the bridge, his green eyes probing. David shrugged, exhaling what he'd taken from the joint. A smoke-ring floated away from him; a trick the present company had taught him.

"Set starts at 6:50. We'll be inside when it goes down." He offered the joint to the man beside him, but his companion shook his head. David raised his brows but shrugged it off again, raising the thing back to his lips and sucking down a breath. "I'm gonna be fucking pleased to haul ass out of this fucking state."

His friend smirked, or bothered with something similar to one. "You could be in California and complain that it was too hot and then in Boston and complain it was too cold. Then you'd drag your ass to Dublin and complain it was too Irish, Davey."

"Yeah fuck you, asshole." Dave showed his middle finger, smirking. Both men ran fingers through their hair, combing it from their eyes in a unison that would have seemed almost rehearsed to an observer's eye.

The man beside him shifted again. His lips were smiling, faintly, turning up only slightly at either corner. His eyes, on the other hand, were hard, probing. "So when can mom expect you home?"

Dave turned his face away, sucking another drag from the joint down into his lungs. "Couple months," he said, his voice strained as he kept the smoke down. "Month and a half." He scratched at something behind his year, drawing his hand back to find it was an old scab. He flicked it away.

"Mom could really use you right now, Davey"

Dave shoved one hand into the pocket of his hoodie, his posture growing defensive. The joint shrank a little further. "She's got Dad and Mollie." He stubbed the thing out, tossing it over the railing to the passerby below. He glanced up to Gideon, finding his brother hadn't taken his eyes off of him.

Gideon pushed another strand of hair from his eyes. His fingers drew shallow paths in the dirt and blood that coated the right side of his face. Dave grimaced when he realized he could see the soft gray chunks of his brothers' brain, slick and pale through the gaping wound the shrapnel had caused.

"Can't you cover that shit up, asshole?"

Gideon gave an apologetic shrug, a trickle of blood start from his nostril, dripping down into his beard and mustache. Dave's stomach churned. Gideon stuck his hands -- one with long, narrow fingers like his, one mangled, with tendon and meat hanging in strips from the bone -- into his pockets.

Dave lunged for the rail, his body trembling as he heaved the contents of his stomach up onto what ever unlucky citizen was passing below. His eyes flooded with the irritated moisture, ears popping and snot rushing to his nose. He'd gotten good at most everything tied up in his recreational activities except for the vomiting. The taste of bile burned at the back of his throat on his tongue. He gagged, spit and heaved again until the heaves came up dry.

"F-fuck, asshole," he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, disregarding the strings of saliva that smeared across it. Something tapped him between his rigid shoulder blades. Dave knew immediately it wasn't Gideon's hand. He whipped around, a sharp remark leaping to his stinking lips as he was met by the site of a policeman, about a head shorter than him, casually swinging his baton in his left hand.

"Afternoon, son. Been drinking?"


Dave glanced around, his eyes searching the passerby -- all of whom were giving him a noticeable berth. No one close to him but this policeman. Dave dropped his eyes to him, his brain slowly catching up. "No sir. Not at all." He could see a certain condescending smile break out over the man's face that Dave had grown accustomed to over the years. It was universally prickish and a piss-off. "Just... On a new medication." He flashed a peace-sign, leaning back against the railing to half-halfheartedly conceal the whiskey bottle. The cop did the familiar number of sizing him up for an uncomfortable fifteen seconds of silence; his ragged appearance, black-and-blue face, gauged ears, tattooed skin, fuck-you-and-yer-mom-too expression.

"Son, I'm guessing you're not from around here. I'd thank you to keep it that way. I don't want to see you shuffling around here again. This is a public plaza. Parents get worried about their kids."

Yeah the fuck right. People plainly featured guns on their hips around here. Housewives carried them in their purses. Like anyone was worried about being able to handle some skinny punk from the west coast. Dave nodded, though, dropping his chin to his chest and effecting a half-hearted salute to his new friend. "Duly noted, officer. We're packing out of here tomorrow morning. You won't see this pretty face every again."

The cop shrugged, giving that fucking baton another twirl and then backing off a pace. He eyed Dave one more time over the top of his aviators, and Dave eyed him right back. The man turned and walked away, taking up a leisurely pace down the side-walk. Dave huffed out a sigh, relaxing with his spine against the rail. Without thinking, he slipped a finger beneath the sleeve of his left arm, running the callused pad over the worn edge of a slender stainless steel armband he wore there. He knew the letters etched into it by heart;

'LT Gideon Harlem MIA 05-16-09'


The guitarist's gray eyes swept the area around him again, searching for what, he couldn't have said. He grabbed the bottle from the railing, swallowing a burning mouthful of its contents before tucking the thing into the deep pocket of his shorts and starting back towards the tour grounds.

It was time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Tagged: No one, really. If you want to hop in, you're welcome to.
Words: Too many.
Outfit: This Here
Note: Not talking to real dead people. Just a little fried.
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[ARCADIA PENN MCCARTHY]

Feet snug in a pair of leather wedges, the young female passed a cop car, noting the man in the drivers seat looked a bit unpleasant. He had a large cigar in his mouth, a bad comb-over and his uniform was just a bit too tight for his obvious beer gut. It was worse when he winked at her and his lip upcurled over the dark brown cylinder that fumed an awful smell. She nodded, simply because he was a cop and continued to walk down the street. She was heading in the absolute opposite direction from tour. She'd woken up to screaming due to some prank Leon had pulled and now she just wanted out. Quite honestly, Texas had been rather dramatic and she was fond of the idea of leaving.

She wasn't one to judge people quickly, because being who she was she felt bad about it and she wouldn't want someone judging her either, so she did her best not to, but in a po-dunk town such as this, with people all acting uncivilized she was ready to get out of hicksville and enjoy the beaches of California. She smoothed out the white fabric of her dress and walked on, she spotted a couple stores, and went in and out of them ambling by windows, noting where some outfits were that she would've bought had she the cash.

She headed into the little coffee shop, left of the shops and bought herself an iced latte, she took a sip, smiled at how damn delicious it was and headed back out the same door she had entered. Her eyes fixed across the street where she saw a familiar body curled over the rails of the sidewalk and the same hick police officer giving him a hard time. The cop said his words and turned away walking the opposite direction and Cadi took a breath, walking over to David. As she approached, the tint of his cheeks seemed somewhat green, and she was suprised to hear him speak almost respectfully back to the cop. "hey.." She said softly, gently placing a hand on his lower back. "You doin alright there..?" she asked.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a container of tic-tacs and placed them in his pocket. Then offered him her latte. "Here.." she said softly.
OUTFIT-CLICK

[dave]

Dave had only gone a few paces before he slowed down, feeling the sickness in his stomach threaten again. Now, usually David wasn't at all bashful about spilling his vomit in front of people. In fact, he'd once stumbled upon a thread in an online forum that featured exclusively pictures of members of his band being sick. He didn't much care, at that very second, however, to be observed in this particular purging. As if the creator that his semi-dead brother acknowledged and David ignored was in possession of some cosmic sense of humor, a hand brushed the small of David's back, accompanied by a voice that had been in his dreams more often as of late. "Hey," Arcadia seemed to have come out of nowhere. "You doin alright there..?"

As usual, she was decked out in clothes that tended only to work on the models in magazines, but, somehow, did them more justice. The sun had her glowing. She had a way of making him feel ugly without even opening her mouth. Just too damned pretty. Normally, he would have had no objections to a woman's hands on him, but Arcadia's hands felt wrong. It didn't stop him from wanting to kiss her, though.

Before he knew what had happened she was drawing her hand out of his pocket, leaving the shape of a small tic-tacks container resting against his side. Without missing a beat, she held her latte out to him. "Here."

He considered it for a second before taking the cup from her, the callused tips of his fingers brushing her skin. "Thanks... I'm just, y'know, caffeine-deprived. This should actually help." The boy took a sip from the beverage, running the sleeve of his sweatshirt over the lid before he handed it back to her.

"So what's got you wonder-womaning around here, Joan of Arc? Kitten stuck in a tree somewhere?" His tone, for once, wasn't the one he maintained around most of the tour-babes. Not quite the one he'd greeted her with over a year ago, sitting on a park-bench with a mystery ukulele, but it was close.

Tagged: That girl Dave is clearly in love with.
Outfit: This Here
Note:
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[ARCADIA PENN MCCARTHY]

The corners of the girls mouth slightly upturned when he accepted her drink, and tried to clean it off before handing it back. He blamed it on caffeine deprivation, but she assumed too much to drink. She didn't saying anything about that thought at all though, because unlike usual she didn't smell it reeking from his breath or clothes. Maybe he had actually just gotten sick. She could give him the benefit of the doubt once right?
Cadi nodded when he thanked her and she said nothing more as she let her hand slide off of his back
. "So what's got you wonder-womaning around here, Joan of Arc? Kitten stuck in a tree somewhere?" She shook her head. "I'm not in my wonder woman attire, ya know, high waistline knickers of blue with white stars, gold waist band, red bustier? nah. Not today and it's nearly impossible to save anyone, even a kitten,while in a dress, white no less." She added with a smirk.

She wished she had been there only moments before to help hold his hair, because unlike some of the tour boys, he was no skin-head. Arcadia looked him over. "C'mere." she muttered, taking his hand in her own. She lead him to the next building where a bench sat under a shady awning. She let go and sat down, expecting him to do the same. "What's got you under the weather?" she asked, legitimately concerned, not just making small talk. She assumed he'd give her some crazy wrap around story,

maybe about how he got in a fight with an alligator and all he had to arm himself with was a toothpick, he killed it but, was spotted by a voodoo witch who happened to have affections for the beast and put a spell on him. Or maybe he was attacked by mutants who's slimy skin made him queasy, but by no means did she expect an actual answer.
She smoothed out the front of her dress, making sure her dress wasn't hiked up above her knees by far. After seeing him at the bonfire the other night she kind of wanted to smack him but she refrained. "...So, how's it going with jayde..?" she asked simply.
OUTFIT-CLICK

[dave]

In her typical manner, Arcadia took David by his hand before he could find a way out of the conversation. Through the sweltering heat she tugged him, leading him through the crowds. Dave was one of those boys who labored beneath a slight Oedipus complex, but if you'd asked him right then if motherly acts turned him on, he would have remarked 'not this kind'. He felt like a little boy.

She parked herself on a bench in the shade. Dave was only too relieved to join her there, draping a long arm over the back of the structure, his thumb brushing her shoulder as his wrist settled on the wood paneling.


"What's got you under the weather?" Arcadia Penn McArthy; princess of mixed signals. It was actual concern that registered in her voice. There was a part of the boy that was tired enough to tell her he'd just spoken to his brother, bloodied fatigues and all. Thankfully, the parts of him that had surrendered to the lying virus outnumbered the parts that were inclined towards honesty.

"I'm just..." He pulled the tick-tacks out of his pocket, gazing down at the container, dwarfed by his palm. "I'm just really tired. Y'know, partying and stuff." That was a fair portion of both truth and deception. It was no question as to how much sleep he'd been bothering with. Dave snapped the lid open, shaking three of the tiny mints out into the center of his hand and tossed them through the waiting gap in his lips. The first two he crushed immediately between his molars, the way he did with painkillers. The third he left in the center of his tongue, sucking absently at it and letting the flavor settle in his mouth.

Arcadia got around to the elephant that was lurking between them. "...So, how's it going with jayde..?"

The question provoked a smile on David's lips. The swelling had gone down there, though they were still split where Adonis's head had made contact. The result was a smirked that vaguely recalled the ghoulish countenance of Pumpkin Jack.

What about Jayde?

The fight with Adonis at the bon fire might have been avoided if he hadn't been so frigging territorial about the man touching her. The incident in the alleyway would have been avoided, and for the amount of drugs they'd done together, he might have kept a couple extra years on the end of his life, but otherwise...

Jayde was a strange girl, and she was more than he could handle, Dave was beginning to see. She was fucking gorgeous, though, and she could push or pull him in what ever direction she wanted to. She was the first girl who'd scared him in a long time, and it made her harder to resist than any other girl he'd chased in years.

Present company excluded.

"It's... Pretty interesting. Just check the tabloids some time. They probably remember it better than we do." He turned his head to give her a subtle sweep with his eyes. "What about that new guy of yours? The guy with the...?" He mimed the action of putting a cigarette out in the crook of his arm. Yeah, David had noticed.

"You sure you want another head-case to baby-sit?"

Tagged: That girl Dave is clearly in love with.
Outfit: This Here
Note:
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[ARCADIA PENN MCCARTHY]

The soft, somewhat friendly feeling in the air was destined to leave and she had known it from the start, but she tried desperatly to hold onto it as the conversation tugged on.His fingers brushed her shoulder and she bit her lip, keeping from making it into anything that it wasn't. he was just casually sitting on a stupid bench, as was she. Cadi asked about Jayde and he responded with a very Dave-esk answer, telling her to read the tabloids.

"I do my best to avoid making actual opinions off that trash, I know so much of it is fake..I mean, you and Mira?" She shook her head with almost a smile. "So anything about you and jayde could be myth as well." She shrugged. "Oh well. It's none of my business I suppose." she added. Turning her gaze away from his eyes. "What about that new guy of yours? The guy with the...?" He mimed the action of putting a cigarette out in the crook of his arm. Yeah, David had noticed...Arcadia nodded,

"Frankie..he's a sweet guy." She started, but Dave's next sentence made her frown. "You sure you want another head-case to baby-sit?" She shook her head, "what's that supposed to mean..?" she kept herself from making eye contact with him as she sat there on the bench next to his lean figure. "Frankie is a great catch, and he's no basketcase.." she added. "He's a great musician and I'm lucky to have him in the band, not to mention around in my life." She sighed and looked down at her feet, it was going around that her and Frankie were official now, and though she was beyond exstatic everytime she was in his presence. And she loved seeing him light up just by looking at her, there was something missing. of course she'd never say that to mister Harlem.

She twirled a lock of her hair around her index finger, eyeing the french style white tips of her finger nails. It looked crisp and clean, made her feel a little more feminine in a place like this. "So..ready to hit Cali..?" she asked, trying to keep a pleasant conversation going. "Hometown no?" she added, recalling what he'd told her back when they classified eachother as friends. She hadn't a clue what to call him now.


OUTFIT-CLICK