shep.

[killjoyed]

between scamming on girls he found at the park or in clothing stores (he would remember that one, whose bitch magic would make him feel his asshole for days), shep could be found in a miserable little hole on the second floor of a tall brown section eight building, trimming the dwindling supply of brain cells from his cerebral cortex, degenerate sparks flying off a web of short circuitry. smoke curled above his head in the den of his room, windows blacking out the waning winter's sun with ragged sheets, the curved C of his spine hunched above the mattress on the floor. when he had hit his tune a palm went to the gritty hardwood floor, pushing to his feet and heading for the door and ripping it open to the rest of the quiet small-apartment world.

grabbing fistfuls of blueblack away from it's wavy fan in his eyes, both tore left and right in their sticky sockets around the interior, mentally checking off things and whether or not that little redhaired rat had changed them around. when an orange cat came up to shove the side of his body against shep's calf, bloodshots trailed down to the creature. "oh, i see she's been starving you." he glared quietly, nodding as his hand dropped down to rake a set of filthy nails to the tiger's ribs, feeling a slim line of muscle instead of fat. "oh yeah pipebomb, i'd call the motherfucking aspca on her."

there was quickly more evidence of foul play: the birds with all their feathers, chirping and grooming each other instead of picking at their down, the turtle was triple the size he was last, and the ferret shit was in the litterbox instead of on the floor. he huffed shortly, crossing both arms across his chest in a tight squeeze, fingertips gripping rib bone while he went to glaring at the zoo. "so you all happy, huh? good, i'm glad." ignored, he stomped across the living room to where shiva's door rose tall and blue, rudely yanking it open until he felt the frame give a little. the princess of shitsmeared lovesongs lay peaceful in her slumber, a wash of sapphire gone strawberry down her back. "hey shi-shi, wake up, it's goddamned three in the afternoon."

"wh-wha?" pushing her fists into bleary eyes, the girl rolled over on a cigarette-burned mattress, threadbare sheets in a crumpled mass at her feet, which still had shoes on them. "what the fuck? shep?"

"yeah, hey," he grinned wild and stepped over to her, dropping down to the ground next to her. "whatcha been up to?"

"what the fuck yah think i've been up to.." she narrowed her eyes and raised up, fingers curling at her stomach as she slumped against his shoulder. "working at the goddamned post office and keeping your things alive."

"yeah, thanks."

"oh! i got a new pet, wanna see?"

"sure," he said, but cut both eyes over to her as she shuffled an awkward mass of limbs to get to her feet, a skeptic's sneer hitting his face as shep took his gaze to the tank along the wall. "not another snake to fight the rattler, is it?"

"fuck no." a grim little smile twitched her lips as she plunged a hand into a plastic container, fingers switching around dead fish and the ghostlike remnants of half-eaten ones, coming up with a flopping one gasping for a breath. "it's a fish, see?"

"that stupid thing?"

"nuh uh, this thing.." shive murmured lowly before stepping over to a large fish tank holding a solitary brown monster, dropping in the feeder. in a flash of scale and chomp of teeth the goldie was gone, orange scales spitting from a splay of predatory gills as the bigger fish struggled to eat.

"what the fuck is it?!"

"a piranha!"

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ February 01, 2007 07:57 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

[killjoyed]

dear jesse,

i'm sorry it's taken me so long to write you anything. i 've been busy, you know, busy with things that make me forget about buying stamps and shit. shiva is a fucking crazy bitch and so is everything that surrounds her, but i think that she'll do okay in the long run. i wish dad would stop fucking bothering me about her. can i send her off to live with you instead? ha ha. just kidding. fuck, how are you, are you dead yet? jesus.

yeah, i'm still working at the theatre. same old shit, just different days, you know how it goes. holy fuck though, there's this new british chick or some shit like that who just started working there. she's real hot. i swear. i tried to get a picture of her the other day when she was cleaning theatres all alone but i couldn't get a good shot through the port glass.

well listen you know i've never been one for writing shit down and spewing my feelings and all that crap, and plus i have things to do, things that involve lighters and fire and lots of fucking smoke.

love you, bro.

-shep

p.s. do any of your rehab scanners read this shit?
p.p.s. i meant camping.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ March 09, 2007 02:07 AM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

[killjoyed]

<center>
hey.
been tryin' to meet you..
hey.
must be a devil between us
or whores in my head
whores at my door
whores in my bed
but hey.
where have you been..
if you go i will surely die..

we're chained.</center>

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ March 15, 2007 02:35 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

[killjoyed]

when he had landed in california there was nothing but the foul smells of LAX to meet him, honking horns and the terrible waste of carshit in his nose, but it still made him smile.

hours later at a house party with a mysterious girl at his side, with his fingers curled into fists around baggies of various drugs, he remembered the pain of something that he thought he had left behind years ago, strangled to death in the streets of venice. it was then he felt like consuming everything all at once: the smack, meth, and windowpane, wanting a bottle of two buck chuck in the clamp of his hand to drink the whole night, this girl at his side in his mouth, the gleam of ferality in her eyes as they reflected in the moonlight.

he wanted to tell her how he used to sneer more, how it painted itself in a horrible dripping viscosity across each cracked lip, how he never worried about sweeping the scrags of hair away from his eyes because he was too busy getting loaded to care. he wanted her to make sure that there was nothing in this world that could keep him to her, that he'd end up breaking her spirit and she'd slap a court order in no time, for allegedly molesting her little sister or something equally ridiculous.

but when they were alone in the pothead's bedroom, lost in her relapse heaven of stimulants, him in a giddy haze, he forgot all about that.

about everything.

[killjoyed]

it was amazing how fast venice had turned into a fucking bigger circus than it already was in a matter a mere years, these days that slipped through neurosis and fingers like oiled water. shep sat on the bench in front of one of the head shops, watching girls stride by in nothing but bikinis and flip-flops, their boyfriends staring threats at him before he even had a chance to get a good look in. the strand clogged with tourists, the alcoholic waned underneath the sun's heat battering down on his back, sighing through puffs of cigarette smoke and trying his best to ignore the ache in his acid-churning stomach.

the pay phone next to him chortled out a tinny ring and he sprang into instant action, skate shoes scuffing the pavement hard as he jerked up and clutched the receiver, putting it to his head. "mister lowell's house of horrors, how may i frighten you?" the grin was already there, he knew who it was.

"shep? the fuck is all that crackling?"

"pay phone, jess! i'm down in fuckin' venice man, where's your place again?"

"santa monica, fourteenth, it's a halfway house though."

"so?" shep dragged off his cigarette, leaning an elbow on the top of the sticker-covered metal. "that's cool with me, man. i just wanna see yah."

"fuck yeah, but i mean, you can't uh, you know, bring anything at all. like, i could go back to jail for that shit if you do." jesse's voice was tinged with reluctance, wary of his brother the loose cannon.

"oh c'mon!" laughing, shep jostled the backpack at his side, sucking in another drag. "you know i already did all of 'em, i met this girl, ohhhh man i gotta tell --"

"when you get here, fucker!" jesse cut through with a chuckle. "here's directions..."

as he read them off, shep's short circuitry did best as it could to decipher it into safe pockets of his mind, wormholes that ate up everything else that normal people could remember, like names, numbers, birthdays, ages. "right! be there in a couple hours, make sure the coca's lined up for me when i get there!" cackling into the line, he crunched the butt of his smoke with thumb and forefinger, flicking it after the sweet wagging ass of some tall black mama.

"shut the fuck up already, man!" and through his own bout of laughter jesse sent his brother a loud dialtone, cutting him off with a language only the two of them could understand.

and underneath the protection of gently waving palm fronds shep started off for the nearest bus stop to connect to a big blue, santa monica singing her lure of narcotic spilled third street promenade, and how he couldn't help but wonder if crazy jerry the dope dealer still ran his ass in front of the run down amc movie theatre.

after the visit with the sobers, there'd have to be a new kind of date.

and maybe he'd find that nineteen year-old.

[killjoyed]

when the stench of the city and it's impending reminders of aging and responsibility was too much for the lanklimbed shep, he disappeared into a primordial haven, slipping like a wandering shadow through hanging moss and heavy-smelling air. the bite of mosquitos at the back of his ears, he roamed with a cigarette between his lips, keeping a wary eye on the slime-covered surface of the water, everything an eerie green, chasing an empty promise coming from the sour mouth of his cousin.

a slap of a bumped tail to the muck and the bruised boy skittered to the side, bumping a hip into the red-haired rat stalking at his side. "fuck, shi-shi! was that one of 'em?"

"sure," she mumbled with an amused roll of the eyes over at him, tucking a sharpboned elbow down to press against a cotton-wrapped ribcage.

"what're we doing out here, anyhow?" shep brought a couple of fingers up and rubbed them to weary eyelids, using the light step of his desertskinned cousin to guide him forward. "don't tell me you're gonna go gator wranglin' or some shit."

"naah." shiv piped both shoulders in a jerky shrug, pressing palms to her stomach, drumming a manic rhythm of spidering fingers against the hollow cavern. "just gotta check out an area for someone. yah got lost on your way to meet me, right?"

"fuck, sure i did." shep blinked gummy and wet for a couple seconds before taking a hit from his cigarette, smoke littering into a stinking haze as they carried on across the sinking bed of swampland, trying hard not to shuffle a toe into a patch of stagnant water. "why so?" he sliced suspicious eyes over at shiva, trying his best to read the expression of his face, but it gave him nothing but a stony front.

"no reason." she answered quickly, reaching a hand to grab at a trunk as she ducked a firelicked head underneath a low-hanging branch. "yah didn't see anyone or anything 'round, did yah?"

"noooo," shep drawled with a severe cant of his head, following after her without any sort of hesitation, his limbs loosened by the incessant dampness, sweat budding at the juncture of greasy black hair and forehead. "..'cept for renton and that crazy big tittied bitch, and some girl. oh man! she was all hot, too.." he dreamed off for a moment, thinking back to brown hair and the way she crinkled that nose up so cute when she was disgusted.

but shiva stopped in her tracks, eyes gone beady as buckshot while she stared to her cousin.

"RENTON!?"

[killjoyed]

"..a.. a tragedy, a senseless.. tragedy.."

when a man detonated himself to bits of bone and flesh in the meticulously clean lobby of the post office on eighth street, shep could only imagine the maddening horror of passerbys at the surreality of it all, the defeat of employees and customers that managed to stay alive but lose things like arms, legs, chunks of hair and chipped manicured nails. instead of hunting down his cousin with her soot-choked heart and whimpering veins, he slammed a twinset of needles inbetween his toes and fingers, sending himself into numbing oblivion.

"well if you're not gonna fuckin' ask her, i am." nick broke the silence as he whittled a joint with his fingers, bits of green falling to the thrashed hardwood floor as his sad eyes were caught to the television, CNN catharsis on nonstop terrorist meltdown.

shep merely shrugged, loose shoulders bare as they rolled underneath inked skin.

"..there are currently no leads.."

"think she has anything to do with it?" nick cut a quick glance to his friend before shifting weight on the couch, knowing that the sneering blackhaired mess caddy-corner to him wouldn't respond, he would be too deep inside his own head for days. "'right well, i'm off to find the she-devil. i'm leaving the dog to take care of you." a slip of denim and scuff of shoe to the floor and nick was to his feet, a hand with curled fingers touching the side of his dalmation's face on the way up.

"i'll see you in a bit," murmured the bucktoothed vagrant before disappearing into the outside hallway and shutting the door behind him, leaving shep with the panicked chatter of a wildhaired reporter.

"..i.. i'm just in total shock right now.. phil, can you, can you switch to camera two?.."

mickey the dog took a nervous glance around, whining erratically before slipping up on the couch and huddling next to the doped-up mourner's side, a quivering wet nose shoved between his thigh and the cushions. in some mechanical gesture of comfort, shep found the motor skills to raise his hand and slide a palm across a velveteen span of white and black, coming to rest on the poor creature's head.

"..just, god bless, our hearts go out to all the victims in this horrible, catastrophic event.."