Sybel delRio-- no one's heroin(e)

[everyday arsenic]

<center><big>Sybel delRio</big>




<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 07, 2008 10:27 PM: Message edited by: everyday arsenic ]</font>

[everyday arsenic]

(circa early December 2004)


"No, I changed my mind," she snarled resolutely into the phone. Pacing the confines of her kitchen, she was restlessly tangling the phone cord around and around blunt tipped fingers.

"Brynn, you don't understand. I mean, he really is insane." She kicked an unassuming cabinet, and grimaced when the pain radiated up her foot. "Shit!"

"No, I'm alright. Cabinet jumped up and bit me. I mean, like. I don't know. One minute he'll be telling me about marriage and the kids we're gonna have and the next, he's walking away. And this happens all the time." Every word was coming louder than the next, and when Sybel realized she was shouting she quieted, drew a calming breath before beginning again.

"And you know, I'll be the first to admit I don't know shit about shit, but I've always assumed that when you love-- when you say you love someone, you want to spend time with them, right? Like, all the time you can. But I swear to god, he runs away even more than I do, which is saying something. Back in Cali, everything was fucking perfect. I mean, as close to perfect as shit could be, considering the reason I-- we, went. My brothers liked him. My father liked him. They've never liked anyone I brought home. Ever. And then we get back Saturday night, and he's been around for about thirty-five seconds since then. If that. But... I don't know, Brynn. This kinda thing.. it's just too hot, it's too much. It's burning itself out already, and it's only been a handful of weeks. I don't think I can do this. Not like this. It's killing me."

She sighed, pivoting and slouching back against the counter, sliding down to the chilly black and white tiles. Listening to Brynn, who was trying to sort through the babbled strings of Sybel's stream of conscious monologue.

"So, yeah. I bumped into Kip-- did you know that not only is he back, he moved back into that shit hole with Dave-- but anyway, we made plans to do beer and tacos, right? Just to catch up. I know he's mad for Jax, but still, we've got history, yanno?" She smirked, and knew Brynn would be smirking on the other end of the line.

"So, I figured honesty's the best policy, and asked Jonny if he'd call me forty-five minutes into dinner. Yanno, that way if shit was getting awkward I could bail, no questions asked. Cool." She sighed, banging her head lightly back and back into the cabinet she leaned against.

"So he quits touching me, quits kissing me, and pulls away, and just.. leaves. Like, no good-bye, just up and fucking leaves the bar. So you know what? Fuck that. I'm done. I've been telling Trent no and no, and meant every word. Or Cash, or Kip, or Devin or.. shit, anyone. Yeah, he's hot. Yeah, I could be interested, but I kept telling myself I was Jonny's girl. I was starting to really fucking like the sound of that, you know? But screw it. And when I go see Kip tonight? I'm leaving my god damn phone in the car."

She twisted around, going to her knees to rescue her cigarettes and lighter from where they'd been haphazardly tossed on the countertop, listening to Brynn's voice of reason on the other end of the line.

"This is not me falling from grace, Brynnie." She was quiet, calm with trembling hands as she stood, ashing into the kitchen sink.

"This is me, jumping."

[everyday arsenic]

"So, you want to take dirty pictures of me," Sybel mused, reclining back against the cracked vinyl upholstery in the booth and eyeing the man across from her.

Three thirty-four in the morning after playing a gig at the Rusty Nail, now she was tucked away in a booth at an all night diner with a man that had singled her out in the bar. He'd handed over a business card that named him one Eddie Vasquez: photographer, graphic artist, and jack of all trades.

"No, no, nothing like that," he assured her with an easy smile and laughing eyes. "I prefer to call them, tasteful nudes." Sybel made a rude noise low in her throat, and gestured with the hand holding her cigarette.

"Dirty pictures," she clarified with a sharp smile. Shifting, she pressed her back against the wall and drew one leg up into the booth with her, the sole of her sneaker braced against cherry red vinyl upholstery. Dark hair was in a riot, twisted up in a feminine pompadour and crazy cowlicks that only got worse when she raked a hand through it, snarling it up into even more improbable angles.

Someone had once wondered over the fact that Sybel did not enjoy having her picture taken. With this in mind she considered it, taking another drag from her cigarette and washing it down with a sip of Cherry Coke. She'd always loved cherry cokes from diners, where they always stuck in a pair of maraschino cherries. Currently, she was half-heartedly attempting to fish one out with her straw.

"Okay, lemme get this straight." Her skin was still pearly with sweat from the show, thick black terrycloth cuffs binding the slim angles of her wrists. Red and black plaid hung low on the blade of her hips, belted with a chain that dripped low down her thigh, clinking against the edge of the booth as she shifted. Her coat had been shed, and lay limply beside her, tawny arms left bare by a thin, ribbed black wifebeater. Junkyard hot, as Trent had once informed her with a straight face.

"I let you take the pictures. I go with you to your studio, and you develop them. I keep all negatives. I hand select the prints you can use for your portfolio, if any of them turn out how you like. You make any profits off them, I want a cut."

She made it sound like she did this all the time, the facade only broken when she paused, thoughtfully studying the thin coil of smoke drifting up from her cigarette. Tapping ash into the tin tray before looking back to him.

"You're really barking up the wrong tree, Eddie. I mean, are you blind? Brynn's the hot commodity. Blond and blue eyed frontwoman with a great rack." She was grinning now, gesturing to her own chest.

"I'm more for the guys that think anything more'n a mouthful is a waste." He was studying her, already selecting lighting and backdrop. Blinking when he belatedly realized she'd asked him a question. He braced both elbows against the cheap formica table top, cupping his chin in an upturned palm and giving her a quick, professional once-over.

"Sybel, are you nuts? Have you looked in a mirror lately?" His mouth was serious, his voice quiet, nauseating with its sincerity.

"Ugh," she muttered, cutting him off with an upraised hand. "No, I haven't. But my make-up could probably use touching up, I could stand a shower since my shirt is like, sticking-to-my-skin sweaty, and my hair probably looks like I cut it while piss-drunk with a Weedwhacker." One eyebrow arched slightly, her expression daring him to deny it.

"Anyway, Eddie. I think it could be fun, I'm willing to give it a shot, but if you so much as fucking ask for my number for any reason other than to contact me about something to do with the pictures, I'll walk. I don't wanna see my naked ass on a billboard, or have some dude stop me on the street to ask if I'm that chick from that internet porn site. Cool?"

He smiled, lifting both hands with an amused shake of her head. "Cool, cool. Strictly professional, boy scout's honor."

Dark eyes narrowed, her mouth twitching into a reluctant smile after she'd taken a final drag from her cigarette, leaned to snuff it out in the tin ashtray. Like she'd ever trust a boy scout.


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<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 07, 2008 10:28 PM: Message edited by: everyday arsenic ]</font>

[everyday arsenic]

(circa mid-December 2004)

"I SAID, I didn't-- oh, for fuck's sake." Kip bellowing from the other room had Sybel stirring, snaring her fingers around the edge of a pillowcase and dragging it over her head to muffle his noise. Even so, she heard the door close behind him. And then all was quiet.

Five minutes later when he didn't return, she sat up, peeling the bedding back from tawny skinned limbs that stretched luxuriously in all directions.

"Mm," she murmured, raking both hands through crazily sex-mused hair before wincing, dropping her hands to prod at the vaguely hand shaped bruise around the sleek crest of one hip.

"Know what they say about guys with big hands," she muttered, sliding out of Kip's bed and padding barefoot through his apartment. She had figured he'd stepped next door to Dave's, but the walls in his apartment couldn't have been thinner unless they'd been constructed from cellophane, and from Dave's apartment there was only silence. So she tiptoed through the apartment, sneaking up to the door and peeking through the fish-eyed peephole.

Muffled voices, Kip's and a woman's, but her view was fucked by a nice shot of Kip's back.

"C'mon, move your ass Kip," she breathed, grinning like a kid catching an illicit peek at Dad up late thumbing through channels and finding some soft-core movie on Cinemax. With no view, Sybel promptly decided eavesdropping would be far more appropriate, so she knelt slightly, twisted to put one ear to the door.

"KIP! You are such a fucking ASSHOLE!"

Oh, Christ. It was Jackson. Sybel moved back so fast from the door she fell, sitting down heavily. She felt sure they'd have heard the muffled thump of her landing, so she pushed herself up from the floor and sprinted the last ten feet back to Kip's bed, halting and looking quickly from the door to the bed, certain she was about to get caught spying. But the yelling continued, and even this far into the apartment, the words were audible. Well. Sort of.

"yadda yadda something something, screw Sybel?"

And suddenly, Sybel was prying a hand over her mouth to smother the sudden, wild urge to laugh. Instead, she was moving back towards the bed, dropping to her knees to find her jeans. Fishing the cellphone out of the back pocket, she thumbed it open and dialed a number, waiting and wriggling impatiently.

"Brynn! Christ, did you talk to Jackson? I mean, you must have, 'cause I think she and Kip are duking it out in the hallway. I mean, she sounds pissed." She spoke in hushed tones, the words all spilling and running into one another when the bassist answered.

"Sybel? Slow down-- where are you?"

"Where the fuck do you think I am? I'm at Kip's. He thinks I'm asleep. I mean, I was but all the yelling woke me up, and--"

"FUCK YOU!"

"NO, FUCK YOU!"

"..and, uh.." Things were getting loud again. Sybel had lowered her voice further still, nothing but a whisper as she crept back through the apartment to the door, peeking out.

"....and?!" Brynn was all but shouting.

"And ohmygod. I think they're fucking in the hallway." Kip had moved, his back no longer obstructing her view. She saw the back of Jax's pretty blond head, and pretty yellow vinyl slicked ass humping up against Kip like a bitch in heat.

"WHAT?" Brynn shrieked, and Sybel winced, holding the phone a healthy six inches from her head.

"Brynn, shhhh. Spying, remember?" Sybel shifted to the left and right, her blurry fish-eyed view panning the dirty hallway, watching them go at it.

"And uh.. correction. Jax is fucking.. I think Kip is just plain getting fucked."

Brynn was babbling on the other end of the phone, but now it just sounded like the waah waah waah of Charlie Brown's parents.

"Brynnie, gotta go, I'll call you back," Sybel murmured distractedly, thumbing the phone closed and holding it tight against her chest as she watched, wide-eyed.

Jackson stepped back, shaking visibly even from Sybel's shitty view. And Kip.. Kip was bloodied, the front of his pants damp. And then Jackson said something, and walked away.

Sybel was suddenly glad she hadn't bothered to get dressed, because she was running, dropping her phone into the pile of her discarded jeans. She leapt back into Kip's bed at a run, sliding across the mattress and rolling, the sheet snared and puddling around the narrow dip of her waist. Somehow above the wild beating of her heart she heard the door close as Kip came back into the apartment.

The following ten minutes, pretending to be asleep while Kip slunk around the bedroom, were some of the longest in her life. It was all she could do to keep her face in a mask of feigned sleep instead of cracking a hyena grin. She waited until she heard the door close behind him, then waited another three minutes for good measure.

"Oh.. my god," she finally said, sitting up and clapping both hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter. She twisted around, leaning down to grope around for her phone. It was on silent, and there were four --count em, four-- missed calls from Brynn in the past ten minutes.

She thumbed the phone open and dialed up the bassist.

"OH MY GOD," Brynn shrieked instead of a hello.

"Sybel-- you catty little bitch, how could you leave me hanging like that? Holy shit, what happened?"

Sybel relayed the little scene, concluding by laughing and reading Brynn the note.

"Oh c'mon-- Cheers? How lame. How... British. Well then. I'm going to get dressed and bail. You up for going for coffee?" Sybel asked like they'd been discussing the weather.

"I could seriously go for one of those cream cheese muffins, too," she added. In the meanwhile Sybel slid out of bed, pulling her jeans on before crossing to rummage around for the pen. Turning the note over, she left him one in return on the back of the paper.

Kip--
To remove bloodstains from fabric,
I would recommend rubbing it with an ice cube,
then scrub it with a mix of cold tap water
and soda water. See you around, Archie.
Cheers, Sybel

She read the note to Brynn, who was silent a long moment.

"Archie? I don't get it, Syb."

"Brynn. Seriously? Yanno, the comic Archie, where he's totally conflicted between the blond and the brunette? 'Course, you're more like Bettie than Jax is, but I thought it was funny, and-- oh, Jesus. Nevermind. Coffee; yes, or no?"

[everyday arsenic]

(circa mid-March 2005)

The chill outside had abated just enough for them to garner an outside table at Le Bon Pain, a little Parisian style bistro not far from Brynn's apartment downtown. Sybel mopped up powdered sugar with a beignet, wolfing it down and taking a sip of chicory coffee before speaking, gesturing with the lit cigarette in her opposite hand.

"So, how's living with Dave? He leaving skid-marked tightie-whities and rank dirty socks everywhere and driving you to drink, yet?"

Sybel was taking one for the team, already gritting her teeth against the flood of Dave-worship that she was certain would follow. One thing was certain; love was most certainly blind. Don't get her wrong, Dave was a nice enough guy, but she had never been able to figure out why Brynn went all soft and fawn eyed every time the gawky redhead was around.

Brynn had never been one to disappoint. Sitting indian style in one of the little wrought iron chairs across from Sybel, she lit up like the noonday sun with a brilliant smile.

"Oh, I absolutely love it," she murmured, both hands wrapped around a mug of the thick, dark coffee as she inhaled the steam coiling up off the oily black surface. She didn't miss that Sybel quite likely couldn't give a shit less on her living arrangement with Dave-- thus she appreciated the query even more.

"It's just.. nice, waking up beside him every day, yanno?" Brynn took a slow sip of her coffee, watching Sybel with quietly amused blue eyes. The lanky drummer seemed to be in a foul mood, and had hardly strung more than a few words together the prior thirty minutes as they lounged outside. Idly watching sidewalk traffic and enjoying the pale winter sunshine while it lasted.

"Haven't you two been doing just that, unofficially, for like the past three years?" Sybel muttered around her smirk, taking a lengthy drag off her cigarette. At least she was polite enough to angle her chin aside with her exhalation.

Rather than looking put off, Brynn grinned and tilted her head, buttermilk blond curls spilling low over one eye.

"Yeeaaah," she began, laughing outright, "--but this is different. Better."

Sybel nodded thoughtfully, leaning to tap ash from her cigarette, downwind from their table.

"Brynn... can I ask you a personal question?" Dark eyes lifted to the bassist, who nodded, and Sybel continued.

"How..." She paused, carefully twisting the cherry of her cigarette against the edge of the table to knock away a clinging bit of char. "Like, how'd you know you and Dave are supposed to be together, I guess?"

"I didn't," Brynn replied, equally cheerful and prompt.

"The first time we-- yanno..." there went a lazy smile, a warm blush pinkening Brynn's winter paled face. "We were totally stoned out of our gourds, and it was kinda a mistake. I mean, not a mistake," she hurried to explain, unwinding one hand from her coffee mug and gesturing expansively. "We just didn't plan it, yanno?"

She shrugged, and Sybel nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"After that we just took it a day at a time, happy but not really expecting anything, either... if that makes sense. We didn't really try, things just kinda came together." Brynn paused, tucking wind tousled curls back behind one ear.

"Why do you ask?" Guileless blue eyes were wide, fringed with thick, wheat colored eyelashes. "Are you and Kip getting.. yanno.. serious?"

Sybel snorted into her coffee. "Fuck no." And meant it. She grinned lazily, shrugging under the battered leather of her coat.

"Just curious how shit was on the other side of the tracks," she mused, taking a final drag from her cigarette before grinding the cherry to smithereens in the ashtray. Wiping her palm on the thigh of her jeans, before clapping a hand over her heart.

"I think I'm in love," she declared dramatically, looking intently down the crowded sidewalk.

"With-- who? what?" Brynn twisted around in her seat, glancing back the way Sybel was looking.

She didn't see anyone that seemed to be to Sybel's decidedly strange taste in men, but one hand lifted from her mostly finished coffee to flag down one of the pedestrians heading their way.

"Jon!"

Wait, wait--- Jon? Sybel's jaw dropped.

"Hey there, Sunshine," Jon greeted, pulling off darkly tinted shades as he closed in on their table, leaning down to brush a kiss against Brynn's temple. Sybel shut her mouth.

Hazel eyes turned to her with a lazy smile, dimples creasing cheeks with a habitual five o'clock shadow.

"Hello, Sybel." His attention lingered just a moment before he looked back to Brynn with a smile.

"Sorry, can't stay. I left Dylan teaching a class with Micah while I ran to the bank." Jonathan was still grinning when he shook his head ruefully, one long fingered hand lifting to rub at his jawline.

"I'll be lucky if the place isn't burnt to the ground by the time I get back. You girls have a nice afternoon. Oh, and Brynn; I'm going to be coming to your place for that dinner party after all." He tousled the bassist's hair and winked at the both of them before stepping back into the easy flow of sidewalk traffic.

"Later, Jon," Sybel murmured at his back, apparently having just found her voice. When he was out of earshot, she slanted a murderous look at Brynn.

"When the hell did he lose the dreds, beard, hemp and puka shells and shit and get--" Hot. Really fucking hot was the operative word.

And then she paused, oilslick dark eyes narrowing.

"Brynn... what dinner party?"

[everyday arsenic]

"I know you have money," Sybel accused, fingering under the hood of the old canary-yellow Mustang Brynn insisted on driving instead of upgrading to a car less likely to keel over and die at any given moment.

"So it is really fuckin' beyond me why you always bug me to tinker with this beast instead of taking it to a real mechanic." Finding the latch, she boosted the hood open with a grunt, pulling up the brace and tucking it up under the edge of the hood to keep it ajar.

"Damn thing's as like to pop you in an eye with the damn radiator cap as look at you," she muttered, pulling a smudged chamois cloth from the back pocket of low slung camouflaged fatigues. Despite the piss and vinegar of her words, it was almost fond-- Sybel said the same thing of her Camaro on a nearly daily basis.

"Or at least get a man as competent with a socket wrench as he is with a calculator."

Brynn was perched on the curb in front of her building where the Mustang was parked, munching on an apple and watching Sybel amusedly.

"Because it gives you an excuse to get dirty," she informed the lanky drummer around a mouthful of apple.

"And besides, chicks that can fix cars are hot." Dark blond eyebrows lifted and lowered, cheekily suggestive before she grinned again, and ripped into another bite of the fruit.

"Yeah, yeah," Sybel said darkly, using the cloth to twist off the radiator cap carefully. The drive from the bistro back to Brynn's apartment was a short one, but steam hissed nonetheless, and she jerked her hand back to let it bleed off a little pressure.

"So, about that damn dinner party." Sybel rubbed a hand clean on her thigh before raking it back through dark, disheveled hair.

"Unless you told me about it when I was blitzed, I distinctly remember not getting an invitation."

Brynn used the apple as an excuse to buy her time, chewing slowly. She decided honesty was the best policy. Mostly honest, anyway.

"Because if I invited you, then you'd probably bring Kip since you two are-- whatever. And Jax is coming. The last thing I need is a brawl in my apartment." She used the fruit laden hand to shake a finger at the dark eyed musician staring her down.

"And you know how much breakable stuff I have." It sounded like a lame excuse, even to her ears. Because.. well.. it was.

Whatever Sybel muttered back in return was fabric muffled as she peeled her sweater off before tossing it at Brynn.

"What the hell ever," she finally said. "I'm coming, by the way. I feel it is my moral imperative to reacquaint myself with Jon." Her smile faltered only briefly. "He's got a fuckin' kid, doesn't he? Eh. Nobody's perfect."

Arms left bare by a ribbed black 'beater gleamed tawny, only slightly paled by the passing of winter. Sybel knelt, carefully sitting on the pavement after checking for gutterglass, and then her upper half disappeared under the Mustang's belly. One hand thrust out.

"Salad bowl."

Obediently, Brynn picked up the salad bowl sitting beside her, offering it to the blindly reaching hand. A moment of silence as Brynn bent low, nearly folding herself double to peek under the Mustang. Carefully, Sybel undid the lower cap, scooting back and sliding the bowl under the sudden gush of antifreeze.

"Sybel... you know I love you. I mean, Christ, how far do we go back?" It was a rhetorical question that Sybel answered anyway.

"When I was seventeen, and arrested for underage drinking, drunk and disorderly with possession of narcotics, and that damned Ventura County court ordered me to seven weeks of community service doing fucking urban beautification. And there you were, miss golden child hippie throwback, volunteering with us cons planting god damned marigolds in the medians." Sybel was grinning through the entire litany of charges. Her smile faded when she remembered why it'd been brought up in the first place.

"And I am coming to that dinner party, Brynn."

"No way I can talk you out of it?" Brynn sighed, raking both hands through her hair.

Sybel was silent, letting the last of the antifreeze drip into the bowl before screwing the cap back on the fill-tank, scooting out from under the Mustang.

"Well, fuck, if it's gonna get everyone's panties in a god damned twist, I won't go," she finally muttered, snatching up a bottle sitting on the curb beside Brynn. Twisting the cap off, she ducked under the hood and watched the thick, sluggish goo drip.

Wisely, Brynn stayed silent, watching Sybel. After a long, brittle silence, she finally spoke up.

"What's that stuff do?"

The curve of Sybel's jawline twitched, just once.

"You said you were leaking antifreeze. Your waterpump could be cracked-- which is beyond me, so we're narrowing down what's wrong. It could also be a tiny crack in your fill-tank.." she paused, gesturing, "..where the extra coolant is, or a crack in any number of hoses-- again, beyond me. But if it's any of the later things, this will be at least a temporary fix. If it still leaks after we put in fresh water and antifreeze, then you should take it to a mechanic." Finally, the slow glub-glub-glub of the sealant stopped, and Sybel lifted the bottle, wiping the mouth of it and screwing the lid back on.

"There's about a third of a bottle left," she estimated, hefting its weight. "So if this works, I'd repeat in a month or three. Give it about twenty minutes to do it's shit, then add a sixty-thirty mix of antifreeze and water."

"Hey, Syb.. you wanna come up for a beer or something?" Brynn stood, dusting off the long, filmy broomstick skirt she wore.

Sybel traded the bottle of sealant for her sweater, shrugging it on restlessly.

"Nah, I'm gonna walk for a bit." She fished a slightly squashed pack of Marlboro lights from her back pocket and shook one free, gesturing with her opposite hand.

"Clear my head, yanno?"

"Sybel--" Brynn began, but she was already moving away, turning up the sidewalk on foot, hastily putting distance between herself and the blond bassist.

[everyday arsenic]

"Why the fuck does the table have stirrups?"

Sybel was laying on her back, long fingered hands tucked behind her head. Her faded t-shirt was rolled up to just under the slim curve of her breasts, the button of jeans undone with the waist folded down to just above her pubic bone: the band of her wispy camouflage print panties were just visible.

"Well, we got it cheap from a medical supply store going out of business," Sarah told her, intently working. Without looking, she reached over and swung the arm of the overhead light to a different angle, the tattooing gun buzzing as a bunch of hair-fine needles dug into Sybel's tawny skin, touching up the violent-eyed Indian goddess inked there.

"But Joseph, our piercer, actually has use for it," she continued, lifting the wand and adjusting the drape of the cord over her thigh, scooting her wheeled stool over before going back to work.

"You know, when women come in to get their shit pierced." Sarah smiled and poked Sybel's thigh with one finger.

"He's good, if you're ever interested."

Sybel snorted, staring at the pale water stain fanning out across the ceiling like an urban certified Rorschach inkblot test.

"Yeah, I can just see me in the middle of a show, stamping on the high hat pedal and suddenly getting my rocks off." As a matter of fact, she could see it. And while it wasn't a completely uninteresting notion, piercings just weren't her bag.

"Getting my nipples pierced at seventeen was badass," she'd taken them out somewhere along the way, "but getting my hood pierced at twenty-four is just kinda lame," Sybel concluded, briefly frowning when Sarah curled a hand over the angle of her hip to keep her stationary as she finished the subtle touchup to one of the goddess' plethora of arms. The bell above the studio's door chimed, but Sarah didn't so much as glance up from her work.

"My favorite thing about your job, Sar, is that I can walk in at any given moment to interrupt you pawing some half-naked man or woman, or disrupt a conversation about genital piercings." The statement was punctuated by the crisp sound of teeth sinking into an apple. Trying not to move, Sybel twisted her head around, squinting at the person speaking.

Tall and slim with a track runner's lithe build, he had a shock of dark hair and eyes that were an indecisive blue-gray. Something about his appearance tweaked her memory-- she'd seen those eyes, that generous cupid-bowed mouth before. When Sarah finally finished, she wiped away the trace residue of blood and ink, and cheerfully slapped Sybel's bared stomach.

"All finished, lovely."

Sybel had half-assedly known Sarah for years, and had gone so far as to procure one of her paintings for her apartment. Sarah Kinsey, hailed by the critics for being a visionary for the way she twisted watercolors into something much more dark than they had even been intended for. Sarah studied her with eyes just a little too large for the delicacy of her features, glancing from the man, to Sybel, and back again.

It hit her with a jolt.

"He's your bother," Sybel asked, stated, as she sat up, swinging her legs down over the edge of the table as she pulled up the zipper of her jeans, deftly pushed the button through it's hole.

"Twin," Sarah agreed with a lazy smile, scooting the stool away to dispose of the needles in a sharps container.

"I got all the looks," the man chimed in, taking another vicious bite of his apple, grinning as he chewed.

Sarah rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, shaking her head with the air of a long-suffering sibling.

"Sybel, meet Christian Kinsey. Chris, this is Sybel delRio. She's the drummer for--"

"Lax," Christian interrupted after he'd swallowed, gesturing airily with his apple wielding hand. "Yeah, I know."

Sarah rolled her eyes again and hung the tattooing gun up on the stand. Christian closed the distance, chunking the apple core into a nearby trash can without looking, and boldly fingered the hem of Sybel's t-shirt, inching it back up her belly to study the leering, skull bearing goddess.

"Kali, the destroyer, right?" He leaned low to investigate, and Sybel in turn leaned back, bracing the heels of her hands on the table behind her.

"Right. But through her destruction, there is room for creation. Two sides of the same coin," she muttered, watching him through narrowed eyes. Just then, the phone at her hip sounded, and she used the excuse to pull away, twisting lithe as an eel and tucking her shirt back down before thumbing the phone open.

"Hello? Oh, hey Brynnie." Sauntering over to one of the glass display cases of piercing jewelry, she made a good show of studying the selection. Meanwhile keeping an eye on Christian as he made his way over to his sister, talking as she cleaned up, disinfecting the table and her tools.

"Hm? Oh, I'm just tired. Got the worst night's sleep ever, last night. S'all good, though. We still on for practice tonight at eight? Oh, hell, hold on." Pulling the phone away from her ear to glance at the faceplate: Kip's number was flashing up.

"Brynn, Kip's calling on the other line, can I call you right back?"

"My aren't we popular," Christian drawled, slanting an amused look over at the lanky drummer. For no particular reason at all, the vaguely hungry expression he wore made Sybel feel naked, right down to her bones and sinews.

"Won't you ask Brynn what time her little" he paused, gesturing grandly with one hand, "Soiree is? Seven, or eight pm?"

Sybel exploded.

"What the fuck?! Is everyone in this fucking town except me going to that damn party? Sarah-- argh. I'll be right back. Brynn, I'll talk to you later."

"Christian, you're my flesh and blood and I love you dearly, but sometimes, you can be a complete jackass," Sarah informed her twin, nodding sympathetically to Sybel as she turned for the door.

Christian glanced from one woman to the other, baffled but amused, unrepentant and looking like he'd laugh at the joke if only someone would explain the punchline.

"Women."

Promptly switching over to the other call, Sybel straight-armed the door and barreled outside.

[everyday arsenic]

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<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 07, 2008 10:29 PM: Message edited by: everyday arsenic ]</font>

[everyday arsenic]

"Sybel, stop sulking. It's not his fault we had to hit the road early."

It was still a novelty having a lavish, fully equipped bus for touring. Lax had a long and amusing past with their van, complete with a pull-behind trailer for their equipment. The punchline was, everybody had to cross their fingers and pray when their manager would announce, "Okay people, let's get moving!"

The bus had been a prerelease surprise from their label, which in turn meant from Jill Edwards. Sybel's long limned frame was bent into awkward angles along the skinny length of a bunk style bed. She was clutching an acoustic guitar like a weapon, plucking out the jangly scales Zen always warmed up with. Brynn dropped down neatly in front of her on the thick, shaggy red carpet, folding her legs into the lotus position and calmly turning her hands palm down on her thighs.

"No, it's Jill's fault to decide at the last fucking minute that we're starting touring two weeks earlier because she thinks it'd be good for us to pick up an extra two festivals," Sybel snarled, crunching out an awkward D7 that snapped the high E with a twang, drawing a curse from the drummer when it lashed the back of her hand.

"See? Getting all worked up like that is bad karma," Brynn murmured solemnly, but her wide blue eyes were sympathetic.

"Look, Syb." Rocking forward, she reached out and hooked one finger through the cherry red laces of Sybel's boot, gently shaking her left foot.

"You can just celebrate your birthday with him later, you know? The actual date isn't all that important. Besides, we're gonna be in LA. Tell you what, we can rent a car and head down to Ventura after the show, go see your Dad and shit. We should have plenty of time, after that we don't have another show until Phoenix on Saturday. You won't get laid, but at least you'll be in otherwise good company on your birthday, right?"

Sybel shrugged, wriggling back farther into the vee where wall and wall met, cornering herself before reaching up and back, blindly groping in the little shelf there for her cigarettes.

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," she murmured without enthusiasm, cupping one hand around a lighter as she plugged her mouth with a Marlboro, speaking around the filter.

"So, Jax is flying into LA tomorrow?" Figured she'd be a diva and decide to fly instead of ride with them. Nevermind that it was because she had a kid.

Brynn nodded, waving away cigarette smoke with one hand before hoisting herself up to perch at the opposite end of Sybel's bed.

"Did you at least get to talk to Zen before we left?"

Sybel twisted around, finding the empty Pepsi can she was using for a temporary ashtray until the real one surfaced from wherever it was hiding. Exhaling smoke through the delicate flare of her nostrils, she shook her head in the negative.

"Since we only had like forty-eight hours notice, I didn't have time to track him down. I swung by his hotel and he was out, called him and got his voicemail, so I left a message and that's that. It's fine though, he knows how it is. Just sucks about getting stuck on some shitty bill at the last damn second."

Brynn listened intently, nodding at all the right places before sighing.

"Sybel, c'mon. Just because you don't like the bands doesn't mean it's a shitty bill. Besides, when we were at Warped I thought you and Gerard and that guy with the big hair had fun getting shitty and playing poker."

Nodding contemplatively, Sybel slouched down even further, the acoustic settling against her thighs with a twang as it bumped the bus wall.

"Yeah," she grumbled reluctantly with a slow smile. "I guess they were all right. Even if he was wearing more damn make-up than I was. Could be worse, I guess we could be playing with AFI. Every time I see Davey Havok now he gropes me and mentions something about a menage a trois with Zen. And I'm pretty sure it's not me he's jonesing to screw."

By that time she was grudgingly laughing, taking a final drag from her cigarette before feeding it into the Pepsi can, giving it a shake to make sure the cherry was extinguished in the sluggish, butt clogged quarter inch of nasty soda in the bottom.

"Yeah, yeah, shit'll be fine, I know." At a look from Brynn, she threw up one hand in exasperation.

"Great, I mean. Everything's gonna be fucking great. Now go eat some wheat germ or call Dave or something." Making shooing gestures at the blond bassist, grinning all the while as she stashed her makeshift ashtray, and leaned out of her bunk to slip her acoustic back on the rack alongside the bed.

"You know, I think they put in video games for us on the TV," Brynn said as she rose, musing up Sybel's already bed rumpled dark hair. "I don't think I've played a video game since Sonic the Hedgehog came out, so maybe I'll check this out."

Sybel leaned out of the bed again, watching as Brynn made her way back to the flat screen TV mounted securely against one wall towards the front of the bus. Curling back up, she slipped on her headphones, briefly groping under her pillow to find her iPod and thumb the play and volume accordingly. Settling back, she withdrew a carefully folded sheet of paper from the small shelf that held her cigarettes, a pair of sticks and miscellaneous guitar picks, and a raggedly cutout paper heart. Unfolding the letter, she reread it for the twentieth time, smoothing blunt tipped fingers across the boyishly jagged writing with a faint smile. It wasn't anyone's fault, this was just how the business was. She knew that. He knew that. They both knew the other knew that. But still, it felt like good-bye.

[everyday arsenic]

One of Brynn and Dave's party was in full swing. The attending crowd was a motley crew of musicians, artists and nature friendly granola kids, the music Nazis from Gravity, a snarky guerilla radio DJ, half of Lax's management and promotion team, a club owner, at least a dozen people no one could claim knowning, and two guys from the Bluefin. Oh, and the cab driver that had driven Sybel over from across town; she'd tipped him one hundred and fifty bucks to hang out and drive her home later that evening.

Sybel knew good and well that Zen was on another continent. She also knew that he'd never been to Brynn and Dave's apartment in the city, so even if he did miraculously show up in town, he wouldn't show up here. But that didn't stop her from nonchalantly glancing towards the door every time someone knocked before cheerfully barging in. Nursing her third beer and fourth cigarette she wandered into the kitchen, ashing into the sink and getting sucked into a conversation between two slim, pretty boys she didn't know. Too pretty to be straight, she thought. One of them snared her by the wrist and reeled her into the crossfire; an argument apparently revolving around the most overrated recording artists. Sybel's taste in music tended to run the gamut from Norwegian black metal to early nineties garage rock and back to the classics with a dash of Brit-pop inspired West Coast alternative, and a little of anything kitschy that caught her ear in between. It was likely that were it not for owning a share of Gravity, the funky little record store downtown, and meeting other bands while touring, she wouldn't have even known who the fuck two scenesters holding court were talking about.

"Gwen Stefani was hot when she, you know, was doing push-ups on-stage and flinging sweat. Now, she'd be like nigga please don't touch me I might trip over my fake eyelashes or stupid big ass shoes."

"No, no. Okay, I'll admit to sort of liking that album they did, with, you know, that song, but then it got so played out on the radio and they she just went insane. I think maybe all that bleach she dyes her hair with ate away at her brain."

"Okay, but Connor Oberst, you know, that guy that in Bright Eyes. I'm sorry, but the whole emo thing is so over. If you're gonna cry in your corn flakes you should just kill yourself and get over it instead of writing some shitty ass sad bastard music."

"Worked for Morrissey, man."

"That's different, Morrissey is god."

"Yeah, for about the first five minutes, then you want to hang yourself with a guitar string. Vintage emo. Ha."

"Why hello, don't you look just look good enough to eat." Said the boy that had caught her, apparently trying to get third party perspective. Or in her panties.

"She's off limits sweetie, she's dating Zen Wilting," one said to the other, cupping a hand around his mouth like secret-sharing, never mind that he didn't lower his voice in the slightest.

"Zen-who?"

"Zen Wilting, hell-O, Midnight."

"You're fucking kidding me. As in.."

Sybel finally bothered to interject, gesturing with her cigarette and shouldering her way back to the sink to ash again, wetting the tip under the faucet before tossing it into the garbage can. Brynn and Dave would be pissed if she burnt the place to the ground, and even sulking over Zen's absence and the weird Bobsey-twin-metrosexual boys' presence wouldn't be enough to get out of that one.

"Yes. As in.." The naked, dusky pink of her mouth curved in a lazy smile. "Everything. Yes."

Just then Brynn swooped into the rescue, leaving a kiss on either boy's cheek.

"Sybel, c'mere. Sorry guys, I'm stealing her," she said, laughing and hauling the lanky drummer away quickly enough to leave her beer sloshing in the bottle. Through the living room, where candles twinkled cheerfully and Sybel cringed, wondering from habit what their electric bill was going to be from the million Christmas lights they'd put up. Through the back hall, where they had to twist sideways to slide around a few folks waiting to use the hall bathroom; Brynn didn't mention the second bathroom off her and Dave's bedroom, because she hauled Sybel in and shut the door behind them. The buzz of conversations and music instantly went down a few notches, and she exhaled slowly, pushing her mop of blond curls back out of her eyes.

Sybel retired her beer to a night stand and flopped boots and all onto Brynn's bed, before abruptly sitting back up upon remembering that it was also now Dave's bed. She made a face, and stayed sitting up, instead.

Apparently Brynn didn't notice and plunked down beside her.

"Okay, so you mentioned that he's taking you away for Christmas. Where exactly are you going, again?"

"His home. In Ireland. I finally get to meet Winston." Sybel was uncharacteristically grinning, liquid dark eyes crinkling up at the corners.

"He has a kid? And who the fuck would name their kid Winston?" For a moment, Sybel thought Brynn was serious, but when the bassist winked at her, she could only choke down a tipsy laugh.

The noise outside briefly got louder, and Dave poked his head in.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt you two. Someone decided they were hungry for more than hors d'oeurves and decided to place a massive take-out order. You girls want anything?"

For once, Sybel declined anything to eat, and Brynn told him what she wanted before shooing him out, resettling herself on the bed cross-legged across from Sybel.

"So, Syb.. you tell Zen yet?"

Frowning, Sybel uncrossed and recrossed her legs, tucking her thumbs inside the thigh high bands of her stockings to smooth the material where it was bunching up.

"No, there's nothing to talk about. It was stupid, and nothing happened, and he trusts me. End of story."

Brynn frowned, an expression that seemed vaguely out of place on her, and leaned forward to pat Sybel's knee.

"Dude, don't get me wrong. I know nothing happened, but the picture.. well, it looks bad."

Sybel grinned, swatting Brynn's hand away before standing, tugging her skirt back down into place.

"Whatever. A-- Zen doesn't make a habit of reading tabloids. B-- I didn't kiss Bert, I was leaning across the table to get an ash tray and he said something so I looked towards him. It was just a stupid fucking camera angle that makes me look like I'm crawling across the table and kissing him. C-- I don't kiss people that don't bathe on a semi-regular basis."

Sybel shrugged, pulling her last cigarette from where she'd tucked it behind her ear, and withdrew her skinny little lighter from where it was tucked in her bra (made the bra good for something, she'd say) and put them to good use, ignoring the faces Brynn made for having someone smoke in her bedroom.

"Like I said, I know that, I was there. You were too blitzed to even remember, Miss party like a rock star, rock it like a porn star, and I reminded you what the hell you were doing when Bobby saw that dumb ass picture. The fucking Herald, who reads it anyway, right? I just thought you should tell him so he doesn't get the wrong idea about it, that's all."

Sybel eyed Brynn, angling her chin up and aside as she exhaled, finally offering a hand to pull the bassist up from where she perched on the bed.

"Okay, geeze, I'll tell him. I just really think it isn't a big deal. He's gonna laugh about it anyway, he knows I prefer blondes."