. thin lines

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As she awakens the pain is dull, nearly numb, and for what seems like the tenth time, she panics, unawares of where she is. Getting used to Ezra's guest bedroom is taking some time, but as the rest of the white bed slides into focus, the feeling of unfamiliarity ebbs away. The hangover she sports is not the sharpest one she's ever had (she can recall a time in first year where she awoke in the dress from the night before, curled up in her dorm room bed and wishing she'd thought to bring a bucket), but it certainly isn't kind to her. Kacey rakes a hand through her hair, noting that it feels dry and salty. The beach was responsible for the later, but her increased alcohol intake was no doubt the reason for the former. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed at the promise of a glass of water, Kate pauses in the mirror to look at herself. She groans softly, laughing at the crazed appearance that reflects back at her. Her eyes fall on a red, nearly purple patch of skin on her neck. She presses a cold hand to it, rearranging her hair so it cannot be seen. The evening comes back to her in pieces. White on the table, wine in glasses. She shivers slightly as discomfort settles and Kacey feels the need to wrap her arms around herself. She can recall the sharpness of Ezra's jaw, the sandy blonde of his hair in her fingers. The bruise on her neck simply confirms it. Her initial reaction is to laugh it off, but similar to any bad choice she has ever made, the guilt is not far behind. But there is nothing to feel guilty for. This is what she tells herself. Despite this mental pep talk, there is still the fear of doing something wrong. She was under the distinct impression that Ezra only tolerated her, his offer for her to stay more out of excess than his desire for her to actually be there. He wasn't warm exactly, though he wasn't cool, but she tried her best with him to stay surface. This seemed to be a particular trend with the Cohen brothers, though the difference between them was a varying degree of patience. Ezra had none, where Holden held a small amount. Kate, it seems, tends to test the boundaries of their graces too often. The door to her bedroom creaks, and she goes to his spacious kitchen to find water. He lives extravagantly, though not nearly as extravagantly as she thought he would. Kate blinks in the brightness of his appliances and takes a few sips of water. There are bottles everywhere, dime bags stuffed in the garbage disposal. In her sober eyes she makes a mental note to pull back a little from now on. Filling up the glass again, she pads softly to where Ezra's door is open enough for her to see that he isn't with anyone, that he's still sleeping. She pushes it open just enough to slip inside and set the glass on the table, trying her best not to wake him. She bites her lip as she hears him stir, the cup scraping the wood of his bedside table. "Sorry, I was trying to be quiet." ......................... notes: this is GARBAGE I AM GARBAGE. music: pillowtalk - zayn tag: @ezra

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There were times where it was easier not to sleep, and Ezra had decided last night to be one such time. Paranoia had settled deep into his very bones, drug induced haziness clashing horribly with drunken hallucinations, guilt and remorse adding to his cocktail of woe. Sat by the unnatural glow of his outdoor swimming pool, he took another drag on his cigarette, the canyons still and unnervingly quiet. Every so often the sound of a car passing in the distance would cause him to sit up straighter, ears pricked... but it would fade away, and with it he would ease back into the sun lounger, though his disposition remained uneasy. This wasn't unusual for the young man, not since his housekeeper Rosa had resigned in a fit of rage after yet another of his parties had lasted well into the morning. His home was impressive, beautiful even, but was imposing when lived in by just one person. Though solitude was a precious resource to Ezra Cohen, the truth was that he didn't cope very well with being alone. Before long it was getting light, light enough for the sensor in the pool to switch itself off. Just like that the luminous turquoise lost its artificial edge, now mere teal, suddenly all the more suburban. Supernatural ominousness abated, Ezra hauled himself to his feet, his mouth dry and limbs heavy. Like a child, his fears faded with the darkness and bed now seemed like a viable option, the comfort of his Egyptian cotton bedspread crying out to him. He paused in the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, abandoning the pack of Lucky Strikes and his lighter by the side of the sink. Memories from the night before swim around his mind as they had done all night, overtaking the imagined bogeymen to become his newest cause for concern. It had been a very bad idea indeed. Throat dry, he drank down a glass of water without pausing for air, immediately switching the faucet back on to get another. Then another, then another. Just as he's considering yet another refill, or maybe just getting a bigger glass, there's a soft shuffling sound as someone stirs upstairs. For a moment the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge, paranoia back in full force-- but then he remembers, guilt flooding his body once more. Kate. Not able to face the music just yet the boy refills his glass a final time, taking the stairs two at a time to close the distance between the kitchen and his bedroom before she emerges from hers. It's a close call, he can hear the soft click of her door closing behind her and he breathes a sigh of relief. Out of sync, that was for the best. Abandoning his water on the floor beside his bed, he collapses into the plush mattress, burying his face in the softness of his sheets. A few months ago Rosa had changed them every other day, and in some deranged show of independence it was a habit he'd kept up. He was grateful for it now, the smell of fresh linen soothing him into a false sense of security. It was a sort of lie, the scent of a man who had his life in order and was not some coked up waste of space. It was a nice delusion. He struggles out of his jeans, wrapping his boxers and t-shirt clad body in the soft cotton like a cocoon. This would be how he'd spend the day, shutting out the mere memory of last night nevermind the consequences, letting enough time pass that the whole incident could go unmentioned forever. Alas, that's how he'd have it in an ideal world. Instead he'd fallen asleep for what felt like seconds but was probably minutes, the soft padding of footsteps enough to stir him. Paranoia had become a fundamental feature of his psyche and he wakes immediately, pushing down the covers to see his intruder. Of course it's Kate. Dishevelled but not so dishevelled as to disguise her undeniable beauty, she's apologizing, another glass of water materalizing beside her bed. Characteristically sweet. Uncharacteristically embarrassed, Ezra hauls himself into a sitting position, eyes fixed anywhere but on hers. "Don't be sorry, that's sweet. Thanks." He clears his throat. Finally forcing himself to look her in the eye, he manages a weak smile. "Wanna get in? Platonic bed sharing, I promise." ......................... notes: ur code i apologize also i apologize for this shite music: signs - bloc party

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Somehow, the sprawling spread of Ezra's LA home reminded her of the one she grew up across from, the one that contained his childhood for the better part of eighteen years. They were different in their architecture, his current home bigger and the design distinctly west coast. The type of home they grew up in were older Cape Cods, with thick wood trims and pale hardwoods. It was the trickle of the pool fountain that stirred something that was usually still in her heart, the piece of her that held onto Connecticut. The sound reminded her of the brook by which they used to play, up back in the woods when they were happy to get outside for hours on end. Upon second thought, they'd probably been banished there while their mothers drank iced tea and compared diamond jewellery. Of course, Mrs. Cohen was the flashiest of the moms on their block. She'd spent many of her first nights in LA at the edge of his glassy water, watching the ghosts of the children they used to be creep along. Sometimes if Kacey thought too hard about it, the light parts began to peel away to reveal the ugly darkness underneath. Kacey and Ezra's new normal was to avoid each other, even while they spent the month together. To say it sparingly, Katie feared him, though not in the way that she feared his father, or that he would hurt her, but in the way that she wanted to be accepted by him, loved by him even. What troubled her, what she found the hardest about being around him, was how to manage which parts of their life together had been important and which had not. They argued often, sometimes about caring too much or caring too little. Her feelings for his older brother were never meant to play part in the way they circled each other, but she couldn't help feel like it changed things or made them harder. Naturally, each time she thought to express this, Ezra scoffed at the concept of jealousy. It had been forever ago. They had been young. It never mattered. The undergraduate stands frozen, awkward and almost meek. She swallows the dryness in her mouth. As her gaze settles on his face and their eyes meet, she feels the pricking pinkness of her skin where heat begins to form. It flushes her cheeks and blooms down onto her collar bone. Her attraction for him never went away, so to speak. Caring for him would be something she'd always harbor. He'd been the first to see her naked, and for a girl like Kate, that went a long way. She'd not given thought to something like this happening when she'd asked to stay with him. Kacey had been more preoccupied with the notion of him being okay, with keeping an eye on him. Her motives had never been to run to LA to get over Holden, even if that was what she told people. She'd come solely because Rosa was gone and she couldn't bear the thought of Ezra being in a house full of people who didn't give a fuck about him for more than his money. Katie bites down on her lip, standing on her toes as she peers over him to the other side. "Is there room for me over there?" She pads to the other side, lifting up the duvet with one hand. When she slides in she isn't shy and curls up against his side. Her fingers find the skin of his abdomen. "Did you sleep okay? Again, sorry I woke you. I can't go back to sleep when I'm hungover." ......................... notes: still gross. music: moar pillowtalk.

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His jaw aches from clenching. When he first moved to Los Angeles and began dabbling in the odd recreational drug, Ezra had fallen foul to that most obvious of symptoms - gurning. The more coke he did the worse it would get, he and his "friends" talking in circles with increasing arrogance as they inhaled line after line, the clinking of tiny spoons against glass, care constantly being taken not to exhale too heavily lest powder be sent everywhere. They were incredibly obvious, in short, and it had made evasion of eviction from clubs near impossible. Hating this trait, Ezra had learnt to clamp his jaw shut when binging, grinding his teeth ever so slightly. Grinding his teeth was a habit he'd had since childhood, though back then he'd only done it in his sleep... the ache was all too apparent now, alongside the sharpness in the back of his throat from a dryness that couldn't be quenched. As he always did in moments like these, he promised himself that next time he wouldn't do quite so much. He picks up the glass of water she's left him and takes a sip. Though a small gesture, her bringing him a glass of water brings back a flood of memories from their relationship. Times when Kate would constantly think of him, little things she would do without him ever needing to say a word or reciprocate at all, things like organising his art supplies or ironing the shirt he needed for his college interview but had forgotten laid crumpled at the bottom of his wardrobe until the morning of. A pang of something unusual hits him square in the chest and it takes him a moment to recognise the now foreign emotion: affection. She was so unlike everyone he knew in LA, who were out for anything they could get and only thought of themselves. He felt vaguely ashamed that he'd become so much more that way inclined since moving out west. "Are you saying I'm fat?" he asks, a grin steadily spreading across his face. Jokes weren't really his forte either these days, but it felt good to be lightening the mood instead of wallowing in it for once. She clambers into bed beside him and he's taken aback when she curls up against him. There it is again, affection. He'd completely suppressed what had once come so naturally to him, so used to intimacy meaning sex and sex only, kissing and rough foreplay and a cigarette afterward. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cuddled someone, not as innocently as this. After a moment's pause his arm cradles her small frame, her perfume lingering on her skin and helping him to ease into the situation. "You didn't wake me, not really." With her in the crook of his elbow, his hand is absentmindedly stroking her hair. It's coarsened by chlorine but still soft, slipping through his touch as he gently pulls it around his fingers. There's a glimpse of purple skin on her neck and for a second he's alarmed, before the memory flashes into his head: tequila kisses, his mouth wandering from hers to her neck, sucking and her sharp intake of breath. He squirms a little. "Sorry," he mutters without explanation, looking away. "Did you have a good night?" ......................... notes: awkward turtle music: beethoven