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Midian, Taralyn, Parfait, Lumina (C) Gothbunnyboy & Ketzio11
Referenced but not seen:
Parfait https://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=986923
Lumina https://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=696557
Female POV is so rare and so fun to do!
Midian has been such a long time fixture in our stories, That getting to really draw and work on him is an absolute treat. Honestly, one of the funnest we have written : )
Thank you all for supporting us with views favorites, likes and comments~ Simply amazing, Thank you.
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The only thing Midian abhorred more than the agony and uncertainty swirling in his gut was the tedious damn drive. A lonely 4 hour trek towards the sleepy city of Trouville and his prospective editor, Mr. Geisler. His emotions were a tumultuous mess as he pondered, "am I really driving all this way to wine and dine with some online book slinger -- or am I doing this for her?"
Midian's only other journey to first meet the mysterious Mr. Geisler had been punctuated by meeting the most enchanting young woman, a red squirrel named Taralyn, and though he ended up spending a weekend as her companion it wasn't precisely until his drive home when it dawned on him that they became a couple.
In hindsight, He fancied her greatly, spent nights Skyping her, texted constantly, and was all-around infatuated; despite trepidation from his friends -- especially Parfait. He tried his hardest to bash the thoughts of the little beaver ridiculing him incessantly into his subconscious -- he didn't need the grief.
Long distance relationships, as he quickly learned, suited him well.
For one thing, Midian lived in a Studio apartment beside his college campus with his lifelong friend Lumina. Being in a studio like that meant no bedrooms, only a cot that he slept on and a couch that Lumina slept on, and a closet sized bathroom to share. Conditions like this would forbid having a girl for recreations.
Midian also considered the nature of his life to be currently frantic... if said politely. When not in one of his classes, he was either working or playing 'surrogate brother' to the mischievous and self-destructive Parfait. Even thinking about her, sent a new knot deep into his belly and he briefly considered turning onto the shoulder to call her. She always had seemed as though, without his guidance and car rides, she might quickly fold in on herself a dozen times over and cease to exist.
He really had to push her to the back of his mind.
Midian found his writing had eaten whatever chunk of his time he had left and it was amazing that he could find even the ghost of inspiration ever to do so considering he was failing his writing class. In his mind, he could picture the gaunt gray muzzled face of Mr. Howard; the old hound that taught the class from under a frizzled main of reckless dark spirals of hair. Mr. Howard, in all his calm wit and hippy knowledge, seemed to pledge cold steely hate for Midian from the first day the Jackalope sauntered into his class.
"I find that 'see-fee' (Midian had wanted so hard to correct him and scream Sci - Fi, with hard 'I's) is simple pulp ejaculated from the minds of repressed conservatives who fear the chaotic nature of the universe, so they must objectify even futurism with their totalitarian opinions." Mr. Howard opened his lecture with, and Midian could feel from under his John Lennon glasses, Mr. Howard was glaring at him, "For instance, Mr. Sarg, what is it on your shirt?"
Midian looked down- it was the same shirt he happened to be wearing as he drove: Star Trek.
"Star Trek." Midian croaked, feeling flushed and centered out, the class of adults all stared at him. The teacher ruffled up his nose.
"The perfect catalyst for the neo conservatives to excite the minds of the clueless into a FEDERATION which represents the unification of culture and homogenization of your identities." Howard added in a sing-song way, pacing along and alley of desks.
Midian wanted to refute this accusation and, besides, what the fuck did this have to do with writing? Aren't they here to learn the fundamentals of writing?
He kept his mouth shut.
Midian kept his mouth shut all semester. Every time an essay or story was returned to him with that condescending red frown drawn on the title page and small lines of even more condescending commentary. Things like: "Your grammar, spelling, and diction are acceptable but your story lacks any representation and therefore imagination." or "Simply, your characters lack allegory and therefore meaning" and the worst. "Pulp :I"
"Fuck it." Midian thought even while driving. "What the hell does allegory even mean or matter? These are just stories after all... art."
He pulled his car onto a side exit; feeling a mighty thirst building and watching the alluring sign of a gas station glimmer in the early afternoon light.
When he slowed to a halt onto the gravel lot, he rested his head on the wheel for a second and thought about the papers that other students turned in. Specifically, he thought about the ones he read that had gotten the highest praise and marks.
Two specific stories bulged into his aching brain.
The first read like a lunch menu for some kind of old folk's home: Monday sloppy joes Tuesday Lasagna etc. Between each item a small description including ingredients, some not typically found in those dishes... Midian should know, as an ex fat kid, he has eaten his fair share of lasagna. As it turned out, the non-traditional items included on each list spelled out a kind of SOS in code and therefore represented a Lunch Lady who was pleading for help to escape her forced solitude. As the teacher proclaimed, it was the portrait of a child locked deep behind the eyes of a robot. Midian pondered that, at best, it was 'clever' and in reality was just a damn list of food.
"Eh-heh... it's good... I think." He recalled telling the slender skunk girl who wrote it. "But I... I think someone would have noticed if borax was listed under chicken noodle soup."
He remember that she flicked her hair aside, obviously annoyed that the pissant, horned bunny in the video game shirt was even belching breath at her. She simply sighed in his direction.
The other story (though what qualified the first as a story was beyond Midian) was written by another seemingly vapid and entirely empty doe, whose "story" was a single page. It was a single fucking line: "If you make peace in war, it is only a piece of war -- Anonymous in the future."
Midian recalled that the teacher's commentary was longer than the actual 'story'. "Minimalism which forms a striking and haunting vision of our descendants, you could picture in those words, our own orphaned children scrawling that mantra on a bomb blasted wall in their own blood".
Funny, when Midian read the story all he had a vision of was this doe's jock boyfriend sweatily humping her before heaving out a climax and asking if she had any homework left and Midian imagined, in her fervor for round two, she just scribbled on a piece (or peace... fuck it) of paper and resumed riding the jock train to chlamydia-vil.
Midian's own story, heeding Mr. Howard's words, was a bloated and wordy train-wreck about a man waking up from cryo-freezing to discover the planet had been taken over by a media tycoon. The villians quickly revealed that they would be mulching his body as a fuel source after they extracted information about his era -- fortunately he met a young woman and the two of them fled the building; leaving a nice explosion behind them. Midian was sickeningly proud of the 'allegory' and the morose "corporations are bad" message he felt obliged to include, and sure enough, when the paper was returned the heading page praised that. "At first, Mr. Sarg, I noted the growth in your work. It was amazing to see you triumph over mediocrity and crawl to your peers, but unfortunately, it seems as though the message was lost on you as this story developed into--"
"Fuck it." Midian thought then and then muttered out loud getting out of his car and walking into the cool-aired convenient shop for a drink.
2 things quickly changed after his failed attempt to adapt. For one, his stories become relentlessly dark and unflinchingly disturbing cruelties. The second was that he now shopped them to various websites, publishers, and magazines.
He felt possessed and all Midian wanted was to sell one, for any price, and then rub Mr. Howard's nose in it. It bothered him how Mr. Howard and the class were "above him" and he was the misguided drifter usurping on a world he didn't belong in.
In spite of Howard, Midian now made sure no character, no matter how great or small, had any connection to anyone living. No allegory and whatever message the story had was now left to the reader. There would be no secret sloppy joe message, just brutal horror and crime stories.
That's when he got the email from Mr Geisler a few months ago: "Would you be interested in writing a novella?"
He returned to his car, drink in hand, feeling refreshed. A stack of papers, neatly bound, sat shotgun beside him: "Untitled Horror Novel" the cover page said. The papers once harkened a few prospective titles, Midian disregarded them though because a name should come in due time.
Suddenly his mind whirled back around Taralyn and her invitation, not for him to stay alone... not as he had the first time, but instead for him to stay with her. Yikes.
Midian wrapped his hands tightly around the steering wheel, feeling a fresh tremble up his back. He recalled driving up to meet with Mr. Geisler at a chinese restaurant and listening to this fat badger tell him how excited he was to read what Midian would come up with. They signed a few papers and... that was it.
"You couldn't.... mail me this stuff?" Midian had asked; feeling a dull throbbing annoyance in his throat. At the time, he had pretty much screwed himself for taking off work.
"Ah, my boy, I've been in this buisness for years. If you hadn't committed to driving out, I would've known you wouldn't commit to write." Geisler told him, sounding like a jolly gnome. That's what Geisler reminded him of. A gnome. Wrapped in his Hawaiian shirt and shorts and, with his great big belly, Geisler was the most gnomish thing Midian had ever laid eyes on, and that is after a decade of fantasy games with his roommate, a samoyed named Lumina.
Though, if not for Geisler's peculiar way, Midian would not have stopped at the hotel that Taralyn was working the desk at, and then he would've never met such a fascinating young woman. He was very smitten.
No matter how strange Geisler may behave, It would be worth it to see Taralyn, and finally be in the same city, building, room, as a couple.
~~
The meeting with Geisler had gone well enough, though the badger had an odd fixation with one of the main characters in Midian's story, a young girl named Minty. She was tragically and gruesomely eaten by two spider maggot creatures toward the end. Midian strived towards complete brutality afterall. If his professor didn't enjoy pleasant glimpses of fiction like Star Trek, then let him wallow in Midian's darkest world.
"Is the little girl based on anyone you know?" Geisler asked with his gnomish titter while shoveling an array of shellfish into his gullet.
"No." The feeling had revolted Midian. He hated even briefly considering him or anyone who knew in this world of flesh eating monsters, though, stupidly, when Mr. Geisler asked him that, the first person that came to mind was Parfait. Yikes, he didn't want to imagine her dying like that no matter how many times she woke him up in the middle of the night to drive her home from a club. "I don't base any of the characters on people I know... my professor made a big point about allegory--"
"Shame." Geisler loudly slurped another slimey shelled creature up. "You wrote her so well -- thought maybe she was a girlfriend who broke up with you mid-writing so you hadta', you know.... Ice her with words."
"Minty is thirt--" Midian almost gagged at the fact that the character was Parfait's age. He involuntarily lied in response. "Eleven. So no... no, she's just one of the people in my head I guess."
"I really liked how, when she died, her friends all left her behind 'cause they knew the monsters would--" another loud smacking slurp "--would take there time to eat her so the rest could get out off the sewer. Real dark shit Midian. I like it. Plus, the readers would like it too. It's dat whole 'no redemption' thing--HEY! That's what you should call da book!"
Midian fur was rigid with gooseflesh and he desperately lost his appetite. The idea to kill Minty was only to there to oblige an obligatory shock moment. As a character, she was very sweet, good and selfless, so her death had impact. Plus, that satisfied his subconscious that she wasn't the sarcastic, cynical bitch Parfait was. But still, did it need to be so violent?
"Midian. I think you should elaborate on that scene -- maybe drag it out on another page." Mr. Geisler snickered. "Ya know -- more descriptive stuff like how they ate her heart last."
"Well, I mean I wrote about her dread to the very last moment and--" Midian cleared his throat. "I think, I might need to sheer down some of the gore actually."
"Tsk Tsk, Midian. You got to realize cold death sells good." Midian couldn't help but imagine that this guy owned several snuff films. "I was going to suggest that the deaf girl -- the one Minty kept saving -- should have been eaten in that scene too." Geisler made a hungry snap of his jaws. "You made her run away and never heard from again. So boring. Imagine Minty watching as her little body gets slurped up into a fine red mist."
"I'll consider it." Midian shuddered and felt a disgusted regret.
"Are you sure Minty wasn't based on someone?" Mr. Geisler leered as he tried to intimidate Midian into 'telling the truth' with a bit of a stink-eye. "I promise I won't tell~"
As Midian drove toward his meeting place with Taralyn, the image of Geisler's face wouldn't leave him. Though, overall, Geisler liked the book and agreed to buy it. 150 now and 150 completion. Not a bad fucking deal for Midian. He foggily knew Geisler worked in brackets that helped distribute horror books into avenues and Geisler would probably make back all of his investment and then some, but, $300 for a story blew Midian's brains out.
With the Geisler stuff repeating, Midian barely realized how troubling it was that Taralyn had insisted they meet up at a store. In fact, in the back of his mind, he could vaguely recall her practically begging for them to just stay at her hotel. He wondered why he didn't accept the first time -- probably something to do with being too chickenshit. He also had some of Parfait's cynicism cross his mind as the thought of seeing her house might have invoked some sort of security in their relationship. He didn't know if he wanted that yet.
Another thought intruded and, all at once, he felt a weird urge to check on Parfait again. He hadn't heard from her all since the night before. The feeling grew so immense that it slowly eclipsed his mind and he found himself pulling into the parking lot of a fastfood joint.
He clasped his phone and isolated Parfait's name from his contacts and began a call. A few slow rings accompanied the sounds of a group of boys riding their bikes through the parking lot toward the restaurant.
"Midian?" Her voice finally spoke, sounding weary and almost weak. It had the tired quality of someone who barely woke up or had not slept. The line really blurred on that one.
"Heeeeey... Parfait. Just... wanted to check on you, seemed really weird not seeing your name lit up with 40 texts on my phone. I kind of assumed you died." Midian said with a small chuckle; though he also felt a sweeping sigh of relief.
"You're daft." She sniffled and then tried to hide a yawn. "I'm at home sleeping. I think I'm sick... besides Lumina already told me you're going to be in poundtown with your nut-hungry internet boyfriend or something."
Her voice seemed to rise a bit toward the end and Midian cringed in his seat, opening his mouth to speak but then closing it again when it became clear Parfait aimed to carry on.
"It would be nice if someone got me meds and juice but nooooope." Parfait sniffled again but something sounded a bit off with her tone. "No one cares about meeeeee, of course!"
"Ask Mason." Midian calmly responded.
"Are you having a laugh?" Parfait sarcastically scolded; missing the R sound due to her speech impediment. "Cause nuts to that idea, Fatass wouldn't get off his fat arse for a fucking donut, let alone to help a poor little sick girl get well."
"Well I'm only up here for 2 days. I'll get you stuff on the way home" He said smiling to an empty car.
"Bleeech, I'll be dead by then!" Parfait pouted. "You should come back now. I'll be really mad if you don't. Or did you already get to the gross creature's house?"
"Her name is Taraly--"
"I COULDN'T GIVE HALF OF A SHIT."
Yikes, where did that come from? Midian tried to keep his cool. "Well, why not call up one of the 'guys' or that sweet red panda you seem to always ditch."
"Huh... Ginny...? Fuck her! She's been all bitchy since I told her that her friends are dorks." Parfait said matter-of-factly. Midian could hear, in her voice, that she felt justified and this kept that slight smile broad.
"Okay... and the guys then?" Midian asked.
There was silence and for a second he suspected the call dropped.
"Hello, Par--"
"UGGGH" She sighed annoyed into the phone. "I'm sick, and frankly (fwankly) I'm sick of that bloody lot."
"Oh?" Midian enquired; picking at the faded lining of his car door.
"Don't 'oh' me! I just want to spend time at my home or with someone I actually like or something." Parfait put so much emphasis on 'someone' it wasn't even funny; though the hint flew over Midian's head. "Why did you even call me if you're gonna be a pink-haired fairy boy dick?!"
"Your brother could--"
"UGGGGGGGH!" Parfait cut him off with a very exaggerated sigh. "My brother is being the King of the Weirdos, it's like I'm living with a stranger... a stranger that kinda looks like me, only a guy... with a super fat girlfriend."
"Okay, I get it--"
"I mean like a living blimp!" Parfait ranted; Midian could hear her extreme gestures from over the phone. "She is like two Santa Clauses in a tube sock... how does my brother even fuck that? Probably has to ... uggh... whats the word for like... mountain climbing... but only in a cave. It's like cave diving and... gah, wot is it?"
"Spelunking?" Midian asked and could feel a deadly comfort setting in. His mind cruelly reminded him that he was, indeed, stalling. "Anyways, Parfait, I'm glad you're taking it easy and staying home--"
"Aww, you're worried about me?" Parfait was a little slow with that response. It sounded like she was genuinely touched... until she continued. "That's really sweet.. you know wot, we should have phone sex."
"Eh heh. Get some sleep Parfait, sorry to wake you." Midian snickered; disregarding her proposal.
"Seriously. I'm only wearing this button top and pants... not like what you call pants, but pants proper. Er, underwear. Anyways, my shirt is mostly unbuttoned and I am in bed."
"Sounds steaming." Midian rolled his eyes. "I'm sitting in a McWayans parking lot so I'm gonna let you go now."
"Like... seriously. Pulling my underwear down right now."
"Gonna let you go noooow." Midian repeated.
"You're no fun!" By her tone, he could tell she was giving him the sulky princess face before briskly adding. "I'm unbuttoning the top button~ and I'm not even wearing a bra."
"Do you need one?" He said in good humor but an odd feeling washed over him. Parfait had never played this flirty game with him before, and this exhausting little guilt fired up in his already turbulent belly. "Ugh, I really need to get going actually, Taralyn is probably waiting for me, she told me to meet her--"
"WELL FINE!" Parfait growled, "I HOPE YOU LIKE MEETING THAT 'TO CATCH A PREDATOR' GUY. BE SURE TO EAT THE COOKIES." though, the menace was cutely evaded by her saying "Pwedatoh".
"Well, considering Taralyn is a month older than me, I guess it's her who should be arrested for being a creep."
"That's not funny you git! I hope you have a swell time with your girlfriend..." Parfait sulked loudly. "I'll just be sick."
"I'll see you in a couple of days, you'll live. Bye bye." Midian went to hang up.
"Not if I'm dead!" She moaned and he hung up regardless. Without fail, a moment later he got a text: photo attached.
"Hanger-upper ; _ ;" captioned a text of a pouty looking and tired Parfait, her hair in stands and blueish bags beneath her eyes. Midian found a odd amusement in the fact that her top had been unbuttoned some, considering Parfait had never tried to behave like that towards him.
By some means, he assumed she assumed he was gay or something. His pink hair seemed to alert strangers to that foregone conclusion. He also deeply suspected Parfait could see the fat boy he was. This was something Midian thought most ex-chunkies dealt with; that constant reminder of who and what they were. The idea that anyone would find him sexy, let alone, want to flirt was still so foreign to him. He was glad not to be on Parfait's line of sight; their friendship was good enough and he expended so much energy keeping her standing, that it would be counter-productive to put her on her back.
~~
Seeing Taralyn again was awkward because, the last time he saw her, it was his understanding that they were just friends. Now, seeing this squirrel with her ponytail-braids, red frilly skirt and tight, faded white and pink shirt charging into him for a pouncing hug destroyed his concept of internet and reality. 100% of his interaction with her, with them being a couple, was only with webcams and whatnot. He shouldn't have been so weird with her, considering he had technically seen her boobs, but he couldn't help becoming a statue when she hugged him; not even summoning enough courage to put his arms around her as well.
Midian and Taralyn stood below a grocery store's awning next to heavily graffitied bench.
"How have you been?" she cheerfully asked as she dragged a finger to push away the loose strands of rust-colored hair away from her eyes. "I missed you so much!" there was so much emphasis on 'so'.
"Very tired... uhh... busy and junk." Midian forced his response too noticeably; almost choking on his words. "How... about you?"
"The same!" she sighed. "The people you see coming in and out of a hotel lobby is really... not... good." she giggled at herself.
"Oh! Uh..." he rubbed the back of his head. "How is Trouville, though?"
"Uuuhm." she looked away in contemplation. "I dunno. It's a city?" she turned back, offering a smile that showed off her slightly-crooked buckteeth and her crescent moon-shaped birthmark.
"Yeah... dumb question, huh?" Midian felt like punching himself.
"So, like, you wanna get something from the store?" she pointed at the entrance. "Or just... go to our hotel room? I dunno if you're tired. Are you tired? You're probably tired."
It calmed Midian down to know that she seemed a bit nervous like he was -- or perhaps she was just weirded out by his awkwardness. Though, his calmness was short-lived as questions kept piling up one after another. She was single until she met him, of course. But, looking at her body and how... uh... curvy it was... he wondered how in the world she didn't have 12 boyfriends all stored somewhere for safe-keeping. In fact, Midian remembered her talking about how she had never had a boyfriend and that sent up red flags that he had never even thought of until this very moment.
Something about staring into her innocent and almost-could-be-described-as-'precious'-face stacked on top of this super model's body didn't add up to why she was interested in a pasty little weird fuck like him. With pink hair. Don't forget the pink hair.
"Are you okay?" she asked and Midian realized that he never answered her question. "You seem a little... flushed."
"Uhh..." might as well cut decency to the thick. There was something that was bothering him about this whole arrangement from the beginning and, he figured, he might as well get it out of the way now before he spent this entire time with it gnawing away at his subconscious. "...so why are we going to a hotel room anyways? I'd kind of rather go to your house... or do you have a roommate? (or a boyfriend who lives with you so I can't go there?)" he thought at the end.
Taralyn's demeanor turned to concern. "No, no one lives with me," she paused. "I uh... not being able to go to my place... eh... it's a silly reason." she tried to brush it off with a flick of her wrist and a casual smile.
"I mean... I don't really want to be rude," Midian knew there was no way to go about this without being suuuuper rude. "But the hotels around here are expensive and stuff. I'm sorry I didn't bring this up before but it was bothering me a bit on the drive here."
"Ahh, you're right..." Taralyn's shoulders sunk. "That's a bit unfair of me to assume you'd pay too because I kinda don't have enough... money.... right now."
"Well, are you embarrassed of me going to your place for some reason?" Midian's cynicism died down with each passing second as he felt her sincerity.
"It's really a silly reason." she rubbed her forehead. "But you have a really good point. I have a place we can stay at for free -- it wouldn't be fair of me to make you pay for a room for no reason... but uh... blech." she inhaled deeply and resumed with her chipper attitude. "Let's get some groceries then! I mean, we're here so let's... uh... get some groceries!"
"Nothing at home, huh?" Midian snickered and he thought of his roommate, Lumina, and her tendency to just inhale everything in his mini-fridge. It's hard living with a living singularity. "No worries, we'll j--" he cut himself short when he noticed the look of shame on her face. "Whoa, did I say something dumb?"
"Noooo." she fidgeted; her massive tail gusting side to side as her frilly skirt followed along. "I just... assumed we were going to stay somewhere else so I didn't stock up or anything." the longer the sentence got, the more quiet she became.
"That's fine, that's fine." Midian waved it off. "Just be sure to give me your address after we're done because I don't know wheeeeeeere I'm going. Or should I just follow your car?"
"Eh... ehehe..." Taralyn's eyes just couldn't get up off the ground; she basically hid her face at this point. "I... took the bus. I don-- I mean, my car is in the... car place."
"A shop?"
"Yeah, that." she almost looked like she wanted to punch herself now. Midian found it cute.
"Well, that's fine. Easier to have you ride shotgun than my stupid story anyways."
It wasn't until walking through the aisles of the grocery store that they began to resume where they left off in their Skype and Video chats; performing subtly cute acts of affections towards one another, natural small-talk, Taralyn constantly leaning up against him as they strode with their shopping cart.
It was truly wonderful and Midian regained his confidence when he finally remembered what it was like to be with her before they became a couple. Plus, her warm and cheerful demeanor was oh-so complemented by the feeling he got when he put his arm around her hips as they walked.
The feeling nearly got the better of him when he went to remove his hand from that position just for her to stubbornly return it to 'where it belonged'. Midian couldn't help but gulp. He was slowly remembering the things they wrote about in their online chats -- the stuff that they said they would do together if they saw each other again and now it felt like she hadn't forgotten that stuff either.
The one thing he did notice that wasn't all sunshine and daisies was Taralyn's frugality. She seemed uncomfortable with getting too many groceries and parlayed with anything non-essential. Midian had to tell her, over and over again, that he was fine with paying for the groceries himself no matter how bad it may have made her feel.
Though, Midian was starting to piece together why she was acting so weird... but he wouldn't jump to any conclusions until he got to her house.
~~
"Now, uh!" Taralyn started as they both approached the door to her home with hands full of grocery bags. "Before I open this door... uh... I didn't, like, have time to prepare and uh... I'm trying to get a guy to fix my walls and uh... my freezer... and my air conditioner... and my bathroom sink." the longer the list went, the more crestfallen she had become.
The neighborhood spoke volumes, though. Midian already knew what was up but he was confused as to why it was an issue. It seemed she lived in... not so preferable conditions. The neighborhood was sub-poverty but Midian had no reason to believe that it mattered at all.
During their webcam sessions, it always seemed like she showed her room at one specific angle that was a bit unnatural to her computer's placement. Granted, he hadn't thought about it until now because the only thing he was really focusing on was her bare boobs... on the screen... with her touching them seductively... much touching. Ehehe.
That one wall in her room must have been the only wall in the house that wasn't beaten to shit because the moment Taralyn opened that door, Midian wasn't able to find a single space of wall that was intact.
"Yeah... sorry." Taralyn sighed. "I promise I'll clean it by the time you wake up tomorrow! Or like... most of it." she was probably referring to the stacks of magazines strewn about the floor and the abandoned dryer sat up next to the TV; apparently not hooked or plugged in to anything. "I'm renting this place from my uncle and uh..." she choked back a sob. "BLAME HIM! IT'S MOSTLY HIS CRA--"
"I don't mind." Midian stated genuinely. "I grew up in a neighborhood like this so..." he looked outside and saw that one of the houses on the other side of the street's front wall had caved in. Maybe not this bad but it was too late to say that. "...I'm not here to date the house. I'm here to date the you." his eyes flashed away; not quite knowing what the fuck he just said. "Where should we put the groceries, by the way?"
Taralyn seemed dumbfounded that he reacted so casually to this warzone of a house. She stood, mouth agape with her half of the groceries tightly gripped in her hands, silent with a barely deserved skyrocketing admiration for this pink-haired jackalope boy. Something about this made a case against her believing that maybe he was just going out with her for her looks.
"Uhh... the kitchen counter." she pointed to a half-finished counter with what appeared to be a bike on top of it.
Midian walked the groceries to the counter and, without any provocation, Taralyn blurted out an awkwardly worded "I love you!" she retained a goofy, teary-eyed smile.
As much as Midian wanted to turn around and say 'I know', as a reference to their collective favorite movie, he quietly and shyly responded with an "I love you too".
Once the groceries were put away, they decided that the first thing they would do together is sit on her old, beaten up couch and snuggle. The second thing they decided to do came about 2 minutes later.