I was like - weird, I guess. Not goth, but close enough.
[Metal. Thrash metal. Screamo. She thinks about her room - the posters, the decor. She thinks about the music set up, the bongs, the excessive amount of skulls - and finds she misses it, but she also doesn't really know where to start. ]
I liked skulls. I still do. I had a lot of those. Candle burners, bongs - skull shaped. A bunch of posters of bands my parents hated. Crystals, photos - everything was black. [This is, obviously, unsurprising. She purses her lips, tries hard not to laugh. ] You would have thought it was weird. I can tell.
[ Skulls. He files that information away, tries to imagine what her room looked like. Posters, skulls, all sorts of bullshit. He knows it'd be swathed in black.
He makes a face. ] Nuh uh.
[ Well, maybe. Maybe it's fucked up that when he pictures her room, as described, he sort of thinks of like... a guy's room. Some metal head he'd buy weed off of. He wonders if Eddie's room looked like hers, and also guesses it might've looked a little like his, minus the skulls. The whole goth, dark mistress, Bauhaus-on-loop, white-matte-face thing didn't really do it for him. The memory of Jem in a Def Leppard cut-off does. ]
I don't know. None of the chicks I knew were really into... metal or thrash. I was into them if they were hot. [ His hand brushes up and down her shoulder. ] You can call me an asshole.
You're an asshole, but you're my asshole. [The phrasing is unfortunate. She won't change it. Instead: ] Some of 'em were ceramic. Or glass - there's a vodka brand, all their bottles are glass skulls.
- And some were, y'know. Sheep. Deer. I never kept any of the human ones - we'd burn 'em, in the early days. Some of the lads kept ... Parts. [She doesn't say: my folks would have never allowed it. She might have, though. Jem at fourteen was a different creature, desperate to fit in, to assimilate into the group. She wanted to be tough and strong so badly.
She hums, thoughtful. ] I had this bong, that was like ... A demon skull. Had these two massive horns on it, I honestly can't remember how I ever managed to smoke from it.
[ She says it so simply. Sometimes, Billy mistakenly thinks of Jem as... a girl. That girl in Hawkins, with ripped jean shorts and a cut-off, playing hooky with him and swapping cigarettes. His hand finds hers, finger pads toying with her skin, running over her knuckles. He thinks about her zombie problem, of dead, rotting bodies and a girl standing over them with a shiny Colt.
He also can't wrap his mind around... Neil would've skinned him if he'd come up with a bong after doing one of his random shitty ass inspections. The Hustlers were fine, the skimpy posters of tits. The other things weren't: the stray grams of weed, the cologne his old man liked to call perfume, the tinted ChapStick he swore a girl left in his car. ]
You did it with these, [ he says, hand drawing up to pinch at her bicep. ] How many reps you do with that bong, babygirl? [ He pictures her, head swimming, the bong as tall as he was. ]
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[Metal. Thrash metal. Screamo. She thinks about her room - the posters, the decor. She thinks about the music set up, the bongs, the excessive amount of skulls - and finds she misses it, but she also doesn't really know where to start. ]
I liked skulls. I still do. I had a lot of those. Candle burners, bongs - skull shaped. A bunch of posters of bands my parents hated. Crystals, photos - everything was black. [This is, obviously, unsurprising. She purses her lips, tries hard not to laugh. ] You would have thought it was weird. I can tell.
no subject
He makes a face. ] Nuh uh.
[ Well, maybe. Maybe it's fucked up that when he pictures her room, as described, he sort of thinks of like... a guy's room. Some metal head he'd buy weed off of. He wonders if Eddie's room looked like hers, and also guesses it might've looked a little like his, minus the skulls. The whole goth, dark mistress, Bauhaus-on-loop, white-matte-face thing didn't really do it for him. The memory of Jem in a Def Leppard cut-off does. ]
I don't know. None of the chicks I knew were really into... metal or thrash. I was into them if they were hot. [ His hand brushes up and down her shoulder. ] You can call me an asshole.
Did you find the skulls? Or buy them?
no subject
- And some were, y'know. Sheep. Deer. I never kept any of the human ones - we'd burn 'em, in the early days. Some of the lads kept ... Parts. [She doesn't say: my folks would have never allowed it. She might have, though. Jem at fourteen was a different creature, desperate to fit in, to assimilate into the group. She wanted to be tough and strong so badly.
She hums, thoughtful. ] I had this bong, that was like ... A demon skull. Had these two massive horns on it, I honestly can't remember how I ever managed to smoke from it.
no subject
He also can't wrap his mind around... Neil would've skinned him if he'd come up with a bong after doing one of his random shitty ass inspections. The Hustlers were fine, the skimpy posters of tits. The other things weren't: the stray grams of weed, the cologne his old man liked to call perfume, the tinted ChapStick he swore a girl left in his car. ]
You did it with these, [ he says, hand drawing up to pinch at her bicep. ] How many reps you do with that bong, babygirl? [ He pictures her, head swimming, the bong as tall as he was. ]