"The Little Things You Do Together"
Feb 2, 2020 13:51:52 GMT -5
Quixote Della Torre, Cassidy Adler, and 1 more like this
Post by Olivia R. Adler on Feb 2, 2020 13:51:52 GMT -5
Disclaimer: This piece will make much more sense if read after Cassidy's, which should be posted eventually I hope.
It was someone's birthday. It was always someone's birthday.
As Cassidy Adler slunk into his seat in the VIP section of a Lower East Side nightclub he'd already forgotten the name of, still nursing his first drink of the night, he'd forgotten whose birthday it was. Truth be told, he wasn't in a particularly celebratory mood, but a party was a party. And he definitely needed something to get his mind off the blatant lack of respect afforded to him by his dearfather. So far though, that wasn't happening.
The club around him rocked and lurched. He could feel the bass hits in his seat as Carpenter Brut's sledgehammer of a track "Roller Mobster" blared over the speakers. Looking over the railing at the dancefloor below, he noticed Olive amidst the crowd. She flailed, convulsed, erratically, her movements looking less like a dance than a seizure. At least someone's having fun, he thought as he drank.
olive sucks at public speaking anyway. sure you can put her in front of a camera and she'll do fine but in a room? with people??? she can't even remember her own name? did dad forget what happened when she tried to give her valedictorian speech in high school? why the fuck wouldn't he pick me this is such bullshit i did nothing to deserve this—
"Ohhhhh-kay, I am officially worried about you," Olive slurred as she stumbled into the seat across from his, falling over onto her side. Giggling at her own clumsiness, she pushed herself back up to a seated position and leaned forward, looking Cass in the eye.
"Where'd you even—" Cass began, but he soon found himself cut off by frenzied shushing as she pressed her hand to his lips.
"We've been here for almost an hour and you've just been sitting here, moping. What gives?"
She held on the s sound a few seconds too long, hissing like a snake. Cass turned his head and shrugged.
"I'm not moping. I'm just takin' shit slow, ya feel?"
"Right, riiiiiiiiiight, that's always been the Cassidy Adler way. Path of the tortoise or some shit."
"What's it matter to you anyway? Looks like you're living it up for the both of us right now."
She rolled her eyes, blushing, and reached out with flailing hands to grab ahold of Cass' wrist. Tugging on his arm, she pulled his attention back to her, and he realized she still had her coat on over the slinky black cocktail dress she chose for the evening.
"Take your jacket off, stay a while."
"Nah, I'm good. It's freezing in here."
It really wasn't, the sweat forming along her brow indicated. She let go, hands compulsively adjusting the cuffs of her jacket; this was a routine of hers that Cass was beginning to pick up on. Did she always do that? A silence overcame the pair as they sat, each glaring at the other, before finally, Cassidy spoke.
"Why are you still here?"
"Because attention must be paid," Olive responded, stifling a laugh before leaping to her feet and throwing her arms out wide, shouting: "Attention must be paid to such a person!"
"Jesus fuckin' Christ Olive," Cass snaps, standing. He closes the distance, pressing her arms back to her side before looking around to ensure her outburst didn't attract any onlookers. Olive simply stood and laughed in his face, her breath hot and reeking of booze.
"Come on, I can't believe I'm the one who has to tell you to lighten up!"
"You don't have to," Cass shot back. "You don't have to do anything."
"Well I want to, then."
He rolled his eyes, sighing. "Why, though?"
"Because you're being a total fucking stick. in. the. mud. hun, and I wouldn't have even invited you tag along if I knew you were just gonna laze around like Dustin fucking Hoffman in The Graduate all night!"
Cass' hands clamped tighter on Olive's arms. "I don't even get that reference! I've never even seen The Graduate!"
Olive wriggled and thrashed in his arms, trying to free herself from his grasp. "Yeah, because you have no taste!"
Finally, she slid out of his hands and backed away, straightening her coat. Her breathing was ragged; that exchange seemingly sapping her of her energy as she crumpled back into her seat. Cass, shaking his head, does the same.
"Now, will you stop beating around the bush and just tell me what's up?"
"Nothing's up. I'm fine. I feel good."
She shook her head. "Bullshit. This is about the thing withdad, isn't it?"
please for the love of god shut up olive. i'm trying i really am.
"That was so fucking typical of him wasn't it? Calling us all together like we're a normal family only to spring that? Of course it wasn't just going to be a normal dinner, I feel dumb as shit for thinking it would. I don't even wanna do the stupid speech. I'm a terrible public speaker. Remember my speech at graduation?"
She laughed a nervous chuckle, reminiscing. Cassidy seethed, reaching for his drink. His grip on the glass tightens as he watches Olive. Tighter and tighter. Knuckles white. Jaw clenched. Glass cracked. Then shattered.
Her eyes went wide when she heard the crack and watched the shards rain to the floor, some streaked red. Cass glanced, wide eyed and mouth agape as his cut hand. Slowly, he opened it, letting the rest of the glass slip from his palm and careen towards the ground with an even louder shattering.
"Woah, you're like, mad mad."
"Nah nah, it ain't that," he lied, compulsively.
"Then what the hell is it? Because you can't tell me something isn't eating you, death grip."
He watched blood pool in the center of his palm, leaking over the sides of his hand and hitting the floor in rhythmic drops. Just a little fall of rain.
"I dunno, it's just…" he struggled to grasp at air. To find a suitable excuse. Most people in his life would've given up by now. Accepted his insistence that he was fine and not pushed it to this level. But not Olive. Never Olive. She was always watching. Always thinking. Sizing everyone up.
Sometimes hehated her. Sometimes he envied her. But most of the time, he looked into her eyes and saw himself staring back at him. And he wasn't sure which scared him more.
"It's just that like, I think it's our match this week."
She studied him, eyebrow raised. A beat, before Olive dies laughing.
"Good bit, you almost had me fooled."
give me this out olive please give me this fucking out
Her face softens, however, as Cass stares blankly ahead, face betraying nothing. "You, aren't joking, are you?"
"Nah, aren't you the one who always says I need to take these people more serious?"
"I mean, yeah, but not like that serious. And not like, these people. It's the fucking Cool Kids, Cass. They're such obvious frauds that you can't even say their name without running headfirst into their inadequacy, projection, and outright blatant fucking lying. Running around anointing themselves the 'Cool Kids' like some b-rate Mean Girls rip off when they're a collection of some of the lamest, least compelling human beings on the roster.
"Like, come on Cass. Look at them. You have a literal bullying victim, a mall goth stoner burnout, and the goddamn foriegn exchange student. This isn't even a wrestling stable anymore, it's my college boyfriend's spec script for Napoleon Dynamite 2."
Cass cocked his head. "You had a boyfriend in college?"
"At Columbia yeah, his name was Max? I-D-K I broke up with him after he told me about his spec script for Napoleon Dynamite 2.
"But like, point stands. What's there for us to really be afraid of? To be so concerned that you're out here acting like a spaz and breaking glasses at clubs? Is it Vayden? Like, yeah that scruffy fucking dweeb is the most accomplished wrestler we've faced thus far by a wide margin but I mean, look at him. He's a pasty-faced loser from flyover country who runs around looking like some Williamsburg hipster. All of his success has come in the cruiserweight division because every time he pokes his head above water to run with the big boys he gets absolutely assblasted right back into his shell.
"He's grown out his dumb, grimy beard and got a little bit darker because he's all appearance over ability. I guess this is supposed to represent a change in him. Growth or something. Maybe he has a spine or a killer instinct or something that makes him recognizable as something other than a punching bag for the real stars. But it's all a ruse because deep down it's the same old Derrick Vayden making the same old mistakes.
"Like hitching his wagon to the likes of Geri Miller. Yeah, Geri Miller. Best known for… yeah. I don't even really know. The most relevant Geri Miller has ever been has come in the role she was born to play: the faildaughter. She was the odd one out all the way back in the Royal Family, the piece that never really fit. The one that did absolutely nothing. That never gained footing. That couldn't. Because there's nothing to her.
"She's an empty, vacuous waste of human flesh. I hate her Cass, I fucking hate her. When I see her, when I even think of her, every time I force her name from my mouth I feel the blood in my veins boil and I want nothing more than to wrap my fingers around her throat and squeeze until she stops fucking twitching."
Her hands shook as she paused for a breath. Cass stared at her with wide eyes.
"Don't look at me like that. She just exists at the periphery of everything. Doing nothing of note but standing next to noteworthy people at historically significant times. Tell me Cass, what's your favorite Geri Miller moment? No, no, I'm curious. This firebrand, this least valuable player in two different stables, this sunken-eyed, cardboard cutout of a human being must certainly have some kinda trademark incident to earn her the notoriety she thinks she ought to have. Fucking 'Cool Kid'.
"I know what my favorite one is. It hasn't happened yet, though. It'll be when the dumb fucking cunt ODs on heroin in the bathroom of a Waffle House and AW management pretends she was worth enough energy to create a tribute video package in memoriam. And at the service, I'll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but 'Halleljuah'.
"If these two are supposed to be our toughest test to date then just call me Emma Stone because it's looking like another Easy A."
Cass chuckled, shaking his head.
"Okay, that was convoluted."
"But it worked, didn't it?"
He shrugged and nodded. "I guess so."
"So, you good?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Olive smiled. Softly. Genuinely.
"Good. I hate seeing you like that."
It was someone's birthday. It was always someone's birthday.
As Cassidy Adler slunk into his seat in the VIP section of a Lower East Side nightclub he'd already forgotten the name of, still nursing his first drink of the night, he'd forgotten whose birthday it was. Truth be told, he wasn't in a particularly celebratory mood, but a party was a party. And he definitely needed something to get his mind off the blatant lack of respect afforded to him by his dear
The club around him rocked and lurched. He could feel the bass hits in his seat as Carpenter Brut's sledgehammer of a track "Roller Mobster" blared over the speakers. Looking over the railing at the dancefloor below, he noticed Olive amidst the crowd. She flailed, convulsed, erratically, her movements looking less like a dance than a seizure. At least someone's having fun, he thought as he drank.
"Ohhhhh-kay, I am officially worried about you," Olive slurred as she stumbled into the seat across from his, falling over onto her side. Giggling at her own clumsiness, she pushed herself back up to a seated position and leaned forward, looking Cass in the eye.
"Where'd you even—" Cass began, but he soon found himself cut off by frenzied shushing as she pressed her hand to his lips.
"We've been here for almost an hour and you've just been sitting here, moping. What gives?"
She held on the s sound a few seconds too long, hissing like a snake. Cass turned his head and shrugged.
"I'm not moping. I'm just takin' shit slow, ya feel?"
"Right, riiiiiiiiiight, that's always been the Cassidy Adler way. Path of the tortoise or some shit."
"What's it matter to you anyway? Looks like you're living it up for the both of us right now."
She rolled her eyes, blushing, and reached out with flailing hands to grab ahold of Cass' wrist. Tugging on his arm, she pulled his attention back to her, and he realized she still had her coat on over the slinky black cocktail dress she chose for the evening.
"Take your jacket off, stay a while."
"Nah, I'm good. It's freezing in here."
It really wasn't, the sweat forming along her brow indicated. She let go, hands compulsively adjusting the cuffs of her jacket; this was a routine of hers that Cass was beginning to pick up on. Did she always do that? A silence overcame the pair as they sat, each glaring at the other, before finally, Cassidy spoke.
"Why are you still here?"
"Because attention must be paid," Olive responded, stifling a laugh before leaping to her feet and throwing her arms out wide, shouting: "Attention must be paid to such a person!"
"Jesus fuckin' Christ Olive," Cass snaps, standing. He closes the distance, pressing her arms back to her side before looking around to ensure her outburst didn't attract any onlookers. Olive simply stood and laughed in his face, her breath hot and reeking of booze.
"Come on, I can't believe I'm the one who has to tell you to lighten up!"
"You don't have to," Cass shot back. "You don't have to do anything."
"Well I want to, then."
He rolled his eyes, sighing. "Why, though?"
"Because you're being a total fucking stick. in. the. mud. hun, and I wouldn't have even invited you tag along if I knew you were just gonna laze around like Dustin fucking Hoffman in The Graduate all night!"
Cass' hands clamped tighter on Olive's arms. "I don't even get that reference! I've never even seen The Graduate!"
Olive wriggled and thrashed in his arms, trying to free herself from his grasp. "Yeah, because you have no taste!"
Finally, she slid out of his hands and backed away, straightening her coat. Her breathing was ragged; that exchange seemingly sapping her of her energy as she crumpled back into her seat. Cass, shaking his head, does the same.
"Now, will you stop beating around the bush and just tell me what's up?"
"Nothing's up. I'm fine. I feel good."
She shook her head. "Bullshit. This is about the thing with
"That was so fucking typical of him wasn't it? Calling us all together like we're a normal family only to spring that? Of course it wasn't just going to be a normal dinner, I feel dumb as shit for thinking it would. I don't even wanna do the stupid speech. I'm a terrible public speaker. Remember my speech at graduation?"
She laughed a nervous chuckle, reminiscing. Cassidy seethed, reaching for his drink. His grip on the glass tightens as he watches Olive. Tighter and tighter. Knuckles white. Jaw clenched. Glass cracked. Then shattered.
Her eyes went wide when she heard the crack and watched the shards rain to the floor, some streaked red. Cass glanced, wide eyed and mouth agape as his cut hand. Slowly, he opened it, letting the rest of the glass slip from his palm and careen towards the ground with an even louder shattering.
"Woah, you're like, mad mad."
"Nah nah, it ain't that," he lied, compulsively.
"Then what the hell is it? Because you can't tell me something isn't eating you, death grip."
He watched blood pool in the center of his palm, leaking over the sides of his hand and hitting the floor in rhythmic drops. Just a little fall of rain.
"I dunno, it's just…" he struggled to grasp at air. To find a suitable excuse. Most people in his life would've given up by now. Accepted his insistence that he was fine and not pushed it to this level. But not Olive. Never Olive. She was always watching. Always thinking. Sizing everyone up.
Sometimes he
"It's just that like, I think it's our match this week."
She studied him, eyebrow raised. A beat, before Olive dies laughing.
"Good bit, you almost had me fooled."
Her face softens, however, as Cass stares blankly ahead, face betraying nothing. "You, aren't joking, are you?"
"Nah, aren't you the one who always says I need to take these people more serious?"
"I mean, yeah, but not like that serious. And not like, these people. It's the fucking Cool Kids, Cass. They're such obvious frauds that you can't even say their name without running headfirst into their inadequacy, projection, and outright blatant fucking lying. Running around anointing themselves the 'Cool Kids' like some b-rate Mean Girls rip off when they're a collection of some of the lamest, least compelling human beings on the roster.
"Like, come on Cass. Look at them. You have a literal bullying victim, a mall goth stoner burnout, and the goddamn foriegn exchange student. This isn't even a wrestling stable anymore, it's my college boyfriend's spec script for Napoleon Dynamite 2."
Cass cocked his head. "You had a boyfriend in college?"
"At Columbia yeah, his name was Max? I-D-K I broke up with him after he told me about his spec script for Napoleon Dynamite 2.
"But like, point stands. What's there for us to really be afraid of? To be so concerned that you're out here acting like a spaz and breaking glasses at clubs? Is it Vayden? Like, yeah that scruffy fucking dweeb is the most accomplished wrestler we've faced thus far by a wide margin but I mean, look at him. He's a pasty-faced loser from flyover country who runs around looking like some Williamsburg hipster. All of his success has come in the cruiserweight division because every time he pokes his head above water to run with the big boys he gets absolutely assblasted right back into his shell.
"He's grown out his dumb, grimy beard and got a little bit darker because he's all appearance over ability. I guess this is supposed to represent a change in him. Growth or something. Maybe he has a spine or a killer instinct or something that makes him recognizable as something other than a punching bag for the real stars. But it's all a ruse because deep down it's the same old Derrick Vayden making the same old mistakes.
"Like hitching his wagon to the likes of Geri Miller. Yeah, Geri Miller. Best known for… yeah. I don't even really know. The most relevant Geri Miller has ever been has come in the role she was born to play: the faildaughter. She was the odd one out all the way back in the Royal Family, the piece that never really fit. The one that did absolutely nothing. That never gained footing. That couldn't. Because there's nothing to her.
"She's an empty, vacuous waste of human flesh. I hate her Cass, I fucking hate her. When I see her, when I even think of her, every time I force her name from my mouth I feel the blood in my veins boil and I want nothing more than to wrap my fingers around her throat and squeeze until she stops fucking twitching."
Her hands shook as she paused for a breath. Cass stared at her with wide eyes.
"Don't look at me like that. She just exists at the periphery of everything. Doing nothing of note but standing next to noteworthy people at historically significant times. Tell me Cass, what's your favorite Geri Miller moment? No, no, I'm curious. This firebrand, this least valuable player in two different stables, this sunken-eyed, cardboard cutout of a human being must certainly have some kinda trademark incident to earn her the notoriety she thinks she ought to have. Fucking 'Cool Kid'.
"I know what my favorite one is. It hasn't happened yet, though. It'll be when the dumb fucking cunt ODs on heroin in the bathroom of a Waffle House and AW management pretends she was worth enough energy to create a tribute video package in memoriam. And at the service, I'll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but 'Halleljuah'.
"If these two are supposed to be our toughest test to date then just call me Emma Stone because it's looking like another Easy A."
Cass chuckled, shaking his head.
"Okay, that was convoluted."
"But it worked, didn't it?"
He shrugged and nodded. "I guess so."
"So, you good?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Olive smiled. Softly. Genuinely.
"Good. I hate seeing you like that."