Eveything You Lose is a Step You Take // Ratt throwback
Matt's knuckles are white with his commitment to clutching this box to his chest. Standing in the middle of the dim lit office and staring at the empty desk where he'd sit under a new boss, editing someone else's videos again. Trying and failing for independence, falling back on the kidness of another man that held him and Ryan in the palm of his outstretched hand. What if it happend all over again and within a few months this box would be packed up all over again. His body tenses around the box, protecting it from its doomed fates. Spills out its contents here only to risk trying to put it all back inside later, or take it back home actoss the country. Admit it was never cut out for this, resign to something that would feed his stomach and starve him in evey other way. He couldn't let this box go, clutching it tighter, protecting it, saving it from more change that leads to nothing. His arms were shaking now but he could only look at the one desk meant to be shared. Even if wanted to set this box down, where would it go? Where was it okay to take up space? Fuck this was all so confusing, this box was so heavy.
Cleaning out an abandoned, blown up science building was definitely much harder than they both could’ve expected. However, they also both knew that the campus had little to no hangout spots where they could let loose, have a little fun without the stress of supervision over them. We’re they missing the point why they needed that supervision in the first place? Of course they were, but that didn’t let it stop them from coming into the lot a few hours for the past couple weeks to get it looking nicer slowly but surely. Today, it seemed like they finally hit their mark. “How’s this look?” Ryan asked after doing some hard labor and moving a couch he found into one of the less torn up classrooms with greenery around it.
Matt had been hitting this apartment building for years. Shortly after he came of age for gathering he had steaked his claim in this building after a considerable jackpot of "Invented food" and "dried human-grade hemp flowers". Both contriban in the burrows, but that just meant it sold twice as fast for three times as much as regular goods. Over the years it waxed and wained but over all it always payed out. Maybe sometimes he wasn't totally clean and maybe he took a little more than he should have but mostly he was golden. Usually he didn't get back to a unit soon enough for there to be reason he was suspected, but this one... it always had good loot yeah but the TV always seemed to be on, even though the human was gone! When Matt had a little time it was nice to sit on the end of a counter or peak from a vent, avoiding the dog. He'd only dare for a few minutes at a time then it was out with some crumbs and a flask of "spiced whisky". Maybe he liked the unit too much. Maybe he spent a little to much time or took a few too many things. Maybe that's why when he came back there was a mouse trap the a dark spot he'd always landed safely before. Maybe that's why he was laying on the counter top behind the toaster with a white searing pain sending into such shock and fear he passes out. Damn. Human entertainment was just so funny... probably wasn't worth dying for some family guy reruns though... oh well... nothing he could do now. @iron-magee-giant
It was finally that time of year. The time where Ryan could finally wear his famous “Whats up, Grinches?” Hoodie out. Not that it really stopped him before, it was one of his favorite apparels after all, but now it was more appropriate. The holidays were finally rolling around and it was more than apparent in Greek Row’s decorating. There was some huge candy canes set up through the quad and some of the houses had the lights up ready to go. Honestly, it made the Gamma house look all the more sadder looking with how barren the front was comparatively. It got him to thinking that, if it couldn’t look festive out front, he could at least bring it to look that way inside instead. But oh no, not the whole inside of the Gamma house, they weren’t getting decorations out of him for free. Oh no! In fact, he planned to spend no money on the place and was set on that. Mind and body at work as he wondered into the woods with a stolen hack saw to get his and Matt’s room set up for the season. They wouldn’t need a huge tree, they probably couldn’t fit one anyway, deciding a smaller pine for the room was more… fitting, anyway. So, by the time Matt was done with his classes for the day, Ryan was already back inside with pine needles all over the room, their poor excuse for a Christmas tree (looking more and more like Charlie Brown’s as he tried to adjust it) settled at the center of their room on one of their desks.