Sugar High (Open)

[tyler james haze]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #6d2b2c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Open! words 678 muse merh notes poor tired boy credits template by irish! Exhaustion was probably the only word that could be used to describe the way Tyler felt these days. Since he'd come home, nothing had been easy. Moving to the trailer park in Addison had been the last thing that Tyler wanted for his family, but there were almost no jobs, and certainly none that would enable him to afford the mortgage payments. So the house foreclosed, and they moved to Addison. Since then, he'd taken a job at safeway... working the night shift from 10 PM to 6 AM, and he'd somehow managed to land himself a job at the stable, despite not knowing the first thing about horses during the day from 8 AM to 4 PM. That left an hour in the morning, and four hours in the evening to sleep... but unfortunately for him, his responsibilities weren't just with work. His grandmother had been forgetting things a lot lately... like cooking and cleaning or even picking Gracie up from school. Between work and playing parent to a seven year old and an eighty year old, he had nearly no time to rest and relax. He'd finally had a day off from Safeway, and had every intention of using the day to catch up on much needed sleep, but the bouncing seven year old was quick to remind him that he had promised to spend the day with her. So, with only two hours of sleep, he forced himself up and out of bed. By the time he'd showered and headed for the kitchen, Gracie had already prepared the only thing she knew how to prepare, bread and peanut butter, toasted, because if it wasn't toasted then it was lunch, not breakfast... at least according to her. He was too tired to argue, so he just went along with it. Gracie had gotten herself into a routine while he was gone, and who was he to change it now? After breakfast, he left a note for their grandmother that they were going out for a while and headed into town... walking, of course, since they no longer had a vehicle. It took an hour or so to get into town, and the ever exuberant child still had enough energy to be skipping on ahead of him. He barely had the energy to walk. He followed her from one place to the next as she darted in and out of shops, chattering on about the Christmas decorations and all of the pretty things that they put out just special for the Christmas season. All of which made Tyler feel rather guilty, knowing that she would love to have pretty things, but he just couldn't afford to get her them. It was pretty things or a roof over their head, and their priorities had to be kept straight. He had sort of lost track of where they were until Gracie suddenly stopped, grabbed his hand, and started dragging him towards the bakery. Normally, he would have protested, considering that giving sugar to a high energy kid was usually not a good idea, but today... he was just going to go along with it. They always had free samples, so aside from getting Gracie on a sugar high, he really had no reason to tell her no. As she bounded up to the front counter to get some samples, he sank down into a chair at a table tiredly. He really should have told her to let him sleep a few more hours and then they'd go, but he really couldn't say no to her. Gracie came skipping back to him, cookie in hand, and before she'd even sat at the table she let out an exuberant "Hi!" as the bell above the door jingled. She was a very social little butterfly, and loved to make friends out of everyone that she saw. Tyler, on the other hand, would rather just sink into the shadows in the corner and be left alone... but Gracie always got her way.

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[Maxxie Ivy Dane]

Maxxie Dane

I'd not been in this town long, and still had no honest idea of where everything was. There seemed to be an endless number of shops that ranged from the most general things to the most unique items this side of the boarder. None of it really appealed to me though, sure I would glance over at the occasional blinking sign but other than that I just kept to myself. There were some strange people here I noticed too. They were just fascinating to look at. Weird hair and just strange. I would glance at them and if they glance back I would smile and return to looking back at the ground.

A few minutes of endless walking had passed I felt a poke on my shoulder, when I looked up to it I found it to be my cockatoo. I had forgotten that I had brought him he was so quiet. That's why all those people were staring at me. Maybe I was the strange looking person. I stopped walking for a second and turned my head to completely look at the white bird. His feathers were clean, every one of them shining white against the dark shirt I was wearing. He seem to look back at me with an oh-your-so-stupid face. It made me laugh and I looked back at him with the same face.

"Right then, where do you want to go?"

He shifted round the back of my next, expertly balanced, how he ever managed to do that I would never know. He shift ed again to point to a brightly colored pink store front. Across the top of the wooden structure was what seemed like sugar-something. I couldn't exactly make out the rest. At first I shook my head at his little bird noises but as I thought it over on piece of candy wouldn't hurt him. After all he really loved it. Apparently birds could eat candy too. Just not chocolate. That plus bird equals horrible.

Moving to the door, I could feel the weight of the body on my shoulder twisting round and round. The claws were digging in to the corners of my skin so I finally had to tell him to stay still as the door bell rung when the glass door opened. At a first upward glance away from the bird there seemed to be no one else in the room. It seemed so until I heard a little bird from one corner of the room screeching hi. Seeing as I was the only other person beside the person she was sitting with, I had to respond to her. The claws in my back moved again to the other shoulder and I could tell the he was looking at the little girl too.

"Ello there." I smiled and went to the counter top where the sale person had left to go to the back. The bird on my shoulder was making it's way down my arm to the checker counter top. I smiled at it's failed attempts to get through the ice cream sections glass wall.


Words; 540
Notes; Hope you don't mind me jumping in here

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[tyler james haze]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #6d2b2c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Open! words 678 muse merh notes poor tired boy credits template by irish! At first when Tyler glanced up at the person whom Gracie had greeted so exuberantly, his exhaustion made him miss the white winged creature on the male's shoulder. He looked back down as he returned the greeting to the child, and that was when it registered in his head that there had been something not quite right about the image he'd just seen. He looked back up as the man walked towards the counter, squinting slightly, not sure if he was hallucinating or if there really was a bird on his shoulder. He'd certainly had hallucinations before, due to dehydration, pain, delirium, and any combination of the three, but never because he was just tired, so he was fairly sure that he was not imagining things... though a bird on someone's shoulder in public wasn't something you saw every day. He was still trying to decide if he was imagining things when Gracie made up his mind for him by whispering excitedly "He has a bidrie Ty!" to him, clearly not at all puzzled by the animal being there, and simply thrilled to have seen it. "I saw tha..." he started, but stopped when the seven year old bounded off towards the counter where the man and his bird were not located. He'd been a lot like Gracie once, outgoing, enthusiastic, high spirited... now all of that was gone. He'd lost almost all of his desire to even be around people, and there was nothing that he was enthusiastic about except for keeping his family together, and even if there were other things that he was enthused about, he would almost always be too exhausted to show any of that excitement. These days, he figured Gracie showed enough excitement for the both of them, so he really had no reason to bother. Unfortunately, now he was going to be forced to be social and interact with another person, because if he didn't, Gracie was sure to kill them all with her talking. There were days when no matter what he did, he couldn't get her to stop talking. She got in trouble at school on occasion for speaking out of turn. Before he could even start in their direction, Gracie had already fearlessly blurted out "What's his name? I'm Gracie. Who are you?" as she stood beside the stranger. "Stranger Danger" was not something that she paid any mind to. In her opinion, everyone had friend potential, even if Tyler strongly disagreed with her. When he reached his bubbly little sister, he put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her a step back towards him. "Sorry about her." He said, willing himself to not assume that this other fellow was someone who would hurt her, and finding himself on the brink of failing, "She'll talk your ear off if you give her the chance." Living for as long as he had, in a place where there was someone who would like nothing more than to kill you around nearly every corner, it was extremely difficult to re-adjust to living in a place where almost everyone you met was a perfectly non-homicidal person. Tyler found himself, all too often, assuming the worst of people, and feeling guilty about it later, he just couldn't help himself.

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