blah blah blah I wrote some of this alre--no I didn't. I just did it in my head. Okay. So what happens after this.
Okay, for now I'm cutting off the date, putting it in storage until I can figure it out or not. Probably not.
Dammit, where is my sexual tension? It was everywhere in the first drafts, and so far, Julian is afraid of Lyre and angry at her. I need to turn that around. Get him
So here's what happens. At some point Julian's mom really beats on him. Not after the photoshoot, later. I'll worry about it later.
Julian is feeling especially pressured by being blackmailed by a wilder, his mom for hanging with Tris, who has just forbidden him to do so any longer, and Tris gets pissed by Julian's lack of balls when he goes along with it, by getting a panic attack at a party when someone toxxes him with a semi-paral tox and dump him in a closet and close the door on him as a prank(he sobs and pisses himself) which results in a violent flashback, and in the end he stumbles in Masquerade for reasons he can't understand and Lyre finds him at the bar.
She asks him what he's doing there, saying she's done her research and knows his mom is against the whole fem/masc thing.
"Yeah. Whatever. /Vack/ her," I mumbled, reaching for my beer.
"I think you've had quite enough," she said, cutting me off and pulling it away. I grabbed her arm, glaring murderously at her.
"T'night, of /aall nnightss/, isssnot tha night t get b'tween me and /mmy vackingg beer/," I snarled. Sweet oblivion. Simple, mindless drunken stupor. That was all I asked. Too much? Apparently.
"Am I going to have to ask you to leave?" she asked, her voice cold, the black, furry lips peeling back over the wicked sharp teeth. I wasn't drunk enough yet to forget serious shit, but for a moment, I had actually forgotten she was a bouncer.
"No," I mumbled. "Juss...please, juss let me have the beer..." I could feel my face beginning to crumble as everything built up in my throat, rising rapidly and smashing into the walls of sullen, angry indifference I'd been building all evening.
Not now. Not now not now not now not now...
"Just leave me alone," I said, my voice quavering as I weakly tugged at my glass, encased in her grip. "Pllease jus go away an leave me alooone..."
Fat, glimmering tears were pooling in the corners of my eyes and beginning to spill over. I let my head slump down on the bar, hoping she hadn't seen.
She had. I knew it because I felt her let go of the beer. I dragged it back over to me and waited for her presence to fade so I could take another swig and let the liquid fire blast down my throat and numb it enough to stop me from crying.
Please just go please just go please just leave me alone and above all please don't /ask.../
"Are...you alright?" she asked quietly.
"Ye--no. Yess. Fsine. I'm onlyy vackinngg /vacked/ in thha vackingg /ass/ in liikke a b'jillion differen' ways. Vack off."
"...I see."
The tears were still flowing. Had to make it stop. Go away and let me drink my beer.
"...Mr. Forest. Would you...like a more private atmosphere in which to drink?"
It was so cordial and polite and not on-your-knees-bitch-I-have-blackmail of her I actually thought that for one, it was someone talking, and for two, despite the name, they were talking to someone else entirely.