Dylan Taylor's Story

Hex Color: #BEA353

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Hudson always found himself talking to strangers. He naturally had a personality that attracted people, with his charisma and friendliness, but he also just liked talking. Sometimes it was to get to know people and learn things... appreciate that feeling of "connecting" with fellow humans, even strangers, and other times, it was merely to hear his own voice. Today, he found himself sitting in the back of a cab talking to the driver, whose accent had reminded him of his own father's. In New York, accents were a dime a dozen. You encountered someone with foreign roots in nearly every interaction you made, be it taking a cab or an Uber, bumping into someone in the grocery store, or overhearing a conversation between the people sitting next to you at dinner. New York was such a diverse city, not even simply in the backgrounds of its residents, but more-so thinking about the people who flooded the city as tourists or temporary residents. "I'd bet twenty bucks that you're Nigerian," he said, a friendly smile on his face as he looked up at the rear-view mirror to read the driver's expression. The man was probably ten years or so younger than his father, and looked different enough that nothing other than the accent reminded him of the man, but it was still something that caught his attention.

While accents in New York, and being foreign-born in general, was nothing noteworthy in New York, it definitely had been back in Maine, where Hudson had been originally raised by his mother and father. 96% of the people who lived in his hometown were white, so it was safe to say that his Nigerian born father had always stood out with his dark skin, a shade that Hudson had always admired and for one reason or another, associated with physical strength, and his thick accent. As a biracial child, Hudson had always been the odd one out growing up too, but it was something that he grew up with, so it was a familiar feeling. Til this day, he still always wondered how his father had managed to do so well where Hudson spent most of his childhood, and where the man continued to live now. It wasn't to discredit his father in the slightest. He was the hardest working man that Hudson had ever met in his life, and that wasn't just the typical father-son adoration speaking. His father worked endlessly, physically and mentally, to provide for his family, starting with his own mother and siblings when they had first immigrated to the states, and then his own wife and children once he married Hudson's mother and had Hudson. As a teenager, he would travel every summer from Maryland, where his mother and younger siblings lived, to Maine, with a group of other recently immigrated Africans for seasonal work. They didn't all end up in Maine, though that was the ultimate goal, and many of them would find seasonal jobs to hold for the summer in other states that they stopped in. His father, however, always ended up that far north and would spend his summers endlessly learning the trade of lobster farming and fishing. After spending a few seasons at the same lobster farm, he was eventually offered a full time position, and though he had to supplement it with other manual labor jobs throughout the winter, the money was worth it to be able to send back to his mother and siblings.

The man was never one to brag about his upbringing, and how tirelessly he worked to provide for his family once he got to America, and had Hudson not asked so many times for his father to tell him about his younger years, he probably never would have known. He was glad he did, though. Especially after his parents divorced, it was all the more reason to believe that his father was a good and innocent man who didn't deserve to not only be cheated on, but lied to about a pregnancy, and only find out it wasn't his on the day of the delivery, when the baby came out pink, without a trace of biracial tone to him. Though the doctors insisted that genes were an odd thing, and especially hard to predict when it came to a biracial child, so simply looking at the baby's features wasn't enough to say he wasn't the father, his mother admitted later on that day that she had had an affair. Hudson couldn't imagine the hurt and distrust his father felt after that, and the fact that he continued to send child support payments for Hudson, even after his wife moved away, never making an attempt to allow the man to see his child, was still shocking to him. His father was a good man, though, and even now as an adult, while Hudson didn't see him as often as he wished he did, he still liked being reminded of him. Even in seemingly small ways, like hearing someone who possessed the same accent as the man who raised him.

The conversation didn't last for too long, since the car ride from the gym to their apartment building wasn't long, but Hudson still left with a smile on his face (and his wallet a few dollars lighter than it needed to be, since he felt inclined to tip better after engaging with the man). His half-brother (though he'd never refer to him as anything less than a "brother", full and whole), however, had remained pretty mute for the ride. Dylan had his headphones in, and wasn't being quiet with the intent of being rude, but his quietness was noted by Hudson. Over the past few days, since Dylan had moved in with him, he felt like he was the one making more of an effort than his brother to make this living situation work. He had to keep himself from getting annoyed, mentally citing the fact that he was doing this to convenience Dylan, not the other way around. Had Hudson not agreed to take him in until he finished high school, he would have had to transfer midway through his senior year to move down to Florida with their mother, and her husband, who had essentially become Dylan's father, despite no biological link. Even if he had become mildly annoyed with his brother over the past few days, he was optimistic that they could make things work. He had never had much of a chance to connect with his younger brother, so he supposed that maybe this would be a good learning and bonding opportunity for the both of them. They had to having something in common between a shared mother, and though today Hudson had found out that they both shared an appreciation for working out, he hoped that he could find more than just that.

"I usually make Friday my cheat day," he explained as they headed up the stairs to their new apartment. "You down for pizza?" Even on his cheat days, Hudson tried to stay away from the really bad stuff like McDonald's, or those big pretzels they sold in midtown that always smelled oh so good, but normally ended up tasting like cardboard and had the nutritional value of cardboard, too. He had a weakness for pizza, but burgers, tacos, Chinese food... really anything sounded good after working out for a few hours.

Dialogue Color: #336A3BWhile Dylan had acknowledged Hudson leaving, he hadn't been paying any attention, and so when a message appeared on the television screen, citing that the game had went offline due to a wireless connection problem, he got up in search of his brother. He was surprised when he didn't find him in his bedroom, and only then vaguely remembered hearing the guy say something about leaving fifteen or twenty minutes ago. He fiddled around with the router in the living room, trying all of the typical "restart it" easy fixes, to no avail. The console wouldn't reconnect to it, and Dylan was almost certain that whatever he had done had only made it worse, since now the modem wouldn't even light up. He was normally pretty technologically savvy which was why he was sure that whatever was wrong with this wasn't an easy fix. He groaned though, feeling like this was just his luck, even if it wasn't. He wasn't the type of person who frequently had bad luck, and his life had been smooth sailing for the most part, but he still chose to be dramatic sometimes. The internet being down now, at the very least, gave him the motivation to get off of the couch for a few minutes. If he was in the mood to be good, he would have used this offline time to finish the math problems that he had to complete out of a textbook for class on Monday, or maybe try to do some chores around the new apartment, but he wasn't in the mood to do anything other than relaxing. Especially with Hudson gone, he knew that this would be a particularly good time to smoke the marijuana he had hidden in a mason jar in his closet, but he also wanted to wait a bit to do that. He liked smoking before bed because it helped him fall asleep, and he wasn't planning on going to bed quite this early.

Somewhat begrudgingly, he decided to see if any of his new neighbors would be so kind as to share their Wifi password with him. When he looked on his phone, multiple password protected networks came up in his vicinity, so he hoped that at least someone on the floor would be home and willing to share their password for the night. He didn't know anyone, and hadn't made any attempts to reach out to his neighbors since moving in, but he didn't think he was wrong for that. This wasn't some upper middle class neigborhood where you were welcomed to the neighborhood with apple pies being delivered to your doorstep. It was New York, a place where there were so many people, that things rarely felt sincere and personal, at least in Dylan's opinion. He knocked on the door next to his, 4D, hoping that someone was home.

Dialogue Color: #336A3BDylan waited for what felt like at least a good few minutes outside of 4D's door, before taking the silence on the other end as a sign that no one was home. Rather than knock on another door, as he originally intended to do, he felt like maybe this wasn't the smartest idea, and retreated back to his own apartment. With no internet connection though, he didn't really know what to do. He had been putting off smoking the weed that he had left until later that night, but now he was bored and had nothing better to do. Because he didn't know if his brother was tolerant of weed, he decided to smoke it in his bedroom, but with the window wide open. The cold air was intolerable, but became less noticeable with each hit he took. He had filled his pipe with only the amount that he knew he could smoke in one sitting, but he spent a solid twenty minutes working on it, until he was done. Once it was finished, he was feeling perfectly bliss. He barely even realized that the window was open, and it took the blaring siren of a passing police car for him to realize it, and shut it. He wasn't sure if his room smelled like weed, and he didn't realize that he had stuffed the small plastic bag containing the rest of it in his pocket, rather than back in the mason jar he stored it in in his closet. He was pretty oblivious, and just cruising, as he liked to call it, but that was how he liked it. For a kid with so much potential, and such a bright future, it was scary how necessary drugs were becoming in his life. What was even worse was that weed was becoming less concerning than other things he was beginning to experiment in too.

He had nearly forgotten that the WiFi was out until he sat back down and tried to connect to his Xbox Live. In a typical 2017 teenager manner, he was certain that there was nothing else worthwhile doing without Internet access... other than eating. That was something he could definitely do right now. Even though he had had pizza earlier in the day with Hudson, it was just what he was craving right now, and he found himself placing an order on Grubhub for a pie to be delivered. With the estimated time of arrival between twenty and thirty minutes away, he didn't think there would be a problem with walking to the CVS down the block to pick up a few beers to get him through the night. He had never tried his fake ID there before, but it was a pretty good one, so he didn't think that he would have a problem with it. Even if he did end up being rejected, with how content he was feeling right now, he didn't think he would mind. Pizza was the biggest thing on his mind, even as he was met with the bitter cold outside.

Dialogue Color: #336A3B
His beer run had taken a little bit longer than expected, but luckily, not for any reasons regarding his fake ID. There had just been an unusually long line at the store, thanks to two of the self-checkout kiosks being disabled. He made it home with two Bud Light tall boys, and one black cherry lemonade Mike's Harder tall boys. He felt stupid buying the last, and he knew that his friends would all grill him for being a "girly" drink, but he really was curious to see what it tasted like. All of the girls that he hung out with seemed to drink them by the dozen, and though he was sure that the high sugar content would make his stomach feel too full, he wasn't against giving it a shot. He had a whole pizza and some garlic knots to finish (though by now, he had completely forgotten that he had added the knots to the order too), so the drinks were going to be welcomed once the food got there. Coincidentally, by the time that he got back to the building, he got an alert on his phone that the delivery man should be there within the next five minutes, and luckily for Dylan, it only took two or three. "Duuuuuuude," he responded, a cheesy grin on the face as he accepted the pizza box and bag on top. "You are the fucking best, bro," he said, probably sounding pretty obnoxious as he thanked the delivery man. What probably would have been a better thank you would have been a nice tip, but Dylan had paid online when ordering, and he wasn't that nice as to feel like tipping when he wasn't already taking out cash.

He nearly dropped the pizza while making his way up the first flight of stairs, but managed to catch it before it slid out of his grip. He wasn't bothered by it though, and actually muttered out a "Fuck, man," with a laugh, as he regained control over it. He reached the second flight of stairs when a red-headed girl, probably somewhere around his age, came bounding towards him. She barely seemed to be paying attention, and since Dylan wasn't either, they nearly collided until she stopped abruptly in front of him. He laughed, because that seemed like the most appropriate thing to do, and when he noticed the cat pajamas she was wearing, his grin grew even wider. "Sick pajamas. They look warm," he said, trying to be cheeky somewhat, but also being partially genuine in the compliment, because they did look warm, and a girl as cute as she was could definitely pull them off.

Dialogue Color: #336A3BWith how good this pizza was tasting, Dylan was tempted to confirm that it was his favorite food. The crust and bread was crisp, the cheese gooey and seemingly endless as it took an extra effort with each bite to pull away from the stringing cheese that tried to follow. It was great, but Dylan wasn't a picky eater to begin with, and being high made everything, especially food, seem all the more pleasant. "It probably falls in my top five," he answered, thinking more deeply into the question than he really needed to, as he tried to figure out what his top five favorite foods actually would be. It seemed like such a serious decision to make in his mindset, and just thinking about the endless array of qualifying food choices had him finishing off his first slice at an alarmingly fast rate and starting on his second. "It's one of those foods that you can never go wrong with, ya know?" he continued in between bites. "Everyone loves pizza. It's a staple, but then with that, I take it for granted enough that I probably wouldn't make it my last meal." He could've and should've just given her and yes or no answer, or at least if Holly was a typical person, that would have been more proper. He was lucky that Holly wasn't the most normal person herself. Looking over at her with a grin, and a mouthful of food, he added, "What about you? I feel like your favorite kind of food would be vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles or something like that." In the moment, he didn't realize how random this encounter was. Here he was, high as a kite, sitting on the floor of his new apartment building's hallway, eating a pizza with a pretty girl he had never met before. He wasn't typically friendly enough to initiate such things with strangers, and yet, even ignoring his high for a second, he felt oddly comfortable with this girl. She didn't look like she was judging him, and she also didn't look stuck up or discontent with the lack of formal arrangements for this impromptu hangout.

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ROMAN || KILLENS
Outfit
Hex code: #11519E
═══════════════════════════Roman was done dealing with Holly for the night, so after he made his comment, he headed towards the kitchen for a glass of water. He caught Cara's expression and returned the same, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Roman wasn't entirely sure how Cara could manage to be so patient, and even nice, to Holly at the moment. It was strange seeing her turn into an almost entirely different person. From being callous and impatient to being sweet and patient. He watched the two with some interest, unable to suppress a groan as he listened to Holly's obliviousness. He had moved to stand by the other of the couch when she mentioned someone named Dylan. It was then that Roman's expression turned from that of annoyed to perturbed. He was focused enough with trying to interpret what that could mean in Holly's foreign language that her comment about his 'little pink boobs' mostly fell on short ears, but he did catch he new nickname and resisted the urge the give her the middle finger. Unlike Cara, upon seeing Holly at the door, he didn't feel the need to scramble to get decent. In retrospect, it's something he would have done, but he was so focused on just getting Cara to alleviate the situation that it didn't cross his mind. And with this Dylan character now in the mix, it seemed like less of an issue. He took a short sip from his glass, glancing over at Cara to see whether or not she was as equally confused and concerned as he was. Roman had no reason to assume that Dylan was some harmless kid sharing a pizza with her. Of course his immediate assumption would be that Holly had gotten herself caught up with some child predator who had lured her with pizza and ice cream. Roman's annoyance hadn't had a chance to settle down, and now it increased, but the reason behind it shifted. He didn't particularly like Holly, as if that needed to be said, but she was still a kid and if thought that was some creep involved, he was going to be easily angered and protective.

Sighing heavily, not really due to Holly's ignorance, but more because the more he conjured up the idea of a gross pedophile talking to Holly, the angrier he got. "Cara will get you ice cream, Holly," Roman said, placing his glass on the coffee table and exchanging one more look with Cara, noting that he would handle this odd part of the story. The next time he reappeared in the living room, he was fully clothed and left without a word. Roman figured the best thing to do was to scope out Holly's apartment before anything else. He didn't necessarily know that the guy was there, but it made the most sense to him to check it out. Not surprisingly, the door was unlocked. The first thing he smelled was the pizza Holly mentioned, and it caused his heart to pick up a few paces. Not because he was scared, but because it verified Holly's story that there was some dude with pizza. It took only a quick scan of the apartment to see someone was on the couch, and as soon as he saw that there was someone, it was a wrap. He was to the living room, reaching over and grabbing the guy's shoulder, yanking him up and pushing him against the wall in a matter of seconds. Had he been calm and not seeing red, things would have been far clearer, obvious even. But he didn't start to focus until he had Dylan against the wall and then realized that hr was a bit...young. Like really young. Like go to jail for assaulting a minor kind of young. Roman's confusion registered on his face for a second, because he definitely hadn't expected a teenager, but in hindsight it did make sense since the guy did feel pretty light just then. Roman was pretty angry, nearing streetfighter mode, but he wasn't so far gone that he didn't care that he had a child in his grasp. Roman lowered his forearm from the kid's neck to his chest, not using as much brute force to pin him back. Teenager or not, though, he didn't know this kid and he knew there wasn't an age cut off for being a pedophile.

"Dylan?" Roman tried, not sure if he actually wanted this to be Dylan or not. Because if it wasn't, then he was about to be in a bit of trouble. But if it was, then he was a bit conflicted. Looking around the room, he tried to make sense of things because this couldn't be right. He was expecting some overweight forty-year-old with a beard and a stained shirt, not some high schooler with freckles. But there was the pizza, and alcohol he noted, which only made him turn to Dylan, or whoever this was, with a slightly darker look. It was hard not to notice the faint scent of weed coming off the guy, or the bloodshot eyes, which definitely worsened things, so by now, the only thing that was saving him from getting hit was the fact that he was clearly around Holly's age. And it was for that reason, and that reason only, that Roman engaged in conversation first. "Look, who are you and why the hell are you in this apartment?"

Dialogue Color: #336A3BOne moment, Dylan was sitting on the couch, setting down the glass of wine for himself, and the one for Holly, and getting ready to dig back into his pizza, and the next, he was glancing in the direction of the door opening, and before he could react, being pulled out of his seat and thrust against the wall. Being high only delayed his reaction, but it certainly took him a few seconds to realize what the hell had just happened, and even then, a lot of the details, like dropping his full wine glass onto the couch, were nothing more than a blur. He stared at the face in front of him for a second, not processing what the guy was saying once he realized that he was holding him with such force. While Roman had his well-intended reasons for treating Dylan like he did, Dylan couldn't be blamed for reacting as he did either, by kicking Roman with enough force in the groin area to cause him to relinquish his grasp all together. Even in a situation like this, Dylan felt like a shot like that was a low blow, but he literally had no idea what was going on. For all he knew, Holly was some decoy that this guy was using to lure him into their apartment so he could proceed to jump him. "What the fuck is wrong with you, man?" Dylan snapped, shoving back at Roman once more before moving away from him quickly. He wasn't scared to fight, even if Roman had a few inches on him, and a street-fighting history that Dylan was unaware of. Dylan was an athletic kid, and one who could definitely hold his own against most people, and he probably would have even been a somewhat decent match for Roman, had Roman not fought professionally. Even under the assumption that he could hold his own if it came to it, Dylan wasn't trying to fight anyone. He really had no idea what was going on. He thought he was about to have a nice, chill impromptu date with a cute girl. It seemed like one of those occurrences that were so rare and well-timed, that they only happened in movies. Being attacked out of no where was a very clear wake up sign that this wasn't a movie, not unless they were going to list it under the horror movie genre. "I don't know who the fuck you think you are touching me when I was fucking invited over here by the girl who lives here, but you know what, fuck her, and fuck you too, man. Don't ever fucking lay a hand on me again."

He looked away from Roman now, but only to gather his things that were on the coffee table. He wasn't sober enough to think that it was worth leaving without the food that he paid for. "Try that with me again, bro, and I'll have my brother knocking on this door tonight with a fucking AK in hand," he continued, though distractedly. He spoke seriously, though he knew that Hudson didn't own a gun, and the comment should have been more of a realization to himself that he needed to stop playing so much Call of Duty. "Fucking asking me why I'm here," he muttered to himself, shaking his head in anger and annoyance, and ignoring the puddle of wine forming on the couch beside him as he closed the pizza box back up. "Maybe because I was fucking invited over? Why else would I fucking be here?" he continued under his breath, growing more enraged by the minute as he processed what had just happened.

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ROMAN || KILLENS
Outfit
Hex code: #11519E
═══════════════════════════As soon as Roman was doubled over, Dylan's words a muffled sound beneath the whirring in his ears, Roman regretted his decision for going soft; he should have just kicked his ass on sight. It was a smart (and reasonable) move on Dylan's part, and something that annoyed Roman simply because for someone who did fight professionally, that shouldn't have been the thing to take him down. If Roman wasn't busy trying to gather himself, he would have punched the kid across his smart ass mouth, but by the time Roman regained his senses, the kid was gone and it was just Roman in the room. He slumped his body against the couch, pressing his head to his forehead, trying to figure out what this night was turning out to be. His heart was still racing from the all the adrenaline, so he needed to cool down before he ended up hitting a wall. A part of him just wanted to go back to his place and call it quits, since it seemed like there was some kind of omen after him. Luckily, there was another part, just barely bigger than the former, that had some sense of morals and knew that he needed to go back to the girls, to at the very least let them know everything was good. More or less. It was when he stood that he saw the red stain beside the couch. "Fucking brilliant," he muttered. For a second, Roman considered trying to get it up on his own, just so that it wouldn't sit for too long, but he didn't want to find himself snooping around the apartment. Because with the way his luck was going, Chanel and Makayla would come in, and he'd have a lot of explaining to do.

Still annoyed with himself for not breaking Dylan's neck, he made his way over to Cara's, opening it with a deep groan. Upon seeing Holly, and reasoning that she was the common denominator here, his annoyance and frustration returned back to her. The momentary halt in that anger towards her was shortlived, and he didn't plan on renewing it anytime soon. In fact, the thought crossed his mind that maybe Holly needed to get kidnapped or something because she was way more trouble than she was worth. Managing to pull his glower away from her to turn to Cara, he said, "It's handled. There's wine on the floor, though. Where are your cleaning supplies?" Without really waiting for an answer, he headed for the kitchen, thinking that was a reasonable place to look for them.