CASUAL AFFAIR [ lams ]

(281)-861-2203

HELLO HERE'S THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A LAMS FIC I WROTE THAT I WANT TO PUBLISH ON AO3 (the big leagues™ oooo) AND I THINK IT'S A PIECE OF SHIT AND I NEED ADVICE so tell me what you think i should fix/add if you feel like it!?!?!!??!? votes/comments are appreciated because i wanna know who's enjoying it!!??? I FEEL LIKE IT'S REALLY BORING SO IM WORKING ON THAT UGHHGN. also this is just the first chapter so. like. keep that in mind.

It's quite difficult to play Mario Kart when you're half asleep on the couch with no one there to wake you. Playing Mario Kart by yourself isn't very fun to begin with, but it's even worse when you fall asleep mid-tournament against some thirteen year old from Australia who'd managed to take back the lead they had while you were asleep. When he was jolted awake this time, John found himself to be reaching his third lap of Rainbow Road--he was, regretfully but inevitably, in last place. His phone buzzed on the table beside him, causing him to fling his kart straight off the track a few times before finally shutting off the Wii he and Herc had bought at the Goodwill down the road. He eyed the table, and noticed it was his iPhone buzzing, rather than the tattered flip phone he used for business.

Probably Herc, he thought. It wasn't like he got many other texts, aside from his service provider or his father.

His heartbeat quickened when he pressed the Home button on the phone a few times, the screen lighting up to display a series of messages across the top of the screen. One of them was from Herc, of course—he was always getting messages from Herc. His rowdy, careless roommate always texting him from someone's basement or the police station. What John deemed innocent questions like have we been to the grocery store this week? Turned out to be code phrases for I've been threatened, come get me.

This particular text read 'In aeternum calcitrando. Be home in an hour, XO.'

'In aeternum calcitrando' was Herc's way of telling him he'd had a bad day, but it hadn't been so bad that John had to worry. The phrase was Latin for 'eternally stubborn', or something like that. Herc had never been dedicated enough to learn Latin--'simply the useful phrases', he'd said. Though he never failed to go the extra mile to be fancier than your average guy named Hercules. John frowned at his text, figuring he'd probably been jumped again. He didn't understand why Herc needed euphemisms and codes to state things that were perfectly safe for him to say—he guessed Herc had just gotten used to doing it over time. Just like Herc had gotten used to being catcalled and beaten up in the streets. It was something for Herc to fall back on--or maybe he had just been extremely paranoid.

Finally deciding to ignore the text from his roommate, John's interest piqued when his eyes skimmed the message nearest the bottom of the screen.

(281)-861-2203: Hey, hoping I have the right number. Found you through a friend who said you could hook me up?

Weird. The first thing John did was ask himself why a potential client could be contacting him via his personal cell phone. As a dealer, it was an unspoken rule to have a burner phone for your business interactions--nothing could be traced back to you, nobody could rat you out. It had been a while since anyone had contacted John about drugs via iPhone message, and he was shamefully intrigued. Paying special attention to the phone number, he tossed the cell down onto the couch. He wasn't the type whose customers would come and go, alternating dealers. He had a few dedicated buyers, some loyal friends, and some complete strangers who'd turned out to be roommates, like Herc. Some more dedicated than others, who would call or text once a month or so, asking for whatever he was willing to sell them. Though these past months had been different. John had gained so many new clients in the past month, he could barely keep up with the demand. Drug dealing was just a side job--though he hated to admit it, he knew it was barely even a job, and it wasn't supposed to stress him out. Not in terms of having enough to sell, at least.