Pall Malls + Poetry // Judd Birch x OC/Reader

Heavy Lesbian Presence

One o'clock in the morning was Emily's favorite hour. On Saturday nights, when neither of her parents had to work the next day, she'd keep her ears open for their footsteps on the stairs leading up to their bedroom. After that, she could finally strip out of the oversized clothes she adorned when they were awake.

She enjoyed the silence, but it made her eerily aware of her own thoughts, so she tied up her hair and popped in her earbuds, turning on one of the many hours long "focus" soundtracks that were bookmarked on her phone.

That was how she sat now — surrounded by slightly less boxes than the other three weeks since moving back home. She'd taken time to fill up her bookshelf and unpack her art supplies and clothes, but anything else remained tucked away in cardboard. Her desk was scattered with her muse for the night, charcoal pencils of various colors and smudge sticks. Inspiration came to her easily.

She was halfway through outlining hands that mimicked those in The Creation of Adam when the headphones were ripped out of her ears. The smooth melodies that'd worked her into a trance were pierced through by a much louder, deafening foghorn.

Incoming Facetime...

Emily sighed, the number calling her wasn't saved in her phone but she had an inkling as to who it might be.

"Maybe a text first from now on." She said, pushing the earbuds back in.

Judd was happy when she set the phone up against the wall and got comfortable. He could finally see some skin through the camera lens — the contrast of her shoulders against thin spaghetti straps, the bend of her knee against her ample thigh as her foot was propped up on her seat. He saw that her fingers were dark from the charcoal and that she was working on a drawing much like the one in the sketchbook he'd stolen.

"Did I interrupt your doodling?" He asked.

Emily peered up at him with a humored smirk, her wispy fly-aways falling in front of her face. "Charcoal drawings — and yes, in fact, you almost blew out my eardrums."

He noticed the soft pink backdrop behind her, the walls had been painted before she'd even stepped foot in this new house. Everything about her was so fluorescent, like a sea of spring pastels floating on top of a dreamy blue sky, a soft summer sunset.

"Did you call just to watch me 'doodle'?" She asked without ever taking her eyes off of the parchment laid out in front of her.

Judd was only sitting in his room when he'd decided to make the call. Wild lavender sprigs in a video game had reminded him of her earlier in the evening and ever since then he couldn't smoke enough to push her out of his brain.

"Is that okay?" He asked.

She looked up at him again, suspiciously, and then started working with a smudge stick to add depth to her piece. "I guess, but I don't think you'll find it very exciting."

"Yeah?" He said. "You don't know shit about what I find exciting."

Emily stopped, her hand was beginning to cramp up and now was a good break point in her work. She rolled her wrist and leaned back in her chair, giving Judd a nice look at just how far the neck of her tank top dipped.

"Tell me then."

Judd's breath hitched in his throat. He didn't like the cock of her eyebrow paired with the tone in the voice — bratty — as if she were challenging him. He found it annoying, but at the same time so painfully adorable.

"Come over and I'll show you."

She laughed, "Jeez, you really do wanna see me in a load of trouble, huh? They'd have a police report filed before I even made it there."