Your head spun as you came down off your high. The homey apartment you were in turned into a dark Alley. The kitchen, a dumpster. The living room, stray garbage bags with leaky juice. The sun was coming out and the sky was red. You needed a drink but had none near. Your battered clothing was filthy and if you tried to filter storm water through it, you'd end up with more sickness than unfiltered.
3 years you had been on the streets. High on LSD every other day. You always saw the world as better with its hallucinations. You weren't kicked out by your parents for being gay, you weren't 19 and on the streets, you weren't constantly starving. You got all your money from singing at the alley. People dropping pocket change in your broken bowl.
You sang any song you knew. They were not new, if they came on the radio people called them a modern day classic. Such as Rude, Royals, applause, etc. It was all you could do. You were lucky if a while day of singing got you 5 bucks.
"Why you gotta be so rude.. don't you know I'm human too.. why you gotta be so rude.. I'm gonna marry her anyways.." You sang as business men dropped change in your bowl and small children pointed at you. Your hair a mess and uncut. You couldn't grow a beard at least. You noticed a male was leaning against a pole watching you.
"Stay with me... cause you're, all I need. This ain't love, I swear you'll see. But darling, stay with me" You sung and once the crowds of business walkers cleared, you gathered your change and count it. You sighed as you only had 3 dollars and couldn't even afford a bottle of water. You put the coins in a drawstring bag.
"Hey, what's your name?" The man from the pole asked as he was now in front of you and crouched down. You told him and he nodded "well... here" the man said and handed you 100 dollars. He had tan skin and brown hair, his hair was in a man bun and a camera was around his neck.
"I- I can't take this. It's too much" You said.
"How long have you been on the streets?" He asked curiously tilting his head as he put the bill in your bag.
"3 years" You responded, then he asked why "I was kicked out for being gay" You shrugged. It didn't hurt anymore. He looked mad and you worried he was going to beat you up.
"That's a bitch. Here, you can come crash at my house until you can get a job" He offered his hand and you looked at him in shock and fear. This was a murder case. "Come on. I have a shower, food, drinks, some friends that will gladly help you out" He clarified. Against your better judgement, you got up and followed him. He led you to a nice sports car and you got in the back careful not to dirty anything. The man drove peacefully with some rap music on as he did.
"Wh-Where are you taking me" You asked a little fearfully and he laughed a kind laugh and pulled into the gated driveway of a mansion. He let you out of the backseat and walked you to the door. It was only noon.
"This is my house. I share it with my friends." He said unlocking the door. The house was really nice and a black dog ran up to the man and jumped up to lick his face. The man laughed calling the dog 'navi'
"Corey there you are. I was worried" a girl said walking up, you hid behind the man. The girl noticed you but kissed Corey first.
"Who's this?" She asked gesturing to you. You hid slightly more behind your rumpled clothing. Corey introduced you and explained how he found you. The girl, now introduced as Devyn, nodded.
Corey led you to a shower and told you to get in and you did, lucky that it worked the same as the gym showers you snuck in to. It felt good to shower again. Corey came in with shielded eyes and dropped off some clothing. When you were done you changed into the clothing, you looked in the mirror and saw the sweatshirt had a cartoon version of Corey's face on it and some basketball shorts. Your hair was about 12 inches longer than it should be and you had a lot of cuts and bruises on your face and neck as well as hands. A lot of fighting on the streets.
You left the washroom intent on finding Corey again and found him playing a video game. You sat next to him but on the floor. Petting a small dog that had long brown hair. "You look good in my merch. I see you have met buddy" Corey said between matches of his game and you nodded laughing as the small dog licked your face all over.
"So the others are not home right now. Just my girlfriend and the dogs. They should be back soon. We do youtube for a living so it's a lot of filming I hope you're okay with that." Corey said worriedly and you nodded.
"I used to run a youtube before I was kicked out" You mumbled, you pawned all your equipment for food and LSD money. You were not proud of that.
"I'm sure the others would be glad to help with getting it back up and running. What was it called?" Corey asked switching the TV screen to YouTube and the search bar. You said your username and he looked it up. You had an early vlog/challenge channel with just over 100k subscribers. Most comments on your latest videos were theories that you had died because your last video was "coming out to my parents"
"Hm. Jeez you've been gone long. You can borrow one of our cameras for a video for your return later, if you want. We are all YouTuber's so we get it." Corey offered and you smiled nodding. Corey clicked the video and began to watch your coming out video. Your parents were not accepting even on camera.
"No son of ours will be gay. I want you out of the house by morning faggot" they cursed and you sighed looking down. Corey was mad.
- - - - -
Soon the house was filled with unfamiliar faces and you buried your face in your knees as you waited for the noise to stop. Corey was laughing with some guys named Sam and Colby, you had never seen them before.
"Anyways, who is this?" You heard from a little bit away. You looked up to see a pink haired guy looking at you with an open hand gesturing towards you. Corey introduced you and explained the situation that you were homeless but not why. The pink haired lad nodded and came over and sat next to you.
"This house is always loud. You'll get used to it. When it's quiet then something is about to go down. There's always people yelling at video games or at their cameras and throwing each other in the pool. But you learn to block it out. A good pair of noise cancelling headphones should help. I'm Jake, I live in a smaller room upstairs. Wanna come see?" Jake offered after talking without your responses. You looked to Corey to see if it was safe and Corey had been watching the whole time. He nodded with a smile. He seemed protective of you, which calmed your nerves. You nodded to Jake and the pair of you went upstairs. Jake talked about how his videos were all crazy and expensive or funny. His room had pink walls too and a small lamp for light. His bed had some boxes on it which he took off so you two could sit down.
"What did you do for a job before you became homeless?" Jake asked curiously.
"Youtube. I wasn't very good but I had some good fans" You explained a little nervous. Jake nodded. You showed him a video on his laptop off your youtube. An old one where it was your friends and you doing some skate tricks and yelling profanities if you got hurt. Jake thought it was very funny.
Those friends had abandoned you when you came out, and if not at that time then they abandoned you when you asked for help. You had truly been alone for three years. You never finished high school, you never even finished anything you wanted to. You never kissed anyone properly, and you never had a boyfriend. So much of your life passed by as you sat on the streets with an old hat and a high mind. Your LSD had long worn off and you knew you'd be going through withdrawal tomorrow. But you'd gone through it before alone. You couldn't afford it for a month then you got a new dealer with a free trial and you were back to trouble.
After the video Jake sated asking a lot of questions. Why did you start youtube? Why did you decide on vlogs? Where'd you meet your friends? Until a question you were dreading came up. "Why did you stop?" You sighed a little and showed Jake your coming out to your parents video. The boy was sad as he watched your parents yell, but he hugged you afterwards.
From then on things got better. Jake let you use his older camera, and Sam lent his lights sometimes. The whole house was nice to you and as weeks went by you showed up in more and more videos. In the background or as a prank victim. When you started updating your youtube again you gained thousands of likes and comments in minutes. Your withdrawal period made you anxious but you were distracted enough from it that you were safe from the bad hallucinations.
2 months into your arrival at the house the boys announced you as an official house member. And everyone knew you were gay. Since you came out you had found that some of the guys would stare at you. Corey was protective of you still, Colby was just curious of how you acted because he liked to observe. Jake was different. Jake stared like a predator. Waiting for his moment.
A Thursday afternoon in month 3 was when everything changed. Corey had a dance thing to go to, Devyn went with him. Sam and Colby were in Ohio exploring, Aaron was in Texas visiting family. It was you and Jake home alone. You decided to take this time to film. You filmed a video where you accepted a subscribers challenge of 'how many colours of hair chalk can fit in your hair?"
On your 50th shade you looked at your door as Jake passed the garage and a laughed as he froze. "Jaaaaaaaake can you help me. I can't tell if the turquoise is actually doing on." You jokingly whined. Jake walked in your room looking starstruck, he helped you get the turquoise ColorPop hair chalk in.
"Holy shit how many colours are here?!" He asked looking at the side table that was littered with different brands of hair chalk. ColorPop had 20, some indie brand had another 14, another had 30, one had 16 in just pink, and the final had three shades of glitter.
"80 plus glitter. Can you help me get the rest of hair with the other colours?" You asked with pleading eyes and Jake nodded. You talked about the challenge, about today's events, etc. Turns out you didnt have room for the glitter ones so you forced them on to Jake's hair.
"Hey what the!" He called out as you rubbed the condensed powder container on his still-pink hair. His hair glittered with holo.
"Oops. I gave you my gay" You joked and Jake laughed but then smirked. You tilted your head curiously.
"Yeah... you did" then, in a swift movement he cupped the left side of your face and his lips were on yours. After a second of recovery you kissed back. Hair chalk powder flew everywhere as hands tangled in hair and then the camera made a beep meaning it was full of space
Less editing for you.