Realistic or Modern Auburn Springs

[ohdittoh]

CHELSEA KADER FREUD

the fucking king

Dexter’s body still quivered in Chelsea’s arm. Dex’s eyes were leaking tears, his jaw clenched tightly. “Why?” Dexter’s anger burned so hotly that Chelsea could feel it emanating from him. It was palpable; he felt as if it had its own capability, its own presence. It was a beast, a beast who was clawing at the back of Dex’s teeth, and Chelsea was watching his best friend struggle to cage it, struggled to hold it back, struggled to try and control it. “Why did you tell me that?"

Chelsea’s own anger pulsed in his throat, threatening to lash out as well. Chelsea drew in a deep, shaky breath. “Because you told me,” he said, his angry voice teetering on the edge of breaking. “You told me I could trust you.” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to lose everything for me— you’re not doing that shit—“ His voice broke, and he looked at the fire, drawing in a breath in a shoddy fucking attempt to calm himself, like that ever fucking worked, like that was ever worth fucking doing.

The fuckheads— it was all their fault. It was all the fucking Bridgers’ faults.

"You're wrong," Dex snarled. "I need to help you. Just let me help you. Let me fix it..."

“No,” Chelsea repeated firmly. “No.”

"You don't understand." A look of hurt passed over Dex’s face. "You don't know what it's like!" he shouted, taking his hands off of Chelsea. Chelsea dropped his arm from his shoulder, staring into his glaring eyes, his heart stilling in his chest.

He hadn’t seen that look in his eyes since he’d nearly taken someone else’s life, since their blood had dripped from his fist, since Chelsea had pulled him off of them and Dexter had stared blankly into his eyes for a moment— blankly into his eyes as if he were blind, as if he couldn’t see anything but red.

The gruesome memory came along with a visual, along with an image of Dexter, long shadow cast by the overhanging streetlamp, fist dripping blood.

"You don't know how it feels to have someone give up everything for you!” His voice was raw, angry. “You've never had to sit on the sidelines as someone destroyed themself to pick up your fucking mess!”

“It’s not your fucking mess to clean up!” Chelsea snapped angrily, raising his voice.

His anger had boiled over and spilled.

He balled his fists up, glaring out at the fire and lowering his voice again. “I don’t want to know what it’s like— you’ve held my life once, and I don’t want you to have to hold it again.”

Dexter, in Chelsea’s periphery, seemed to crumble once more. Chelsea looked over at him. “Fuck, man,” Dex choked, his voice fading, "I know that night sophomore year weighs on you. And we never fucking talk about it and that just makes it feel so much fucking worse." He locked eyes with Chelsea, the tears in them sending a shock through his head; Dexter was fucking broken over this— over something that wasn’t even his to worry about. "Because I can hardly remember it. And you saw every little thing."

“That’s not important now,” Chelsea said softly. “I did what I did then because I wanted to— because doing that was the only way that I could help you.” He looked away from Dex and out to the fire, staring at its dancing flames. “Because you couldn’t help yourself.”

The fire paled in comparison to that anger that he’d seen in Dex’s eyes.

If he didn’t calm Dex down, then he knew— he knew that Dex would take this into his own hands.

He would do what he did sophomore year, but, this time, he would do it for a friend— a brother.

And this time, Chelsea knew for sure that he wouldn’t be able to stop him.

“Me?” Chelsea said. “Dex, I can handle this.”

Dex leaned in, voice a frantic whisper, and Chelsea met his panicked gaze.

Seeing that look in Dex’s eyes…

That…unknowingness.

Chelsea felt it to his fucking core.

“You think just sitting and taking it is gonna make them stop? None of that matters. We just... we just have to fucking show them, Chels. We have to really, really make them hurt, and then…”

Dex’s breathing was labored, his whole body shaking.

”We make them know what they did and that they can never do it again. Not to anyone. But especially you, man. And Mer."

He sniffled. "I fucking love you guys."

Chelsea sat for a moment, the words that he wanted to say and the pleas that he wanted to make not coming into words.

His expression said it better, with his wet eyes and his clenched jaw.

Chelsea was…

He didn’t fucking know.

He looked down at the grass beneath the log he was seated on.

“I don’t fucking know what I can do, Dex,” he said, voice low and nearly mumbled. “If I knew what to do, then I wouldn’t say a fucking word to anyone.”

He looked up at his best friend, the one person in the world who he knew he could count on, regardless of anything, the one boy whose trust he’d questioned little more than minutes ago who now was ready to…kill for him. “Dexter, look at me,” he demanded, and when he met his eyes, he lost his words.

He lost his whole speech.

His eyes grew wet.

“I— I…”

He grappled with his thoughts.

His expression collapsed, his brows pulling downward, his eyes rimming with tears.

“I’m fucking...scared.”

The words formed themselves on his tongue, raw, angry, and straight from his soul.

“I’m scared, okay?” He shook his head, angry at himself, angry at everyone else who had made him this way, angry at— angry at fucking everything. “It’s fucking embarrassing; I’m scared.”

He looked up at his friend once more, voice firm and certain, despite the fear written in his eyes and the anger he was holding back. “Dex, they’ll do anything to take me down. They all but killed me last time. And next time? I was promised that it wouldn’t just be me. You can…look back at that night all you want to, but don’t see it as you owe me.”

He tried to control his anger so that his voice didn’t raise in volume, eyes flicking away to the fire for a moment. “You don’t owe me shit. You’re not risking your neck, your everything, for this, for me.” His eyes moved back to his friend. “Dex, they’ll hurt you— fuck, they’ll kill you.”

He turned his head, focusing on the fire as he began to spoke, throwing away his filter, throwing away his motives. “They promised to hurt Mer.” His voice, though low, was furious. “You think they won’t hurt you because you thought they were your friends?” He chuckled bitterly. “They think you’re a dumbass who can’t think for himself, who can’t handle himself, and they don’t see you valuable enough to not take you out.” The image of the fire before him flexed and bent, smearing into colors as his eyes wetted again. “I’m not kidding.”

His body was growing more and more tense by the second, his jaw clenching tighter, his brows lowering further and further. “You think I’m exaggerating? You think I’m lying? You’ve been face-to-face with fate, too. Even if it was the blood on your hands, you’ve been there, too. I don’t want to be there again, fuck, but you? If you died, I don’t know what I would do. If Mercedes got hurt, I don’t know what I would fucking do. It would be all my fault, all my shit to clean up that I couldn’t clean up.”

He looked over at his friend again, every bit of his soul written in his gaze. Rage, sadness, defeat, assuredness, firmness, commandingness. “Dex, you’re not doing that for me. It’s my fault— all this is my problem.”

No one had done this except for himself.

No one had gotten him there except for himself, and no one could get him out but himself.

“What’s a king if he can’t crush the rubble beneath his feet? Nothing. A puppet, a fraud,” he spat, looking down his fists, clenched on his thighs. “But what’s a king if he sends the people he cares about to be crushed in his place? Scum. Fucking scum. Better off dead himself.”

His words were acidic, all aimed at himself more than Dex.

He lifted his eyes, his expression much softer, his tone much weaker, his eyes much wetter. “If I did that— if I let you do that for me, I’d be no better than them. If you did that for me, you’d just be giving them what they wanted. You realize that, right?” He chuckled softly. “Last time, I cleaned your mess up for you, but, if you do that, then I can’t clean it up, because it was my mess to begin with, my mess that I have no idea how to begin to clean in the first place.”

Out to the fire did his eyes go once more.

He swallowed, forcing back his tears, and he exhaled shakily through his mouth. “When I think about it, all I see is red.” His usually stoic voice was now pensive, broken. “All I see is their blood on my hands and me standing over their bodies. If I’m lucky, in my imagination, I leave none of them alive.”

He barely breathed his next sentence. “And then comes the aftermath, the part where they send their cronies, their so-called friends to cut the ankles of my sister, or worse, her neck. And then I have to get out of my head before I watch her die, before I watch her struggle and wheeze like...sophomore year.”

He looked over at Dex, a tear escaping his eyes. “Before I watch her become what he became, Dex. Before I watch her become worse.”

He shook his head, sinking his shoulders and head and closing his eyes. “As much as I play like I am— fuck. I’m not strong enough. I’m not strong en—” His voice broke, and, when he tried to speak, he could barely choke his next words. “I’m just not fucking strong enough. And I’m not weak enough to let you get hurt for me. All that would do would hurt us all in the end.”

He lifted his head, his expression suddenly relaxing as he sat back on his spine. His cold, stoic tone returned, though his voice was much quieter, much weaker. “I don’t know how to get out of this. Being a pawn makes me nauseous and angry and— they’re using my sister as a game piece, too, and—“ He shook his head slightly. “I…don’t know what else I can be. Hurting them gets me hurt, and my sister. You hurting them gets you hurt, and my sister. It’s checkmate, all the fucking way around.”

The king is trapped.

He looked to Dex, and the only word that was written in his bottomless wet eyes was hopelessness.

“They might have won, Dex— they might’ve already fucking won.”

mood
the truth

location
the bonfire

outfit
casual wear

playing...
gives you hell

by the all-american rejects​

mentions
ren, sly, dani (not by name this post, but the whole situation with them)

interactions
dex

tags
hery

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

mood: drugs
outfit: some of the contents of his floor
location: the forest outside of the bonfire
mentions: n/a
interactions: drake
tags: Winona

DONNA CAIN CAMUS

❯ 1 the disappointment™

(tw: heavy drug usage, drug effects; a downer of a post, in general)

Donna Cain Camus was used to being alone.

He was used to stillness, to numbness. He was used to staring at blank ceilings and watching the world throb and pulsate with colors that he knew would fade as soon as his body filtered through the drugs. He was used to watching his eyelids as his nerves lost contact with his body. He was used to moving through the bleak world with his wide, tired eyes and pale skin, blending into the background, and being alone, even in crowd of people.

Now, as he lowered himself to sit crosslegged beside the other boy, the other loser, the other burnout, the other flop, the other meaningless nobody, Donna realized that he didn’t felt just as alone as before, but he was, at least, alone together.

Life was still as meaningless as it had been when he arrived, life would still be as meaningless as it was now by the time that he drove home. He would never feel anything, and could never feel anything, and no one in the world cared about him.

But he knew now that there was at least someone out there who knew the same shit that he did. Who lived the same shit that he did. Who breathed it, but who probably could barely feel himself breathing it. Whose heart beat it, but who probably could barely feel his heart beating it. Whose pointlessness flowed within his veins that Donna knew he probably wasn’t even sure that he still had.

The boy who was lining up Donna’s precious drugs, the only thing even slightly holding him to this world, with an expired gift card, the way that Donna had before he had done with the contents of another, much smaller bag when he’d awakened this morning, the contents of which his nose was still a bit raw from…that boy was the only one who Donna could honestly say or think or even begin to imagine knowing anything like the hell that he had lived, knowing anything like that sinking feeling that Donna felt every single second of every single day, except at the very peak of his highs.

Alone, together. The two of them were alone, together.

"It's your shit, so...you first."

Donna looked at Drake, his eyes studying him for a moment, considering whether the other boy really wanted it or not before deciding that it didn’t matter either way. He hadn’t meant to be ingesting the whole bag tonight. He’d separated it for a couple of uses, but…fuck it.

Tonight, he needed the numb. Just…thinking about how his life could never get better, thinking about how…low it was, he needed more.

Destruction. He craved it. It itched at his veins, tugging at his nervous system.

The craving.

Now that it was before his eyes, even though he had some of it dwindling in his system, he wanted it— all.

Glancing to his right, Donna shifted to push his body back against the back of the driver’s seat, several discarded bags and cardboard cups toppling and following and crunching, to Donna’s indifference. His hand found a discarded, short, stained, striped, thin straw with a jagged edge, cut at a diagonal. He couldn’t remember when this was from or where it was from, but it didn’t matter.

He knew what it was for.

He leaned forward, holding the straw beneath his left nostril as he set his eyes on the line before him. Pressing his finger to his other nostril, he inhaled deeply as he made his way up the line, trying to get in as much as possible as quickly as possible, used to the pain and the scratching that felt like it was going to bump out his eyes. Lifting up, he leaned himself back against the driver’s seat, tilting his head back and slowly lowering his finger and the hand that held the straw, his eyes closing as the pain from the ingestion subsided. He stretched his legs out until his feet hit the back of his truck.

Number. That would make him number.

He held the straw out for the other boy.

“Your go,” he said in his cold voice, “Drake.”

The name felt weird in his mouth, and he realized that he hadn’t said it this whole time.

As Drake took the straw from him, Donna opened his eyes, looking over at the other boy with his neutral, sad expression, and, as he watched him do what Donna himself had done, he couldn’t help but think:

This must be friendship: two miserable, burned out souls in an uncaring, aimless world.

How pointless this all is.

But how nice it feels.

As he turned his eyes to the ceiling, the boy so high that he could barely feel his body already began to anticipate the upclimb of the drugs that he’d just put into his system, hoping that he would become number and number and forget this world more and more as blood that he couldn’t even feel ran down from his nose and to his cracked lips, dribbling into his tastebuds that could hardly even taste the metal.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[gh0stwriter]

mood: betrayed
outfit: shirt and pants
location: en route to bonfire
mentions: lola
interactions: dani and murph
tags: jasmyn @geminiy

Lincoln Bello

❯ 1 the fence™

Yeah...so...this wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He’d planned this out in his head. Hundreds of times. He knew how he’d react to any and every possibility of Ryan Murphy coming back into his life. At least, he thought he did. This...wasn’t on the agenda and it definitely wasn’t playing out like it did in his head.

Ryan was supposed to be remorseful. There was supposed to be some grand gesture of apology. He was supposed to admit that ditching him...that leaving him behind was the worst mistake Ryan Murphy had ever made.

Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.

But it was fine. Lincoln was over it. He’d been over it. He wasn’t going to sit and dwell on the past when his future was up for grabs. No, sir. He was not going to get roped into caring again. He couldn’t. He really fucking couldn’t.

They were just friends. Acquaintances at this point. He’d play nice, for Dani’s sake. She’d been there practically his entire life. And while he was sure she’d side with Ryan if it came down to choosing sides, she was one of his best friends. One of his only friends.

“We should uh, we should get going.”

Relief washed over Lincoln. Yes. They should get going. The sooner this night began, the sooner it would be over and he could just go back to pretending that Ryan didn’t exist. At least until the next time he saw him...fuck it. He was over it, right? He nodded toward the other boy and revved his bike awaiting Ryan’s lead.

Ryan took off down the familiar streets and, like always, he and Dani trailed behind. They reached Auburn Springs and a chill ran down his spine. It always did when he was in this neighborhood. It felt off. Like he didn’t belong here. Not like, he didn’t belong here and every minute spent there was dragging him deeper and deeper into a nightmare he couldn’t escape from.

Confusion set in as they detoured away from the coast. Either their fearless leader hit his head too many times or they were making a pit stop prior to their appearance. The three came to a stop. The neighborhood was...nice. Nothing like the one he currently resided in, but still miles above anything they could find in Ambridge.

He took a deep breath as he watched Ryan annoy one of the neighbors and couldn’t hide the amused smirk that formed on his face when the old lady slammed the door on his face. He really was a fucking moron and Lincoln hated that it made him feel...anything. “Any clue what we’re doing here?” He said glancing over at Dani.

Ryan hopped a fence. He wouldn’t be stupid and actually commit another crime so soon after getting out, would he? No. Ryan wasn’t that stu...okay...he was and he totally would, but he wouldn’t risk Dani or him without them knowing. He ran a hand through his hair as he looked around.

He didn’t like staying stationary. Not in a Springer neighborhood. Three kids on motorcycles were exactly what the crooked cops of AS looked for when meeting their quota and the last thing he needed was unwanted attention. He knew what they were doing there and his suspicions were proven accurate when Jess emerged from her house.

A girl. Of course it was a girl. Ryan loved to make an idiot out of himself whenever there was a chance at getting laid. But seriously? A Springer? Tonight. It was the first time in...forever that they were all going to hang out and the first time since the break-up or whatever and he decided to bring a date...a Springer date...when they were planning on wreaking havoc on the bonfire.

This was going to be a LONG night.

He shot Jess and half-assed smile barely wanting to acknowledge her existence. Did he mean that little to Ryan? Couldn’t have gotten a heads up? Or at least the decency of ditching him, but now, the guy decides to let his ex watch their first date with another person. Lincoln knew how to pick ‘em.

“Yeah...if we don’t hurry, we’re gonna miss all the fun.” He said as he started up his bike, avoiding any eye contact with Murph and Jess. Maybe he could sneak off once they got there.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Rx (Medicate)

Drake

TW: Drug use, sad stuff -- literally just a sad post in general

There was a little voice inside of him that was screaming. Just... blatantly trying to get Drake to wake up. Well, it wasn't like he was asleep -- obviously. But trying to wake up and have a sense of common sense. A sense of self-preservation. The little voice inside of him that was just trying to get Drake to give a fuck about... anything, really. Trying to get him to stop being so numb or so... so...

Him.

Ah, that was dumb, wasn't it? Trying to stop him from being him -- trying to get him to wake up... none of it really made a lot of sense. But it did. Drake always kind of felt like he was asleep -- like he was just sleepwalking, maybe. Like his life was just seen through a thin veil of sleep. Every sensation -- hearing, seeing, touching -- felt as if he were experiencing it with his head underwater. It was muffled.

Drake couldn't remember when he'd actually felt...

Awake.

Yeah.

Not numb.

Happy.

He watched, through that thin veil, as his new friend did what he'd done so many times before. Drake's nose twitched. He brought a hand up and rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand. It had been... how long since he'd done this kind of shit...? He'd mostly stuck to... pills and weed, and... yeah... that'd been great and everything, but it was just a matter of time before he was sliding back into doing this in the backseat of some guy's truck.

At least he knew this guy's name.

Donna. DC. Like Batman.

The boy's thoughts, typically a jumbled mess of rainbows and random tangents, had grayed. Now, there was nothing in his mind -- blank. His thoughts were blank. There was nothing but varying shades of gray and that little voice inside of him that was screaming out a million reasons of why he shouldn't do this, but the voice's reasons were muffled. Like there was cotton in its mouth, or it was trying to scream at Drake while he was submerged underwater.

He always felt like he was drowning, so it was definitely the second scenario.

“Your go,” Donna said, “Drake.”

His eyes flicked away from the lines of powder to meet DC's eyes and then he looked down to the straw in his hand. Drake swallowed, and then he reached out and took it. He examined it in his hand for a minute. It was crazy... to think that this straw would just... it was like... it was the key to his... freedom.

He rubbed his nose again, thinking about how raw he knew that his nose would feel after this. Drake knew that this one time would turn into two times and then three and then on and on until he was having nosebleeds all the time again.

But that was just a minor side effect to the euphoria that he knew he'd feel.

So Drake mimicked DC's movements. He wiggled his nose, and then he leaned forward, placing the straw against his right nostril with the other end against the line. He inhaled deeply, dragging the straw along the line, until it was gone. It burned, but he knew it was just a minor hiccup of pain. Pain that would subside and be replaced by a better high than he could ever achieve with weed or the pills.

He sat back up, dropping the straw to the seat between them. Drake wrinkled up his nose, sniffing. His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, his heart giving a solid pound in his chest as for a moment, that little voice won out and a wave of regret washed over him.

His eyes blinked back open and he looked at DC once again.

"You ever been to rehab?" It was a blatant question, a blunt question, but something about sitting here was bringing those horrid days back to him. "Or overdosed? Me... I have," he said and brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. "I uhh... yeah, right after freshman year, I kinda... yeah." He let out a small chuckle, his hand instead moving to his dark hair. He ran a hand over it, trying to smooth out the mop of matted hair.

| mentions: N/A | interactions: DC | tags: ohdittoh |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

IAN HANSEN

bad man > bad boy > good fish

the bonfire

scope the drip hahaha

zane

rory, jade, & lance

Winona jasmyn natsukashii

Shoplift? Ian echoed in his thoughts, brows raising slightly and eyes widening a bit before he resumed his grin. Rory was suggesting that they shoplift? Was she tryna be a bad boy, too?

N-No fun. That wasn’t a good idea— that wasn’t coooool enough, yeah, yeah!

Besides, he knew if he suggested that idea, then she’d wack him across the back of the head for it, ‘cuz she was mean like that.

It wasn’t like he was scared or anything. No, not him— he was, uh…he was a bad boy—

Wait, heck, come to think of it—

Shoplifting was…uh…freaking fun! That was, uh…that was what he meant. He, uh…wasn’t antsy about that idea at all, ‘cuz he was such a bad boy that he could get away with, uh…

Homocide or something?

Wait, frick, that was murder— Ian wasn’t crazy.

He could…uh, yeah! Shoplifting was great!

Lance’s scoffing at his ideas seemed to prompt Rory to speak up again. “Actually, fireworks doesn’t sound half bad.”

Lance rolled his eyes.

Was the big spooky wannabe baddie salty about the fireworks suggestion? Psh, look! Proof of how uncool he was.

Fireworks were the freaking fudging bomb— what was this guy on? Psh, seriously, he had such a stick up his ass! Obviously, Ian was the better option. So much badder, so much, uh…hotter, so much…uh, manlier. Look at him.

Plus, Lance like to have sex with goats or something. What a lame-o. The opposite of a cool guy. The opposite of a bad boy.

Lance was, uh— ooh!

Lance was a good fish.

Like Rory.

Except Lance was one of those big smelly ones who no one wanted to eat.

Or a minnow.

Zane fed him one of those once.

They tasted weird.

He’d puked.

There were carrot chunks and everything.

And then he tried to make him eat it and—

It was all gross. Blegh. Ew.

Lance was definitely a minnow.

Ian looked to Jade as Lance did as well, studying her expression. “Tell me you’re not into this idea, too, Jade?” Goatie Guy asked. "I mean, I'm not saying fireworks aren't nice to look at, but, unless we can score some roman candles and really make this a party, it's probably not gonna be that exciting."

Jade looked between his sister and Goat Guy as she answered. "Fireworks are great, but we've been there done that. It's a good plan, just not thinking big enough.”

Psh, right!

Ian nodded along, crossing is arms.

That’s what he’d been thinking this whole time.

“Tonight, we need something more interesting..." She looked around, her voice trailing off, and Ian followed suit, glancing around himself— though his eyes flicked to Jade every few milliseconds, ‘cuz if she stopped looking, then there would be no point in him looking. ‘cuz she was the bad man here. “Although…this place is crawling with Springers, so I say we fuck with them. Lola did mention something about a smoke and light show? Sounds small, but a decent warm-up.”

Ian blinked.

Fucking with the Springers?

Like…

The big guys?

He swallowed hard.

He wasn’t scared or anything! He’d done it at the fair…

It was hard to run from them, though. His thighs still hurt from running so far and so fast.

Psh, what was he talking about? Jade was here! He could handle them, even if Goatie Guy and Rory would weigh them down.

His smile shied a bit as he glanced at Lance again.

R-Right.

"Maybe after that, we can see what these fuckers keep in their fancy cars, or what do you think?" Jade pulled something out of her pocket— a weed stick thing. Ian didn’t know the technical term for it, but he knew his sister and Zane smoked it a bit and that he stole it sometimes. “Whatever we do, why do it sober?" A smirk came onto her lips, and she threw back her cup and pulled out a lighter to light the object.

As she breathed in some smoke, he stared in awe.

She was soooo coool. And so hot.

So cool and hot.

Like a stove, hahahaaaaaa.

He shook his head to pull himself from his awestricken-ness, and he grinned again. “Fuck with the Bridgers?” he said, his voice as soft as usual, and then he put his fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat, forcing himself to speak louder. “Hell yeah!” His voice was now nearly a yell, and he gave a soft, nearly sheepish laugh. “Fuck with the Bridgers,” he repeated, this time as a statement, crossing his arms to agree.

He walked closer to Jade, coming to stand at her other side. At 5’5”, Ian was just at Jade’s eye level, so coming to stand beside her didn’t really allow him to see the much taller Lance’s face straight ahead. Uh, not that Ian cared to look at him or anything. He, uh, came to stand beside Jade not ‘cuz he felt threatened or anything but ‘cuz he wanted to. Uh, ‘cuz Lance didn’t scare him! And Ian, uh, didn’t have any competition whatsoever, ‘cuz Lance wasn’t anywhere as near as cool as him.

Ian’s figure shrunk slightly as he looked up and met Lance’s eyes accidentally.

His cheeks reddened, and his ears got red hot, too.

He let out a sheepish laugh, and he looked to Jade again.

Being this close to her felt really cool. Like, her coolness was radiating off of her and onto him.

He grinned at her, though his grin was still kind of shy. “Can I have some of that?” he asked, holding his hand out for the burning object in Jade’s hand.

He took it in his fingers, staring at it.

He glanced at Jade to make sure that she was watching as he cooly and naturally breathed in the smok—

Ian began to hack, closing his eyes as he coughed what liiiittle bit of the drag he’d taken out.

Blegh! He’d forgotten about the taste.

And he was coughing a lot.

He finally cleared his throat, and he looked at Jade, eyes teary from the coughing, and he started to take another drag…

Well, uh, actually, he just kinda put it in his mouth and held it there and then puffed out his cheeks, ‘cuz he just remembered how much he didn’t like to smoke.

Giving her a thumbs up and nodding his head, Ian passed the object back to her, and then he turned his head away and his mouth by his hand, ‘cuz then no one could tell that he hadn’t smoked any at all.

He looked back to Jade with a grin. “Mm!” he said, as if he’d had something tasty. “Uh, g-good!”

REBELS

call me karizma

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

mood: drugs
outfit: some of the contents of his floor
location: donna's truck
mentions: mercedes
interactions: drake
tags: Winona

DONNA CAIN CAMUS

❯ 1 the disappointment™

(tw: heavy drug usage, drug effects, discussion of overdose and rehabilitation; a downer of a post, in general)

His companion spoke, and the words echoed through the abyss of Donna’s mind, resonating off of its wide walls and reverberating until the sounds became nothing nothing before Donna began to pick the pieces up and form the words into something sensical.

“You ever been to rehab?”

Drake had to have asked something like that.

Why would he ask such a thing…and so bluntly…?

“Or overdosed?”

Donna’s eyes didn’t leave the grey, carpeted ceiling of his truck as he listened to the noise coming from the other boy’s mouth. It was nonsense at first, and then Donna could piece it together into something that kind of made sense, and, by the time he got them there, the next noise was coming in.

“Me…I have.”

Donna slowly turned his head toward Drake, the dark hair on top of his head twisting oddly as it was pressed between his moving head and the back of his seat. His brows knit slightly, his neutral, sour expression growing slightly focused as he watched the attractive boy’s lips for his words.

“I, uh…yeah, right after freshman year, I kinda…yeah,” said Drake, and then he chuckled, running his hand along his hair.

Donna watched the younger boy, his eyes studying the movement of his lips. They were fuzzy, their outlines slightly doubled in the low light, and it occurred to him once more that he needed glasses, though they probably wouldn’t help too much.

It was probably due to the drugs, anyway.

He thought for a moment over the words, not saying anything, even though he knew the answers to the questions already.

Rehabilitation was something that his dad always pressed on him.

“Donna,” he’d say in his cold voice, grabbing his shoulder as if that demanded some kind of attention from him and holding out a shiny, fresh-looking pamphlet of some place like Heaven’s Meadow or Sunshine Valley, “I’ll pay for this for you. You need to do it.”

“Is that so…?” Donna’d always respond with, and then he’d walk away and his dad wouldn’t follow after.

I’ll pay for it. That was the best that his father could do: offer to pay, tell him what he “needed”, and then…leave him alone, leave him to go off and slowly kill himself, drag himself lower with every swallow, with every sniff, with every drop.

The slogans like we help you grow or moving past our mistakes beneath the large, pretty-lettered titles of the places were cheesy, and they were just as superficial as the words that his father gave him.

His dad didn’t care about him. Donna knew it; he was the least favorite of the children. Even if his father was always on his back, always…wanted to spend time with him, always tried to inject himself into his life, and all but disregarded Mercedes, Donna knew that it was all for show. It was all to save face. He did it because Donna was his son, and he didn’t want it to look like he wasn’t trying.

He did it because there was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very small chance that Donna could be who he wanted this to be, if he’d just “straighten up”—

But that chance wasn’t big enough for him to love him, even if he said that he did. That chance wasn’t big enough for him to care about him.

So Donna never considered rehab.

“No,” Donna said finally, his stone cold, raspy tenor voice. “I’ve never been to rehab. I’ve never had a reason to.”

“Help” would just be wasted on him, anyway.

Donna could never be more than an addict. Donna could never be more than a dead-eyed, coldhearted, ever-hungry addict.

That was his role in life— to be the disappointment. If anyone tried to “help” him, they’d find that out the hard way.

He couldn’t be “fixed”.

He couldn’t even start to be.

“My father’s held a few…’interventions’,” he admitted. “Those were a long time ago…when I first started, and he came into my room and caught me. He hit me across the face and threw everything out of my window, then went outside and lit it on fire…and it was one of the only times that I’d ever seen him angry, or emotional at all. But after that time, the next time he caught me and the next and the next, the less he cared, because, by then, he was realizing that…I was useless.”

He breathed out a sigh into the cold, stale air of his vehicle.

“I’ve never overdosed, either,” he said in his near-mumble.

He knew that he was clipping close. He could feel it.

It was taking more and more and even more these days to do anything to him, to even help to calm his shaking hands.

“You said that you did, though…” He studied Drake’s face again, though the finer details were lost int he blur.

He had something that he wanted to know, despite his lack of curiosity:

“How did it feel?”

How good was your high before you hit that ceiling?

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Rx (Medicate)

Drake

TW: Drug use, overdose, nothing good

“How did it feel?”

Drake's eyebrows knitted together. He shifted his position so that he was sitting back, his knees up in the cramped backseat of the truck, with his arms resting on top. He leaned back against the truck door, his head tilting slightly to the side as he let Donna's words roll around in his head. He leveled his gaze down at his hands, quietly contemplating, quietly thinking, quietly...

Trying to figure out how to answer that question.

Well... he'd found where the similarities between himself and Donna ended. They ended right here, because Donna wasn't a big enough idiot to end up in the position that Drake had been. Donna, believe it or not, had an ounce of self-control and a pang of jealousy shot through him -- because why couldn't that be him? Why couldn't Drake be capable enough to keep himself from such a stupid fucking mistake?

"It felt like..."

His mouth ran dry. Drake ground his teeth together as he tried to remember that night.

"I don't... know..."

His head tilted farther to the side, eyebrows drawing closer together.

"I can't remember," he admitted. His face relaxed, a vacant look clouding his pale eyes as he tried his hardest to remember. "I was uhh... I can't even remember what shit I was taking," he said with a chuckle as if the whole thing was somehow funny, "but then I remember... or well, I was told what happened. As best as they could figure, anyway, because the people I OD'ed with kind of just... fucking called the cops and left me."

He sniffed, absently rubbing at his nose with the back of his head.

Any minute now, the high should set in -- except the highs didn't have the same effects they once did. They didn't feel like they were transporting him to a world better than this one. They felt... less like that and more just...

Drake didn't know how to even put it into words.

"They said I had a seizure and shit -- I don't remember anything that happened before, and I barely remember what happened after. I remember waking up and Mason was pissed as fuck 'cause he was worried that they were gonna take Ari or some shit. And everyone was talking and yelling and then I was being told I was going to rehab. That I had some kind of fucking issue, and that they could help me."

He snorted, shaking his head in disgust. His lips curled up in disgust, but the vacant, far off look remained in his eyes as he now lifted his head so he could look at Donna again. The younger boy gave another shake of his head.

"I'm sure they help a lot of people, but... not me." He cleared his throat.

Born an addict, and he was going to die an addict.

That was his motto.

Drake cracked an uncomfortable, forced smile. "Sorry. Usually I'm way better fucking company than this. I can give you knock-knock jokes. Want a knock-knock joke? Knock-knock jokes are the life of a fucking party."

| mentions: N/A | interactions: DC | tags: ohdittoh |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

mood: this
outfit: some of the contents of his floor
location: donna's truck
mentions: n/a
interactions: drake
tags: Winona

DONNA CAIN CAMUS

❯ 1 the disappointment™

(tw: discussion of death/near-death experiences, heavy drug usage, drug effects, discussion of overdose and rehabilitation...just...a depressing, hopeless post, in general)

Donna had nearly drowned once.

He was fourteen, from what he could remember. His dark hair had been long and slicked-back then. His dad still often pried him from his bed, forcing him to come out with the family, despite the hollowness of his blue eyes and the gauntness of his face from his usage.

Donna sometimes referred to this time as when he cared, but he knew now that that wasn’t exactly true. The more accurate statement was back when my father still wasted his precious time on trying to get me to be normal, and, even then, it wasn’t like his father spent too much time on him. It had been dwindling month by month and day by day since he was...twelve? Thirteen...?

When had Donna even started using...?

He guessed that it didn’t matter.

He’d gone out to the pool one evening. He wasn’t exactly sure why; he probably had some reason other than the one that had overcome him whilst he’d sat by the pool’s side.

The night air was bitingly cold, but Donna wasn’t in his senses enough to be aware of the temperature around him. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were flushed as red as his eyes had been. The polo that he’d tugged on this morning now had a stain on its tail, and he scratched at it in the still atmosphere, though his wide, sad, blue eyes peered elsewhere— namely, the pale blue waves lapping at the side of the intricately-patterned ceramic tiles lining the sides of the in-ground pool. They made soft huffing and slapping noises as they bounced off of one another, as if they were small beasts, uncaged and in a large horde, fighting amongst one another for food that had been devoured long ago.

They were hungry.

As Donna lowered himself to sit on the concrete outside of the pool, crossing his legs, he reached a hand out to feel of the water. The slickness lapped at his wrist, the cold nipping enough to cause him to shiver. With his hand in the water, Donna could feel the waves of the water and detect their slight rhythm, and his eyes followed from his hand and up the other waves until they arrived at the jets near the diving board.

Standing once more, Donna moved mindlessly to the jets. Why, he wasn’t sure, but he settled himself beside the diving board, trying to reach his hand down to feel the jet itself.

When his hands found it, he kiddishly tried to grasp at the water coming from it, leaning his body down to get a better view of it.

He’d underestimated his weight, it seem.

When he had leaned down, his backside had lifted up, and his crossed legs tilted forward, and he had been so near the edge that his had been enough to plunge him into the six foot water.

He didn’t realize that he’d fallen in, at first. He was aware that he had nothing beneath himself and that he was sinking lower and lower by the second, but he didn’t realize that he’d fallen in—

And when he realized, he’d begun to panic.

He didn’t know how to swim.

He clawed at the water, kicking his back legs to try to push himself up, his hand hardly coming out above the waves. He held his breath, his bleary vision growing black around the edges as he struggled to somehow get out.

Finally, he had to breathe in water— gasp it in.

It burned like fire in his lungs, pressing at the back of his throat. It was like lava— molten, tearing at the bottom of his lungs as he kicked, desperate for life so suddenly. He wanted to vomit, but he couldn’t— his body was focused on surviving, grasping at the water as if that would help him.

And then, there was a body beside him, and he was being dragged up to the surface.

He wasn’t aware of it at first, either. He felt no arms around his waist, in his panic, or any pulling. He was only aware that he was no longer underwater, and, as he hacked up water, he became aware, as tears flooded into his eyes, that he could breathe again.

He was thrust onto the concrete face-first, and he weakly lifted himself onto his elbows and knees, body heaving as he vomited, body shaking, his eyes dripping tears. His ears rang, rattling and threatening to burst with each heave.

Quivering, he felt a weight on his shoulders, and he clenched his eyes and teeth, body convulsing.

His vision was too blurry to see anything; his ears were too noisy for him to hear anything. His body felt like it was shutting down as a wave of...something akin to relief washed over his body.

According to the newspapers, it was Chelsea who had saved Donna’s life. Donna hadn’t ever heard it from his brother’s mouth, but he knew that his father would have just let him drown.

Thinking now, with his eyes turned to the ceiling, Donna wondered how much longer he could have lasted, or how much longer it would have been before he was finally released.

It hadn’t felt pleasant to almost die. It had been torture— a taste of Hell— and some innate instinct had disallowed him from not fighting, from letting it all overcome him.

Was that the same near death that Drake felt? Or had he forgotten all of it?

Every last bit of the part near the end...?

Donna couldn’t help but wonder if it was as painful.

If Drake couldn’t remember it, then it couldn’t have been that bad.

“You forgot it...?” Donna asked, his brows knitting slightly, closing his eyes, his gravely tenor more quiet than usual. “Or did you just not feel anything when you got there...?”

He was moreso thinking aloud than asking him.

What Drake said about rehab, Donna understood, even without having stepped anywhere near one.

Men near death fight for their lives. Rage against the dying of the light, as the poem went.

Even those who knew how meaningless life was, like Donna.

Now, he was being told every day that he was “killing himself slowly” by the pamphlets littering his floor.

But he didn’t feel it.

He didn’t feel that pressing inside of himself as he had when he’d been in that pool— that sudden need to live.

And so, even though he knew he was probably coming close, Donna didn’t fully believe that he was going to die, or overdose, or anything like that—

Or, if he was, that it was anywhere near as unpleasant as this dreadful life he was living.

Drake laughed softly, and Donna opened his eyes to look over at him. "Sorry,” he said, the word gibberish for a moment before Donna’s brain unscrambled the mess of noise. “Usually I'm way better fucking company than this. I can give you knock-knock jokes. Want a knock-knock joke? Knock-knock jokes are the life of a fucking party."

A...knock-knock joke...?

The suggestion was so bizarre and random that Donna, after staring for a moment, let out a few barks of laughter, his lips curling into a smile for a few moments. His laugh was shrill, hoarse, and loud, the syllables as separated as ha-ha-ha.

It ended as abruptly as it started, his smile fading from his lips and settling back into its sour, neutral position.

“A joke...?” he repeated, voice still mildly bemused. The serious boy’s lips played at a smile once again at the thought.

“Sure,” he said finally. “Lay it on me.”

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Angel with a Shotgun

Rory

"Tell me you're not into this idea, too, Jade?" Lance asked Jade. "I mean, I'm not saying fireworks aren't nice to look at, but unless we can score some roman candles and really make this a party, it's probably not gonna be that exciting."

Rory wondered if anyone would actually miss this pathetic waste of a fucking human being. If she just... smash his face in, maybe broke his knee caps so he'd just shut the fuck up and stop trying to make their night even more dangerous... would anyone really miss him? Probably not, because no one really missed Bridgers when they were gone, except for maybe fucking Jade, but...

She'd find herself another fuck buddy in record time and then Lance would just be a whisper of a memory. Just a "what was that guy's name? You know, the tall one with the goat beard? Landon?" And then everyone would just shrug and he'd go on being not missed, and totally forgotten.

Haha... ha... Rory was just kidding. Totally kidding.

She gritted her teeth.

"This place is crawling with Springers so I say we fuck with them. Lola did mention something about a smoke and light show? Sounds small but a decent warm-up," Jade suggested. "Maybe after that, we can see what these fuckers keep in their fancy cars or what do you think?" she asked as she pulled out a joint. "Whatever we do, why do it sober?"

Because sober come out of this shit with all of their fingers.

Wow, Rory really was losing her touch. It had been easier when Ian had just been a kid -- he hadn't been so interested in all of this shit, so it had been easy to ignore him or to shove him aside, but now... well, now it was obviously getting much harder to do that kind of shit. It was getting much harder for her to keep his dumbass little self out of danger, and she'd been more wild back then.

The difference here was that Rory could obviously handle herself and Ian couldn't.

She didn't pay Ian much mind as he asked for the joint and, subsequently, choked on it -- other than to glance at him, one eyebrow raised in a kind of really? fashion. Ian wasn't impressing anyone with that, and she rolled her eyes before looking back at Jade and Lance -- you know, the mature adults of the situation.'

"So what?" She asked. "You want to break into their fucking cars or graffiti them or some shit?"

They would get caught and probably beaten to death by said Springers -- and Rory knew that herself and Jade could handle themselves, and probably Lance until someone said "you fuck goats" and he assumed fetal position on the ground, but Ian...

Ian couldn't take a hit. His bones would snap and crack like twigs.

But if she said no, they'd come up with something even dumber.

"Alright," she said. "I'm in. We could break into the cars, steal whatever expensive shit they left laying around in there, and then toss in some fireworks if you got them."

So much for staying safe there, Rory.

| mentions: N/A | interactions: Ian, Jade, Lance | tags: ohdittoh jasmyn natsukashii |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[jasmyn]

M O O D : "bonfire time, i guess."

O U T F I T : coming soon.

L O C A T I O N : bonfire.

I N T E R A C T I O N S : karmyn. mercedes.

T A G S : @le reveur Soap

How Valerie had gotten roped into riding in the same vehicle as Mercedes was beyond her. She would've much rather taken her own car rather than listen to Mer sing embarrassingly off-key for the millionth time. Hadn't they been tortured enough with the karaoke thing? Why did she insist on making them suffer more? Of course, Karmyn was too nice to put a stop to it and Val had somehow gotten put in the backseat (which was a crime itself) so she couldn't do it. When the song finally ended, Val let out a breath of relief, hoping that the girl wouldn't play it again.

"Drake? Mini Aladdin? Ew, why would you want to hang out with Rivera's little brother?" Val started, her face twisted in disgust. Look. It wasn't that Drake was half as annoying as the other bridgers but he was no good and definitely not good enough to be in Mer's inner circle. Val wasn't shocked that Mer liked Drake though, the girl often sold herself short. She was much better than half the people she associated herself with but Val wouldn't say that much out loud.

"He's great. I don't care about your dorky dumb rival things you got goin' on. He's seriously awesome and I'm totally inviting him to every concert I go to-- but like, you guys too of course. OGs, duh."

Val had a lot to say but for now, she would ignore Mercedes' and her idiotic school girl crush or whatever it was she had going on. Instead, she couldn't help but laugh when Karmyn got a little flustered at the mention of a certain redhead. The guy was cute, Val would give him that and despite his sister being a little more on the annoying side she thought that Karmyn and Coda would be sorta cute but Karm makes everyone look good so.

The thought was interrupted when, as they came to a halt, Mercedes leaned out of the window and yelled very loudly. "God, Mer. Don't you have any class?" Val asked as if she didn't already know the answer. No. None. "Seriously! You such a toddler sometimes. Pull yourself together. How are we even--" she stopped before saying the word friends. If she even uttered the rest of that sentence then Mercedes was sure to never let her live it down.

Val loves me. We are total bffs for life. Val and I are going to get matching tattoos. Yada yada yada.

Who knew what other lies the young girl would spread. Valerie didn't even want to imagine. Honestly, she felt sorry for CK having to live with Mercedes 24/7 because she probably would've ended up in a straight jacket by now if she did. It truly was an accomplishment that he was as sane and composed as he still was after all this time. Round of applause or whatever.

Valerie stepped out of the car, closing the door behind her and rolling her eyes at the embarrassment that was Mercedes Camus. Honestly, if she and Val hadn't known each other since they were young children, she probably would've already burned the girl at the stake for being such a social stain. Val couldn't deny her soft spot for the girl though and as much as it pained her, she cared about her too much to just drop her over such small indiscretions.

"Remind me again why we want to be out here in the middle of the night with the bugs and swamp creatures," she complained, the latter refering more to their peers than anything.

VALERIE FLORES

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Soap]

mood :

Idk

location :

Bonfire

outfit :

cold, casual and cute.

interactions :

Mason
Winona

Ambridge

Raven Rivera

“Don’t tell Dani.”

“It’ll hurt less.”

But for who was the question?

Mason later corrected himself and it set her in only a greater turmoil than she already was. Pondering whether or not to tell Dani was the sole reason for Raven’s stress— a small part of it being Sly’s wellbeing. But despite their relationship in the past, no matter how close the two kids were. The brunette had grown overly close to the pink-haired girl. A fateful meet that had both girls at each other's throat soon after to have a common enemy, the pair realized they weren't as different as they thought.

They clashed a lot.

But it didn't threaten their friendship, she didn't let it. Although now, it wasn't up to Raven. What if she told her and it changed everything? Dani wouldn't forgive her, and to be fair, if she was in her shoes... she probably wouldn't of either. "No, yeah. I won't." Raven didn't believe herself. It seemed like a girl full of honesty was beginning to crumble lie by lie.

The truth was, she didn't know what she was going to do.

But...

She didn't need to worry about it now.

Even if it was the only thing on her mind, threatening to break through every distraction focused on.

Raven needed a real distraction.

And what better distraction than a party?

--

She always enjoyed the concept of bonfires. Besides a terrible excuse to be social, back then they'd burn animal bones in an attempt to ward off evil spirits-- something you could easily find out by googling the concept of one, but Raven had learned that particular information from her grandmother. Who was seemingly a history scholar in her day. It's unfortunate that all her knowledge had withered away, only to be seen once in a rare while. The door to the Uber shut and Raven's gaze landed on one particular brunette that'd got her mind on multiple things so quickly Raven almost forgot what she was upset about.

She made a mental note to corner Valerie alone later that night.

Nothing more than a conversation, of course.

Wherever that led to, wasn't up to Raven...

It didn't take very long for her to snap her gaze away, deciding to focus on Mason-- to not get teased like a school girl who had a crush. "You think I could find a richie named Chas attempting to impress me with his money and alcohol, who'd then lead me to the golden keg? Full of distraction at my disposal?"

She didn't want to get plastered. But hey, if it happened... it happened. She wasn't a big drinker neither, but Raven knew how to have a good time. It was easy to let loose once in a while-- Mason was the overly serious one. It was no secret that the other Rivera was the one more likely to have a stick up his ass. Raven's hand brushed the top of Mason's head, removing whatever the hell that decided to nest in his hair. It was probably a random piece of lint. The guy was a lot of things, but despite popular belief, he wasn't musty.

A blonde had walked by and seemed rather curious about Mason, but taking in their distance between the two, her interest was lost almost instantly.

"That wasn't my fault."

... It was.

Didn't mean she was going to admit it. It wasn't going to matter if Raven was ten feet away from Mason, the blonde wouldn't of approached him anyway-- you'd had to take in your surroundings before approaching someone who you were moderately interested in. And if she did? She would've gave up instantly. No matter if there wasn't a romantic relationship between Mason and Raven.

She was simply more attractive than her.

Sorry, Barbie.

coded by reveriee.

 

[Winona]

Rx (Medicate)

Drake

TW: Drug use, overdose, nothing good

His face lit up into a characteristic grin when Donna actually wanted to hear his knock, knock joke. Sure, the dude was probably just being nice, but it was enough to bring a new light to his face. Bam, wham, thank you, ma’am, look at Drake go. He had just successfully spun this from a boring old boohoo yawn session of depressing-ness into a fun comedic journey. Drake was literally – get this – the best at uhh…

At ummm…

The light in his face faltered as he realized he wasn’t really the best at anything.

… But he was a master of spinning situations from their lowest point to an all new high. Yep. That’s what it was. That was exactly what he was a master of and don’t you dare start to question it because he would umm… well… Drake needed this small victory.

“Alright, alright… knock, knock.” Drake said. He impatiently waited for Donna to do his whole part of the joke thing. The whole “who’s there?” part, ya know.

“Broken pencil.” He responded, his body tingling with undue excitement for the killer punchline of this absolute tank of a joke. Like this joke was clearly peak humor and lucky for Donna that his new totally bestest best friend happened to know this absolutely greatest joke to ever exist, because he was going to get to know it, and then he could tell this joke to other people, and then those other people would be all “that’s amazing, good joke, Donna!” and he’d have to be all “oh thanks but my best friend Drake actually told it to me” and then they’d be like “who’s this Drake fella? He sounds awfully amazing and probably super hot.”

Drake’s ability to go from feeling as low as he just had to feeling as high as he now felt left something to be desired.

He was practically vibrating with excitement, his fingers tip, tip, tip-tapping against his legs, the grin on his face so wide that it was probably starting to hurt his lips.

“Never mind, it’s pointless.” He said, delivering the killing blow with a grin and a loud guffaw of laughter as if that was the funniest thing to ever be heard in absolute fucking existence. As if that was absolute peak humor.

(For Drake, it kind of was.)

“Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it?” He asked, each reiteration of get it quicker and more slurred than the last until the last get it sounded more just like git. “Funny, funny, funny, right?” Again, each reiteration of his rapid repetition grew faster and sounded less like an actual word than the previous one.

Drake let out another guffaw of laughter, this time even accompanied with a slight snort as if the entire thing was hilarious.

“Nah, usually I don’t do knock, knock jokes. I’m more of a cheesy pickup line kind of fella. There was this one guy and I was all ‘is your mom a beaver? Because dammmm.’ And he was all like, well like, he wasn’t at all amused and he kind of looked a little bit scared and kind of like,” Drake parted his lips slightly, eyes widening, to try and mimic the look of confusion, shock, and discomfort on the victim of his pickup line. “Anyway, I don’t know if it was because he was just so taken aback by how freaking good that pickup line was or if it was just because he was all like… like, ya know, like… well I spilled my beer on myself and tried to spread it across the floor with my shoe like that would work. And then I may have like, introduced myself, but I kinda forgot how to speak, or I like forgot my name or somethin’ because I quacked at the man.”

He let out a soft sigh, shaking his head sadly at the memory. What a night that had been one – one that Drake very hardly even remembered in the least.

“What about you, huh? You got any jokes? Or are you always like just not one of those jokey types? Mason’s like that. He’s not a jokey type person. Like I don’t think he’s a super big fan of my jokes, even though my jokes are super top tier.”

He kept on rambling and rambling.

| mentions: N/A | interactions: DC | tags: ohdittoh |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

mood: drugs
outfit: some of the contents of his floor
location: the forest outside of the bonfire
mentions: mercedes, theo
interactions: drake
tags: Winona

DONNA CAIN CAMUS

❯ 1 the disappointment™

(tw: drugs, effects of drugs)

The smile that came upon Drake’s face was wide. Happy.

Excited, even.

It was enough to make a burning, tingling vine wrap around Donna’s throat. It constricted, making it difficult to breathe for a moment.

He knew it just a bit too well:

Envy.

It was the feeling that he’d gotten when he had stared out at the fair-goers during his chat with Theo. That…searing, that want to be…them.

The people who smiled.

Drake was miserable, like him. Drake was a druggie, like him. Drake was a nothing, like him.

But he still envied him, because he could smile.

Even as the light faded from Drake’s face, the vine remained around Donna’s throat, digging its thorns into his neck.

“Alright, alright…knock, knock.” Drake’s voice was just as much of an echo as it had been, and it took a moment for the sounds to become unscramblable and a moment longer for Donna to unscramble them again.

“Who’s there…?” Donna asked, his fried voice as uninterested as always.

“Broken pencil.”

Donn looked toward the ceiling. The moving boy whose motions were flickery in the low light was too hard for him to look at. He closed his eyes slowly, swallowing the little bit of spit that had gathered in his dry mouth as he tried to suppress the envy that still had its clutches on his throat. “Broken pencil who?”

“Never mind, it’s pointless,” Drake said, and Donna could hear the same grin in his voice that he heard when Mercedes told the same kiddish jokes. He let out a loud laugh, as if that was the funniest thing to ever be heard in absolute existence— as if that was absolute peak humor.

“Get it, get it, getit, gett, git?” His words squished tight and tighter together as he went on, and Donna’s slow cognation couldn’t quite keep up. “Funny, funny, fuh, right?”

Donna wasn’t certain if he was speaking English anymore, but there was something about his excitement and laughter that roused a smileless huff of amused air from his nostrils.

The envy grew tighter around his throat.

Drake was boyish. He was who Donna was supposed to be.

Who Donna was supposed to be.

Donna wasn’t even good at being a fucking failure, it seemed.

Drake continued speaking, and Donna’s ears only hitched on words here and there to unscramble. Pick-up lines…spilling beer…general awkward situation…

Quacking…

It was a lot, and Donna couldn’t quite keep up.

Instead, he studied Drake’s expressions, which shifted from excited to…panicked, or perhaps pained…to excited again…to saddened, perhaps by the memory he’d just relayed to him.

Drake was…interesting.

Drake was simply interesting. Far more interesting than Donna. Far more amusing than Donna. Far more attractive than Donna.

Somehow, Donna was still…less.

Less fun, because he was no fun. Less interesting, because he was boring.

Less.

Drake let out a soft sigh, shaking his head slightly before turning his questions to Donna. “What about you, huh?” he asked. “You got any jokes? Or are you always like just not one of those jokey types? Mason’s like that. He’s not a jokey type person. Like, I don’t think he’s a super big fan of my jokes, even though my jokes are super top tier.”

What about him?

Donna breathed out a long breath, closing his eyes again but keeping his head toward Drake. In the darkness of his eyelids, he could find no more clarity than he could in the darkness around him. “I don’t know what I am,” he said slowly in his scratchy tenor voice. “I don’t…laugh a lot, I guess, but I like jokes. I’ve been told I have a very dry sense of humor, but…I don’t know.” He let out a long breath into the cold air. “Your knock-knock joke was…cute.” Not in a flirtatious way, either. He’d found it…quaint. “But I don’t know of any jokes that make me…laugh. Mostly ones that I think oh, that’s clever.”

In other words: I’m bland, boring, and pretentious.

“I can appreciate pick-up lines as well…,” he said. “I’ve not got the greatest delivery of them. Usually they come out…stilted.” Like a robot, one girl had remarked, when she’d overheard him trying to throw one into a conversation. “I’m not really a comedian…”

He paused a long moment, sitting entirely still and listening to the sound of the stillness— to the sound of the nothing.

He became aware of the heat coming onto his forehead, then of the thudding in his chest.

A couple of slow waves washed over him, one that caused his body to tense up quickly and then one that caused him to wholly relax. They swirled as they flooded over his veins and his thin skin, pooling in his chest before draining to his head and giving him that long-awaited feeling, that…euphoria.

That relief.

The drugs seemed to be kicking in, finally.

The minutes that he had waited seemed as if they were years away suddenly, and wholly worth it.

He trailed off, looking back to the ceiling, a small, satisfied smile coming onto his face as the contented thoughts the drug caused flowed through his head. “Alright…,” he began, his unpleasant, nasal, gravely voice sounding as if he were talking into a cave to his own ears. It was warmer than usual, most likely due to what was finally flooding into his bloodstream. “One day, Einstein had to…talk at a…science conference…and, on the way there, he looked at his driver and said…’I’m tired of speaking at all of these conferences. I always repeat the same things at all of them, and it’s getting old.’” He paused for a moment, sliding his thin hands up from the carpet to rub the tail of his sweatshirt between his fingers. “The driver looked at him with a nod and said to him, ‘You’re right…ya know, I’m your driver, and I’ve gone to all of them. Even though I don’t know anything about science, I could give a conference in your…your place at this point.’ And so Einstein said, ‘Oh, that’s actually a great idea— we should switch places.”

He breathed out a soft snicker as he remembered the punchline of the joke. It was a good joke.

He continued. “They switched clothes, and the driver looked enough like Einstein that he went to the conference in his place. He went on stage, and he…uh, he started to speak the same speech as Einstein always did. Einstein was in the front row, listening the whole time. But there was…there was this other scientist in the crowd, and…” Donna squeezed his eyes shut a bit tighter, fiddling more with the bottom of his sweatshirt as he tried to remember the next part of the joke. Finally, he recalled, and his face relaxed into a slight smile again. “He wanted to impress the scientists who were with him, so he stood up and interrupted the conference to pose a question. It was a hard question, and…the whole crowd went still and silent and waited for the response…and the driver looked the scientist dead in the eye and said, ‘Sir, your question is so easy to answer that I’m going to let my driver reply to it for me.’”

As he finished the joke, his smile flickered into something broader for a moment, and one of his shrill, sharp, defined ha!s escaped his cracked lips before they resealed.

He paused for a moment, content in the silence before he spoke up again.

“That’s the…that’s the best I have…and, for pick-up lines…I…ah.” He gave a nod, opening his eyes to look at Drake, the odd, relaxed smile on Donna’s face. “I’m in the mood for pizza…a pizza you.”

His delivery was still very stilted and not at all convincing, but…

He didn’t know. He thought it was clever.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Superman by Boyce Avenue

Mason

Parties, as one might expect of the rather serious boy, were kind of his fucking thing. As in, he always showed up to them because they provided a nice distraction from shit going on in the rest of his miserable fucking life. At parties, he wasn’t Mason, Father of Ari, Caretaker of One Fucked Up Brother, and apparent King of Fucking Ambridge, he was just Mason, uhh… well, he was still technically all of those things here, and that would be evident when the little fuckheads parted as he walked past, or when his gaze searched out his little brother to check on him, or when some conversation with a girl he was trying to fuck would turn to “aren’t you that Bridger that knocked up a slut in freshman year?” but he could pretend.

You know, until his miserable fucking life was tossed rudely back into his fucking face.

He’d only been partially listening to Raven’s words and had been paying his companion absolutely no mind. His attention, instead, had been focused on girls, girls, girls and… yeah, no, that was about it. His dark eyes were scanning the party as he tried to decide on which girl to approach when his eyes briefly met a hot blonde’s.

“Chas?” He echoed, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the blonde’s, although he offered her that little half-smile of his before looking at Raven. “Why the fuck would you want to fuck with a prick named Chas? It’s a… stuck up bitchy prick name. Listening to that whiny shit wouldn’t be worth it for two golden kegs.”

Mason wasn’t in a good mood – but when was he?

Raven reached up to brush something out of his hair and he just rolled his eyes, but let her do so. But as she was doing so, that hot blonde was also on the move but when she got closer to the Riveras…

She fucking walked away.

The lopsided grin on his face fell.

“That wasn’t my fault.” Raven said, which just earned an angry glare from Mason.

That was definitely her fucking fault, and he was sure that Raven knew that. Of course Raven fucking knew that. Just add this blonde to the tally of hot bitches that had walked away from him because of his proximity to Raven.

She was just lucky that he still bothered keeping her around.

"It fucking was," Mason grumbled. "Look, this means you owe me, yeah? You gotta wingman me or some shit -- help me get the hottest chick here, and no, that's not you. Sorry to disappoint." He smirked at Raven, cutting her off before she could say what he fully knew she was thinking, and what he fully expected her to say. Look, surprise, surprise, but Mason kind of knew Raven way too fucking well.

He scanned around the party again, until his gaze fell on a girl that was... familiar... ish. Mason looked at her, trying to figure out where he recognized her from, head tilting slightly to the side as he racked his brain -- and then it clicked.

"Hey, c'mon," he gestured with a tilt of his head for Raven to follow after him, and he approached the girl. That familiar lopsided, half-smile, half-smirk of his situated itself on his face as they drew closer. "Thought I recognized you," he said, his usually harsh tone growing a little softer as he came to a stop beside the faintly familiar girl -- not one that he necessarily knew super well from when she'd been back in Ambridge, but someone that had obviously made a big enough impact to be imprinted in Mason's memory.

"Lola, yeah? Left us to live with the Springers." He said and yes, he was joking, although there was never a hint of joking in Mason's harsh tones.

| mentions: N/A | interactions: Raven, Lola | tags: Soap Kitsune2202 |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Nixiee]

HENRIETTA THOMAS

“Obviously you came to this party because you wanted someone or something to brighten that mood of yours.” With a sigh, Henri opened her mouth to protest - She had only wanted to escape her home, nothing more. About to tell Xander to keep walking, she was distacted by...

Finger guns? Really?

Henri couldn’t tell if the boy in front of her had hit his head earlier with his fall, or if he was always this... special. However, he was somewhat right. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. It wasn’t intentional, it was subconscious if anything, but right now Henri wanted to forget what was going on at home - even for a little while. However the guilt gnawed at her. How could she want to forget home right now? Liz needs me. I should maybe go back soon...

“And lucky for you, you’ve been blessed with me. Xander the Fairy Godmother. Fairy Godmother of um...”

“Xander-" Henri put up a hand to stop him going further, but she was ignored.

“Fairy Godmother of Good Decisions That’ll Turn That Frown Upside Down.”

It took a moment for the ridiculousness of that title to hit her, but when it did, Henri couldn’t stop the involuntary roll of chuckles that escaped her. A crooked smile appeared on her face, but the sharp pain in her cheek made it disappear as quickly as it came.

Henri thought about his proposal. Xander was like a puppy - kind of clingy, but also kind of adorable in that genuine, wholesome way. Maybe something like a pug. Jokes aside, she could see he was only well-meaning - Besides the whole “I only do dicks” shtick he had going on.

Giving Xander a once-over for a final time, Henri gave in. “Fuck it, you’ve convinced me." Using the tree for support, Henri hobbled to her feet. After sitting down for so long, her left leg had started to go numb and she tried to rub the pins and needles feeling away.

Henri eyed the bottle of spray paint he held before grabbing it out of his hand. Giving it a shake and a test squirt - Oooh, red - she looked to Xander for instruction. "Alright Fairy Godmother, where did you want to start?”

OUTFIT: No fucks here
INTERACTIONS: Xander
MENTIONS: N/A
TAGS: Winona

 

[Winona]

Rx (Medicate)

Drake

TW: Drug use, overdose, nothing good

He listened, practically on the edge of his metaphorical seat, for Donna’s joke to be delivered. His pale eyes were wide with a mixture of anticipation and general awe of the cooler Springer. Drake wondered if this is what he would’ve looked like, if this is what he would’ve been like, had he been born into a loving, stable family with a mother that was addicted to baking cupcakes and muffins and not addicted to… well… everything his mother was addicted to.

Or would he be more like Chelsea and Mason? Or Dex? Probably Dex – he was kind of who Drake wanted to be, and maybe there was a prick of jealousy somewhere in his heart every time he was around the happier, dumber boy. He was just..

Well, Drake wished he could be more like that. Not shaky and feeble and constantly worried about paying bills or getting dinner for the night. Granted, Drake didn’t worry too much about that kind of shit – Mason did all of that for him.

But still.

Oh, to be strong and stable.

It was hard to tell if DC's joke was legitimately funny, or if the affect of the various substances that Drake had put into his body were finally starting to hit him, or maybe it was just an entire mixture of the two or something. But Drake's lips cracked up into a grin, and he let out a loud guffaw of laughter, far more than the joke probably deserved, as DC finished off his little explanation.

"That's... funny," he said with another snort of laughter. "Clever." Sure, it wasn't dumb or childish like Drake's sense of humor typically leant itself towards, but it had been clever. It was one of those thinker jokes -- one of those long-winded ones that old people put on Facebook and stuff with some little caption and then you had to read through the whole thing and give a strong exhale of breath through your nose.

Not a doubled over, dying of laughter type of joke like Drake was currently treating it, but a joke nonetheless.

Of course, if it hadn't been made obvious by his previous behavior, Drake found even the most monotonous of things funny. Like even a simple "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke could draw gasping breaths of laughter from the boy -- you know, if he was in the right mood. If he was in that uhh... that manic state of mind, and luckily for DC, that was exactly where he was now. Manic. Where he made decisions with little thought behind them, where he laughed at everything, where he was extra twitchy but hey, at least he had the energy to get out of bed.

“That’s the…that’s the best I have…and, for pick-up lines…I…ah.”

Drake leaned forward in anticipation, his eyes sparkling as he waited impatiently for DC to deliver his line. Pickup lines, in Drake's opinion, were obviously peak humor. So he waited, practically teetering on the edge of his metaphorical seat.

“I’m in the mood for pizza…a pizza you.”

It took a moment for it to register with Drake. At first, all he could think was along the lines of wow, he's hungry? What happened to the pickup line? Oh -- he wants to eat me. Didn't take DC for the cannibalistic type, but people surprise you every day. But as these unfiltered thoughts were trickling through his brain and taking up precious space, it clicked with him all of a sudden -- kind of like getting slapped in the face, and Drake let out a guffaw of laughter as it clicked.

"Clever," he replied. "And it... it like, it uhh... doubles, ya know? Because then you can slide it into a totally cool 'wanna get pizza with me' and ask them on a date, yeah?" Drake let out a chuckle at the idea with a small shake of his head. "I assume, anyway. I've never been on a date. Seems like... a lotta work, ya know?" And Drake didn't have the natural charm or broodiness that attracted girls to him like his brother did.

He sighed, leaning back against the door of the truck. He looked up, but there was nothing but truck roof. Oh yeah. So instead, he shifted his gaze down and peered out the back truck window. In the distance was the ever faint glow of the bonfire, and Drake let out a small exhale through his nose. Part of him wanted to be out there around that party, but he knew that it would just exhaust him -- painting a fake smile on his face because he thought it was what everyone else wanted. The rest of him was content to just sit here, in the back of his brother's arch enemy's truck.

"You know," he started slowly and looked back away from the window to look at DC, an easygoing smile plastered on his face. "You're not too bad. You made tonight way better than it was going to be."

| mentions: N/A | interactions: DC | tags: ohdittoh |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[ohdittoh]

DONNA CAIN CAMUS

the disappointment

(tw: drugs, effects of drugs, brief mentions of abuse, brief mentions of bullying, just...very depressing in general...)

As any upstanding, miserably rich family did, the Freud-Camus drug their children to the dreary Catholic cathedral on the edge of Auburn Springs on the holidays to save face and make amends for all of the sins that they had committed that year. Of course, Benjamin never asked forgiveness for treating his only (at least, his only legitmate) son like shit, nor did Eloise ask forgiveness for bitching at Mercedes over every little thing that she did, for picking her apart at every chance...and why should they? As the parents of the clan, it was their job to do their children justice, and this was what Donna and Mercedes deserved, as the failures.

They never said this, but Donna knew the truth. He knew that the prayers that the towering, stone-faced blonde muttered beneath his breath, with his hands clasped tightly together and his head tilted to the cherubims meticulously painted on the ceiling, were all forgive those who trespass against me and no forgive the trespasses that I have committed against others.

All forgive Donna, the druggie, for being a failure, for being a disappointment. Have pity on me and, please, strike him dead.

It was how life went. Donna was unchangeable to his dad, and the help his dad offered was merely formalities or something along those lines. There was no way that it came from the kindness of his heart or actual care for his son, because he couldn’t actually care about him.

No one did. Maybe Mercedes, but, even then, if he were gone, she would be nothing but better off.

Donna had accepted it, and he knew that he couldn’t change it, could never move past it, could never even hope to.

But when Donna went to church those times, he always saw paintings hanging on the walls, and there was one painting that he could recall, of Jesus ministering to his disciples, with their carefully painted heads that some diligent artist had carved attentive expressions on the faces of some two centuries ago. And there was one, one who Donna couldn’t quite remember the name of, who had his wide, blue eyes turned toward the standing man, in his robes of white. The staring man had a brown beard that was so long that it fell to the floor, and his mouth was slightly ajar, an expression of profound wonder written in his gaze, as if every word that the white-garbed man said was a revelation that his life depended on hearing.

That was the expression on Drake’s face throughout Donna’s delivery, and the connection, made somewhere in the haze of Donna’s fogged, drugged mind, behind his wide, reddened, wet-rimmed, droopy blue eyes, made the boy snicker.

It was as if Donna was a god to this boy, and that very notion was...maybe funny, maybe sad.

There was nothing in Donna that was anything to look up to. If anything, Drake was the better of the two.

It was...cute, if a bit pathetic.

"Clever," Drake replied, after a laugh at Donna’s abysmal attempt at a pickup line that made a smile crack across Donna’s face. "And it...it like, it uhh...doubles, ya know? Because then you can slide it into a totally cool 'wanna get pizza with me' and ask them on a date, yeah?" Drake let out a chuckle and shook his head slightly. "I assume, anyway. I've never been on a date. Seems like...a lotta work, ya know?"

Donna fell quiet for a moment— for a moment. When he was under the influence of heavier stuff like what had flooded up his dry nostrils a few minutes ago, he tended to talk much more— or...think aloud, because Donna thought a lot in his head otherwise.

“It is a lot of work, I assume,” Donna began, “but my father did that work for me...if it could be considered work.” His voice was gravely and breathy, lighter and mildly slurred now that he under the influence. “We’re...rich,” he stated, though it was obvious. He was a Springer, and a Camus, and he had no discernible accent because of his strict tutors. “Dad is one of those...well, those kinds of people, who has a strict schedule, with a determined way of how things should go. Back when...before...well, he and I have never been close, never quite seen eye-to-eye, but we used to...talk more, and talk more. Now, all he does is drop rehab and recovery pamphlets that tell me things that I already know, that tell me that I need help when I’m past that, that tell me...so much shit, shit that I don’t need. But before...well, fuck, maybe even now...he used to do more pressing. He used to push everything onto me— still does, still has some dumb...dumb fucking idea that I can change, but he doesn’t give any effort for that much, now. He just chucks pamphlets my way. But...I guess last year is when he started to give up. I guess that’s when he noticed my habit more and more and more. He first caught me back when I was fourteen, yelled at me, slapped me across the face.” He was getting sidetracked and didn’t notice it. “It fucking hurt. My nose bled, and I had a bruise on my cheek for a week, but I got those all the time from my brother— still do. It didn’t look odd, no one commented on it. But he caught me again, and all he did was shut my door, and the next time the same, and the next time the same, and finally last year, I noticed him coming in less, talking to me less, and just tossing pamphlets at me, asking me if I wanted to go to reha...b...where was I...?” He blinked, his face blanking for a moment.

Damn it...

“Oh, dates...?” he asked, but he waited from no answer from Drake before he continued. “Dad used to set me up on them then, with blondes and brunettes and black-haired girls. I think there was a redhead once...” He spoke of them as if they were decorations, as if they were posters of solid colors on a wall or boring relics in a worn-out museum, with no attachment and no particular interest. They were all the same in his mind. All of them were rich. All of them wore chapstick that smelled like strawberries or cherries or oranges but tasted like Vaseline and nothing pleasant, or lipstick that was too bright and got everywhere. All of them smelled like misplaced hope, or forced dreams. All of them made him screw up his nose, made his expression sour even further. All of them blended together, with faces that were pretty, but nothing more. Nothing interesting, nothing meaningful. Everything vapid, everything emotionless, everything...nothing.

“I had dates each week, on Saturdays, at three pm or at...I guess eleven am sometimes. There were a couple of twelve appointments, and maybe a two in there.” Donna paid less attention to names than he did to times. It was a habit he’d learned from his father. “And I was always introduced the same...” He breathed out a sigh into the air that he could no longer feel against his skin, closing his eyes and speaking in a voice that was hardly a buzz in his ears, the vibrations in his throat entirely lost to him, a small, rare smile cracking across his face. “This is Donna Camus, my son...I’m sure that you’ll enjoy your time with him today. As if I were some machine...hmpf, or maybe a massage chair at one of those malls...” He snickered. “And then he stated a few of my credentials...I play violin, I...play football...and then he would dismiss me with whoever the girl of the week was to do whatever the hell he had set us up to do whilst Dad and her father talked. And often, she and I would end up entirely alone, with our two parents gone, and...she would kiss me, and I would kiss back, but not because I was interested. But I could close my eyes, and I could let them take me wherever they wanted to take me, and however far they wanted to, because if I closed eyes, I could ignore their smell, or how...” He swallowed, shaking his head. “...alarmingly different their bodies were than why I preferred, and...I just escaped to my imagination, took in the sensations with my eyes closed, and...well, it was what I had to do. I couldn’t just...that was before...I...” He sighed softly, trying again and opening his eyes to squint at the ceiling. “But...it was back before...before I lost...?” His inflection near the end was more of a question. “Lost...my hope, or whatever. I don’t know. It was before I told my dad about...me, too.” Before he’d told his dad about his sexuality, he meant. “But...even now, he sets me up on dates on occasion, and I...still...” He shook his head. “It...I...it makes me feel...gross— or...grosser than I am...just kissing lips and touching hands and taking off clothes of people who I...who I have to imagine as entirely different beings, and...” He trailed off.

He hadn’t ever told anyone this, not even his sister

“I am oversharing,” he concluded abruptly.

Donna’s eyes trailed back over to Drake, and then flicked over to the window to that Drake’s eyes focused on.

In the distance was the faint glow of the bonfire, its brilliant color dimmed through the tinted glass. Shadows passed in front of it, fuzzy, dancing ones, ones whose expressions he could feel without seeing. They were happy, carefree...and so goddamn everything, and in this truck was just so goddamn nothing. And part of him wanted to be out there around that party, around all of those dancing shadows, but he knew that no one wanted him there, that no one wanted someone whose presence would just exhaust them, one who couldn’t even paint a fake smile on his face because he thought it was what everyone else wanted, one who didn’t care what everyone wanted.

Because, maybe, if he was out there, there would be a sudden change. Suddenly, everything would change.

The thought made a smile crack across Donna’s face again. He didn’t usually smile this much.

But then spoke the rest of him.

The rest of him was just...content. Well, shit, maybe not content. He wasn’t exactly happy, but he also wasn’t unhappy. He was high, and he didn’t know where that put him. But he was...not unhappy to just sit here, in the back of his truck with his brother's arch enemy.

"You know," started the other boy slowly. "You're not too bad.” Donna’s eyes slid back over to the boy, and there a wave of something that rattled his skull upon seeing the other guy...smiling at him.“You made tonight way better than it was going to be."

“Me...?” Donna asked, unsure if he’d unscrambled the other boy’s words correctly.

He hadn’t heard anyone say that. Ever.

He went quiet for a long moment, unsure of how to respond.

His expression soured.

The last thing that Donna was was...enjoyable. There was a wide array of things that he’d been called Bitch boy, burnout, waste of space, waste of time, walking corpse...but no one had ever said that he made their time better. It was always...insults, always digs at him, always that he was a drag or a miserable being or whatever the fuck.

“That can’t be right...,” he said, “because it’s you who made my time better.”

He went quiet once again, his eyes falling over to the window again.

One of the shadows fell, and wriggled, and then several others pointed at it.

“What do you think is going on out there...?” he asked thoughtfully. “Do you think...do you think that the smiles on their faces make them feel as good as that powder...? As that good shit...? Could we...could we ever feel that way without that good shit?” He looked over at Drake, studying the blurry form of his face. “I don’t know,” he concluded as an answer to his own question, “but, if I’m damned to this life, then there’s no fighting it, and I’m...if you’re damned with me, then let’s go to Hell together...what say you?”

He slowly closed his eyes, tilting his head back. “If life is just Hell without our manufactured euphoria,” he muttered, “then how much worse can Hell be...?”

mood
drugs

location
his truck, parked at the edge of the forest outside of the bonfire

outfit
some of the contents of his floor

playing...
fuck up

by gabriel black​

mentions
mercedes, mason

interactions
drake

tags
Winona

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Soap]

Wannabe

Mercedes

Mercedes ignored Valerie's words with a roll of her eyes, a chuckle escaping the brunette and she gestured towards the bonfire.

"Oh come on, I hardly even did anything. Don't be so boring Val." Psh, class smlass. Valerie always worried about... literally everything. It was the twenty-first century! Who really cared about being all proper and what not... okay, maybe her mother, yes. Wasn't it so gross that Valerie had the same energy as Mercedes's mom?

"You should finish ur sentence though! You were totally gonna be like, ah, Mercedes. We're like, super duper bestest friends." The girl glanced behind her from the passenger seat with a beaming smile-- full of tease. She knew how to exactly get under Val's skin, for some reason she would rather die than admit they had a better friendship than Val and Ange. To be completely and utterly honest, Mercedes and Ange did not see eye-to-eye. On many things, but it wasn't like she hated her or anything. She just had the tendency to be such a bitch.

Sorry, Ange.

But when you suck, you suck.

Mer closed the car door behind her, ignoring Valerie's complaints about nature and in return she just breathed in the fresh air. "It's a party, Valerie. It's gonna be fun. And maybeeeeee Karmyn can get her mans. Get her own little carrot cake." Mercedes placed a hand over her chest and swooned-- purely for dramatic effect. Coda was cute and all but he wasn't really her type.

Not that she had a type in the first place.

But the mere thought of boys had her mind crossing one in particular, and not in a certain way. It's not as if she liked Ed. But right now he was kinda the only guy she's been conversating with, and it reminded her that he was supposed to be here. And so, Mercedes made it a mission to find him.

"Kay, I'm gonna go mingle byeeeeee." Mer practically skipped away from the two and towards the bonfire. It'd already started to get dark, the sun was only setting and Mer entered a clearing-- the clearing. Tons of people were around, kegs were being set up, people were laughing and Mercedes was practically skipping.

She looked great, she felt great, and--

Mercedes collided into someone and she placed her hands against their chest to steady herself. "Whoa. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" She glanced up to see nobody other than Ed. The two knew each other fairly well, mostly through Sly... but they were pretty okay friends. Right? You can count someone as your friend if you're not amazingly close.

Totally.

"I... wasn't watching where I was going, yes, sorry on my part-- again, but I mean, c'mon look at me." Mercedes did a whole twirl, gesturing towards her overly cutesy makeup and she tried her hardest on. Really, her hardest.

"You gotta forgive meeee."

| mentions: Coda, Ed,| interactions: Valerie, Karmyn, Ren.| tags: jasmyn @le reveur Winona @geminiy |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Winona]

Lost Boys

Xander

He had a long list of reasonings on why Henri should go with him, and his mind was consistently churning and coming up with more and more ideas. Xander had promised himself that he wouldn't be leaving this spot without Henri, as silly as that may have sounded. Or, you know, as weird as that may have sounded given the fact that he'd just met the girl -- and it wasn't like he was going to grab her and drag her kicking and screaming with him.

Only kicking because he'd duct tape her mouth.

Haha.

That was a joke. Xander did not approve of kidnapping.

And, of course, if she reiterated a couple more times that she wasn't interested in going with him, he'd hold up his hands, say that was fine, and then walk away -- naturally. But instead of having to do that, or having to launch into Reasons 6-79 of why she should come with him, she agreed.

His eyes widened in surprise and then the look of surprise was washed away and instead replaced by a bright, easygoing grin.

She took the can of spray paint from his hand, and his hands moved to zip his backpack back up and swing it back onto his back. His fingers closed around the straps of his backpack, like a little kid ready and excited for their very first day of school.

"Alright Fairy Godmother, where did you want to start?” She asked, and he let out a small chuckle.

"Okay, let's see..." Xander tilted his head to the side slightly before he turned to look out across the party. "Well we've got a few options here, Henri. We could drink, but I'd just like to say that getting drunk before performing vandalism can kind of ruin your whole vandalism thing, ya know? Mainly because it's a lot easier to get caught red-handed -- literally, usually -- if you're drunk. Because either you go to run away and trip or get your pants stuck on a fence, or you accidentally have the spray paint can turned around and end up spraying yourself in the face and then you're sneezing blue paint for a week afterwards."

He didn't want to talk about it, okay? Xander was all about the whole... cool, fun, being a little bit wild and committing very minor crimes, but that didn't mean he was any good at them. In fact, it was quite the obvious. Xander was notoriously horrible at... well... pretty much anything illegal. He just had a habit of getting caught but, luckily, his generally friendly, polite demeanor and his parents' excessive apologies always got him out of trouble.

Yeah... Xander wasn't the greatest bad boy.

"So, c'mon, we'll go start with vandalism. Drinking can be our victory thing afterwards," he told her cheerfully and started walking away from the party with an upbeat step to his walk as he did so. "Anyway you wanna vandalize? A teacher that really sucks? Business that shorted you a few dollars? Maybe the school? Well, maybe not the school. Uhh... what about bullies? Nah, you probably don't have bullies. You've got that," he drew his eyebrows together, glaring over at Henri for a moment, before his expression relaxed once more, "that face -- that grr don't fuck with me face."

"I usually do churches," he continued to explain. "Well, the homophobic ones, ya know? And houses of homophobic assholes. Used to be great because they were all like 'omg who is this vigilante that's spraypainting dicks everywhere!' but then I got caught a few times and now everyone knows it's me, but c'mon. I've tried spraypainting other things, but nothing really gets them all red in the face and angry like waking up to dicks on their windows."

He let out a lighthearted chuckle, his smile growing slightly lopsided as he spoke.

| mentions: N/A | interactions: Henri| tags: Nixiee |

º º code by ditto º º

 

[hery]

cool pirate cowboy 123123

Dexter Cruz

Auburn Springs

"It's not your fucking mess to clean up!"

Dex immediately shrunk back, and he found himself unsure how to react out of guilt and shame. A heavy silence followed. He wasn't sure what to say. Did it matter whose mess it was? No matter the circumstances or repercussions, there had to have been something he could do. Allowing CK to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders had always seemed to be the right answer given how capable the boy was, but after witnessing the fear and despair in his eyes as he stumbled across the street...

Dex wasn't sure anymore.

In a way, it felt good to know CK could lean on him when he needed, but it was frightening to come to terms with the fragility of his peers. Chelsea was by no means exempt from it. Dex couldn't blame him for being human, but a part of him sorta wished he wasn't, just for the convenience.

"I know I can't help myself," he grumbled with a sigh, his gaze wandering to the crackling fire, "But it's different. That wasn't me. I'm really, really sure this time." He looked back up at his friend, grinding his teeth. "My mind's made up." The muscular boy cracked his knuckles; he was getting antsy.

But as his furious tension began to crumble, all that remained was a hopelessly conflicted boy. He wiped his eyes, finally realizing just how hard he was crying. His cheeks burned red and his eyes were puffy, while his tears obscured his vision. The glowing embers dancing in the air grabbed his attention every so often, as he was wary of any onlookers. Dex had a reputation with his those that knew him for being somewhat of a crybaby, but he still didn't want any concerned eyes on him and CK.

He did his best to focus on CK's face, but it was hard when he had to resort to frequently wiping his face on his shirt. The pit in his stomach grew a half-ton heavier the moment CK admitted his fear. At this point, Dex wasn't surprised, but it didn't stop that piece of information from shaking him to his core.

Still, he had no idea what to say. His immediate reaction was to widen his eyes with surprise, which was probably the opposite of what a very vulnerable CK wanted. He sensed the pause. He knew he was supposed to say something, but every thought in his head vanished without a trace. It was either that or he was being bombarded with thoughts all at once. Either way, he was too overwhelmed to come up with much of anything.

As Chelsea continued to speak, all that Dex could muster was an array of disjointed I's and but's and conflicted grunts. Soon, he found the strength to push out whatever words he could. "But they hurt you!" he blurted, "How is that fair? And if you helped me, how is it fair that I can't help you?"

Chelsea's words all jumbled into incoherent chatter, allowing once again for Dex to look past the points being brought up. It was stupid. Mer was fine. Dex knew he wasn't smart, but he wasn't incapable of doing something right. Maybe the others didn't recognize the compassion CK could show, but it was still there. Whatever the case, those people were supposed to be his friends, and they could lie and lie and lie and think all of the horrible things they wanted, but Dex knew none if it mattered because he'd make it right.

His balled-up fists shook with immense, barely-restrained rage, and it took everything in him not to do something drastic right then and there. He stopped himself from escalating it further only to heed his best friend's order. It was a stupid, selfish, incorrect order, but Dex's first instinct was always to listen. Even then, his emotions weren't always the best listener. In his head, he found himself engaged in a mental tug-o-war, battling over whether to heed CK's request or throw himself into the dangerous fray to avenge those he held close.

"I know... I have to listen to you," he replied through gritted teeth, each word holding a century's worth of frustration ready to be unleashed, "But I don't like it. You said it's all your fault and..." He raised his voice, meeting Chelsea right in the eye. "You're a dumbass, Chelsea. You don't know what you're talking about."

His wild eyes widened with newfound inspiration as he held on to the next words that were spoken. "I've seen red too," he said immediately, taking the opportunity to really empathize in a way he could, "It's a natural reaction. It means you really, really wanna fucking... fuck them up. Bad. It doesn't matter what you think's gonna happen, 'cause it feels so fucking right, dude." He caught his breath trying to put his feelings into words. "Just do what feels right."

He knew the consequences that would follow. He'd been there before. Dex felt no murderous intent, but rather a desire to throw all of his raw, unbridled rage straight at the source. They were all hurting, and cooling down wouldn't do anything. He'd tried plenty of times, but it always just made his outbursts twice as worse.

"Chels, I'm always gonna listen to you, but you're being so..." He heaved a sigh. "Not you."

"Strength isn't about fucking winning, man. It's about dealing with your shit. Arnold Schwarzenegger said so," he stated as though it was the most obvious fact in the world, "No one's getting to Mer. Or us. Just stop thinking and help me help you."

| mood: rage though? | outfit: clothes | location: bonfire | mentions: Ren, Dani, Sly, Mer | interactions: Chelsea | tags: ohdittoh |

 

[hery]

the grass is always greener

Edwin Jarvis

Auburn Springs

"Enjoy sucking face with your lame-ass girlfriend or whatever the fuck you've got going on," Ed sneered as he exited Syd's car. He looked back resentfully at the boy before closing the door. It should have been Ed driving himself to the bonfire. He wasn't sixteen nor had he enrolled in driving school yet, but he could basically already drive. And who cared if there was property damage? The Jarvises had more than enough money to pay for repairs and, with luck, the crooked cops too.

Whatever. He'd get the respect he deserved someday, but for now, it was time to solidify his status as a cool kid by going and downing copious amounts of alcohol in an unsafe period of time. With a smirk, the short boy stuck his hands in his pocket and strolled down the path leading into the forest's clearing. He was fortunate not to be seen with his lame-ass cousin or brother, instead jingling his house keys in his fingers to pretend he'd just driven himself.

The tune he whistled was largely reminiscent of one of the sleep-inducing classical pieces his mother was so fond of when she wasn't engaging in one of her daily jazzercise routines. It was the only thing on his mind, especially after spending the entire morning and afternoon sipping chardonnay with her on the sofa. One perk of being the baby was getting to do all the fun stuff early on, and it certainly helped that he was such a loveable little boy.

But that was where the benefits ended. Making up for his stature, age, and unimpressive status was hell for Edwin, as it tortured him day and night being unable to compare to his older, teenage housemates. I can be fucking badass too. Syd's not even their fucking kid and they trust him more. That's bullshit. And Sam's a whiny bitch.

Ed made an attempt to clear his mind from his frustrations by locating the nearest stash of alcohol. He craned his neck to get a look at his objective as he ambled on over, but was soon interrupted by a thud straight to his chest. He looked forward, a big, toothy grin spreading across his face as he realized it was none other than Mercedes Camus that had graced him with her presence. Whether it was intentional or not, he was beyond flattered.

Did she feel up my pecs? His dimpled cheeks puffed up as his smirk widened. Nice.

"H-" He cleared his throat. "Hey, Mer," he greeted the girl, his voice dropping an octave lower. He laced together his pitch into a smooth, honeyed tone, lifting an eyebrow to capture his charm. He could only have so many chances with the lifelong object of his affection, and there was no chance he'd falter given this opportunity. Ever since grade school the rich boy had been trying to make moves on the innocent girl, but they always seemed to either go over her head or be executed so poorly they came off as humor.

Edwin's cheeks flushed red as his attention was drawn to Mer's appearance. He had no other choice but to laugh nervously, averting his gaze from the girl before his anxiety got the best of him. "You make a good point," he conceded, stammering along with hesitation. It was so fucking nerve-wracking having a one-on-one with Mercedes, especially when she'd gone this all out in her beauty. His plan to pose as a veritable Casanova shattered into a thousand pieces with the elegantly-executed twirl right before him.

"You look really pretty," he remarked, following his words with a cough to fill the silent air, his eyes still wandering around in a panic. A million love confessions for Mer in his head and Ed couldn't pull out one nice thing to say to her. He could hardly focus with that warm stare looking right back up at him. That's right—up. It was a good feeling for the small boy.

"You're super forgiven. Like, don't even worry about it," he assured the girl, flicking his hand to the side to gesture that their collision didn't matter at all. As a nervous habit, he followed his words with a short cough again, and he began to fear that Mer would think he was coming down with something and run away. "I should have been looking forward, I was looking over..." He pointed to an unmanned beer keg. "...there."

Paranoid of letting the silence sit for longer than a half-second, Ed continued. "I was gonna go hit the 'ol keg. You know how it is." He winked to conceal his near-empty knowledge of the technique to tapping a beer keg. "You with anyone? We could go get some refreshments, eheh." It was a relief to find himself starting to regain his composure, but it wasn't surprising with the comforting aura radiating off of Mer and settling in his heart. She brought him a strange sense of peace, all the way back to the time she stopped him from squirting his juice box at Jeremy Philbin in the first grade. "Although, I wouldn't be surprised if you were here on a date. Your makeup is killer. Like, it looks professionally done."

| mood: simpin | outfit: clothes | location: bonfire | mentions: Sam | interactions: Syd, Mer | tags: ohdittoh @Soap|

 

[ohdittoh]

CHELSEA KADER FREUD

the truth

the bonfire

casual wear

dani, mer, & sly

dex

hery

CK motherfucking Freud had conceded. He didn’t want to believe the words that had come from his mouth. He wanted to deny, wanted to lash out against them. He wanted to stand up, look his words in their cold face with his own determined stare and say to hell with you, because no one and nothing could control him. Not even mortal fear.

But then, there still existed the true part of him— his soul, the one that saw everything past the denial and the constant fight to stay afloat— and this part knew that his words and his confession were true.

God fucking damn it all.

Chelsea had never let himself be kicked around before. He was the motherfucking king, and kings didn’t bow to anyone, didn’t answer to anyone, did whatever the hell they wanted to without fear, without any hesitation.

Yet here he was, suddenly reduced to the village…the fucking village idiot.

Dumbass. Dex had called him a dumbass.

Was that what he was? Was that what this was?

Fuck it, maybe. Fucking maybe.

Maybe Chelsea not wanting his sister to be hurt was fucking dumb. Maybe being afraid of those fucking Bridgers destroying his sister’s future was fucking dumb. Maybe believing threats that to anyone else would seem outlandish was fucking dumb.

But fuck it. Fucking—

Chelsea wasn’t strong enough to let other people get hurt for his fucking pride. And maybe that wasn’t a good thing. And maybe that was fucking dumb, but he wasn’t going to let that shit happen.

In the end, this was his own fucking hole that he’d dug. It wasn’t Dexter’s, it wasn’t Mercedes’, and yet he’d dragged both of them into it.

God. Fucking. Damn it.

Watching Dex’s face— his surprised expressions, his…fury, his insistence— fucking hurt, too, because Chelsea knew that Dex— Dex was realizing in his own way that his leader? His best friend? The one who he followed without a seconds’ hesitation? Yeah, he was a fucking coward. He was a fucking fraud.

Dumbass. The word echoed in his head.

“I don’t fucking care if I know what I’m talking about or not, goddamn it,” Chelsea said. His voice was cold again, was devoid of all of the emotion in his eyes. “At the end of the day, you don’t know either, Dex. I don’t fucking care if I’m a dumbass or not. If I’m selfish or not. If letting this take me down is fucking dumb.” He shook his head. “I won’t let you do that for me. I won’t let you do that shit for me. You’re not getting hurt for me.” He looked out at the fire, and the orange whipping in his vision stirred the vitriol in his throat. “But you think that you seeing red is what’s right just because it fucking feels right? Dex, I was the one who dealt with the consequences of the shit last time. I cleaned the blood off of you. I washed my shirt. I dealt with the guy. I made sure it was never fucking spoken over again. That wasn’t you— it wasn’t fucking you.”

Chelsea looked over at his friend, his eyes burning. “I’m not going to do what feels right, Dex. If I do what feels right, then that could get all of us— all of us fucking screwed. You understand that, right? It isn’t just me that’s on the line. It isn’t just my life. It isn’t even just your life, Dex.” He kicked his foot at a patch of grass on the ground. “You think that this is something worth throwing our lives away over? You think that— what— petty fucking revenge is what’s going to make everything suddenly better?” He folded his lips into a line, and he breathed in a deep breath. “I told you what they said, right? I told you what Ren said?”

The words, before he said them, bounced around in his skull, rattling off the walls with loud, reverberating crashes, like a violent animal trying to break free from its cage.

He remembered every word. Even though he’d been talking over her when she’d said them, he still remembered every word. The fear— the mortal fear— had imprinted it into his brain.

“She said, ‘I can and will have people show up to your house, and flip your life upside down. Or, imagine if something were to happen to your leg, your spine, so that you could never play football again.’” He swallowed hard, shaking his head. Repeating those words made him nauseated. “‘Wouldn’t that be tragic? Or maybe I’ll spare you…’” He looked up and out to the fire, trailing off. “‘Spare you…’” He tried to start again, but it fucking hurt too much to repeat.

Every time he thought of it, he thought— fuck.

He thought of his sister.

He thought of his sister, in place of that man who Dex had beaten down in the street.

He thought of her blood on his hands as he tried to pull her up— only to find that he was too late.

He felt the slick, cold life, seeping through his fingers.

And he just—

He wanted to vomit. He wanted to cry. He wanted to punch the wall. He wanted to kill someone.

“‘Spare you,’” he spat, “‘and have your sister go through it in your place?’”

He looked at Dex, the firelight reflected in his burning eyes. “’Do you think she’d be able to handle it, Chelsea?’” He said it as if he were reading a book, his voice emotionless, though his eyes were firey with fury. “‘Knowing that it would be all your fault? That you started a fight with a Bridger boy, and, as a result, his friends took it out on your family?’”

He looked out at the fire, gritting his teeth. “You fucking see, Dex?” he asked. “Do you fucking see it? You fucking see why I’m not being me? You fucking see why my hand is forced? You fucking see why I can’t do anything? You fucking see why I—“ His voice cracked, and he shook his head.

He stared out at the fire for a long moment.

All around him, people were running and laughing. Several were drinking, several were making out. They were living their lives— fucking freely.

And here the king of them was, defeated.

“You fucking see?” he repeated, his voice small. “I. Can’t. Do. Shit. I can’t stop thinking. I can’t let you ‘help’ me. I can’t.”

He lifted his eyes to Dex, a soft look in them. “I…guess,” he started, and he broke out into a smile. “I guess I’m just a fucking weakling.”

GIVES YOU HELL

the all-american rejects

º º code by ditto º º

 

[natsukashii]

ambridge ~ seventeen ~ senior
Lance Donovan

@kingofambridge has set status:
imitation might get you a black eye if you're not careful

@kingofambridge has set outfit to:
Be jealous

@kingofambridge has set location:
Bonfire

@kingofambridge has interacted with:
Ian, Rory, Jade

@kingofambridge has tagged:
ohdittoh Winona jasmyn

Whenever Jade spoke, Lance always listened. It didn't matter what she said or how she phrased it. It even didn't matter to him if she was speaking to him in a partially-condescending way she often did -- especially towards him. There was just something about her voice, that subtle barrotone tone it had mixed in with something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

It drove him wild.

So, of course, when she mentioned fucking with Springers, his blue eyes mirrored the smirk on his face. An impulsive "hell yeah!" left his lips faster than he could register even saying it and even when he did, he was all for the idea.

But of course, like all things that Lance did naturally, beyond Rory's scathing gaze, her little brother tried to imitate Lance. Copy whatever he did. It was flattering before, but now it was starting to piss him off. It wasn't just how Lance acted he copied, but now he wanted to do the same to what he said?

This kid is starting to bug me.

Lance didn't want to feel like punching a kid. Deep down, he had nothing against the kid. But there were a lot of things Lance kept buried deep down, especially after last year. So fuck him. But with Rory around, Lance had to find ways to suppress his growing ire for the little unoriginal shit.

Then, as Rory's suggestion came, Lance saw Ian once again trying to be someone so artificial that it made him chuckle, though he managed to hide it through a grin. He did so as Ian took a deep inhale of Jade's cigarette and practically cough up a furball like the little puny cat he was hanging with the lions and tigers of the world.

"Too much for ya?" Lance laughed again, taking a moment to appreciate how his big talk was nothing more than that.

And then when he was satisfied, Lance looked beyond the three he was with and went scanning like a hawk until he managed to find the cars. "And the nicer the car, the sweeter it'll be when they realize they'll have a nasty surprise in their backseat," Lance commented, reveling in the potential of this plan. Sure, it would have been nice to see some burn, but he'll just save that for the video games he'll eventually buy.

Lance would be lying if he didn't say there was a specific Springer he wanted to fuck with, but hell be damned if he let anyone know who that was.

º º code by ditto º º

 

[Stardust Galaxy]

Coming back to Auburn Springs didn't felt like a dream come true it was almost as if Primrose was living one of her worst nightmares, coming back to the place where she spent her childhood and the same place that saw how her family broke apart, wasn't on the top places that she wanted to visit.

She just wanted to never come back and pretend that Auburn Springs was just a fever dream that never happened, was that her way to cope with all the emotions she felt back then and that's why she was so reluctant to come back.

Because she worked so hard to build again her life from brand new, where no one knew her after all the pretending of having the perfect family was over and after the divorce, both of her parents move on with their lives, why she shouldn't do the same?

And ballet was the only thing that kept it at float after her father stopped contacting her once she moved away to New York only to receive the news she was getting married not too long after all the events. Did he even cared that while Prim pleaded to her parents to not part ways he was already planning to get married to another woman, he couldn't be more of an asshole, but her mother wasn't any better, sure maybe becoming obsessed with her work was her way to cope with the divorce, that's what she believed at first, but when constant "meetings" on their apartment turn into waking up to having breakfast with random guys that couldn't be more than 10 years older than Prim made her sick to her stomach, it was sure than her mother did more than just filling reports all those nights she called her saying she would be late because of work

So it was obvious that when she received the news "You are not allowed to dance for at least 6 months due to your injure" It made the small bubble that Primrose was living, the bubble where she could control what was happening and in the end, everything spiraled and heated arguments with her classmates made the counselors at SAB recommended her that she should take some time off from ballet.

And instead of being there for her daughter, the solution of her mother was to send her back to Auburn Springs because a change of environment would help her. Sure, because sending her back to her father that she hadn't spoken to in six years and having to live with his new family as she was some kind of intruder was the best idea, Primrose was starting to realize that maybe her parents were not that brilliant as they pretended.

There was no way they could pretend that the awkwardness around her father and his family and Prim was fake, it could be seen from miles away, but at least they were trying to make her feel at home, call it manners or whatever, but it was obvious Prim was just an intruder a stranger to them, just like they were to Prim, at least they had something in common and was that they didn't want to be around the other too much, and it was obvious as if her parent continue pushing his agenda of her seeing again her childhood friends, was that his solution? To throw her to the people she grew up with so she wouldn't be at home? What an amazing experience was and she hasn't been there for more than a weekend she already wanted to pack her things and go back to New York.

She didn't want to spend time with her father and even less try to reconnect with her childhood friends because surely it wouldn't be awkward that she just appeared out of nowhere and be like "Hey, do you remember me? I'm Prim I know I left like 6 years ago and cut ties with everyone here and ditched all my friends but no hard feelings, right?" Yeah, that wouldn't be happening she had her dignity, she just needed to find her way back to New York and pretend that everything was under control that her life was under control and that she wasn't about to snap at any moment.

Dinner was awkward just as every dinner since she arrived, but this time something was going on as if her father and his wife were trying to say something to her until he finally found the courage to say his thoughts. "So, today is our anniversary and we were wondering if you could take care of the kids." Just the mention of those words made Primrose felt sick, did he have the nerve to now use his daughter as a babysitter so he could go on a date with the woman she cheated her mother on? At that moment Primrose felt like she needed to leave "I won't, I have plans with Mercedes I'm running late" she said sternly as she stood up grabbed the keys of the car, and left, at that moment Primrose was thankful for once for her mother for making her take the exam for her driver's license, otherwise it would have been awkward and at least on the car she could park somewhere far away and curse herself out.

Did she have plans with Mercedes? Of course not. Has she even contacted the girl? The answer was again no, she was sure she wouldn't know how the girl looked like now, and she wasn't eager to find out either, she just needed an excuse to leave, and since she often mentioned it along with her oldest brother, she just thought she was the perfect person to use as an excuse. Part of her wondered why he never mentioned DC after all out of the three she got along more with him, but maybe her father didn't have a clue who her friends were, maybe he was too busy sleeping with that woman rather than paying attention to his daughter.

Primrose drove without a set course, she just turned when she felt like it, she just wanted to be the farthest from her father's house, and apparently, she really did, because she couldn't really recognize where she was, she just saw some cars parked and some people around her age heading to a certain direction, she parked and decided to check out of curiosity, what was going on, then she would just move on and find a quieter place for herself.

It didn't take her long that a bonfire was happening, and it was the cause for all of them to reunite along with the cheap alcohol, Primrose wasn't a stranger to this kind of things, even if it seemed she was too uptight about ballet, she didn't mind to lose herself once in a while, after all, it helped her to forget too, sure you couldn't compare the parties she went back in New York to the one she was witnessing here in Auburn Springs, it felt weird seeing all those teenagers would any of them be someone she grew up with? Or they went to the same class? After all one thing was to spend time with people you barely knew and saw them get drunk and another one was to see the kid that you grew up with and that probably put a crayon on his nose as a child now being completely wasted.

Whatever the situation was, Primrose knew that she was on thin ice, as she spent more time there, the possibility of someone talking to her just increased, and Primrose was sure of something, she didn't want to engage because that meant that she was getting tied again to Auburn Springs and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Location: Bonfire | Mood: Irritated
Outift: Here | Interactions:

Primrose Wright

Code by Stardust Galaxy​

 

[Winona]

Weak by AJR

Drake

TW: Drug use, just general bad stuff

Speaking with DC was almost like speaking with just a... a super... uhh...

Drake's eyebrows creased together as he peered at the little figures dancing around the fire. He could feel the high setting in, the general feel as if he was no longer himself in his own body, the lightness of his hands, as if they might float away if he were to lift them up. So he kept his arms firmly planted on his knees as he started to lose himself, a lazy smile gracing his pale lips as he looked at those figures.

It was in these moments that he found himself wondering what it would be like to be normal. Drake didn't want much -- he didn't need to be born rich, or into a famous family, or anything like that. He just wanted something... normal... in his life. He wondered if he would still be in the backseat of the mirrored, rich version of himself's dirty truck if he had been raised in a stable household.

Drake didn't even necessarily want much from a family.

All he wanted was a mother that was presently there at least some of the time, instead of being so drunk or high all the time that she couldn't even recognize her sons. A dad that hadn't walked out when he found out about his wife committing adultery because, in this alternate universe that Drake found himself guiltily dreaming about far too often, his mother never would've done that. And he would've had his brother, of course, and his sister would've been there and not off... wherever she was, but Drake wouldn't be second best. He wouldn't be reduced to just Mason's little brother.

He would actually be his own person.

Sometimes he liked to daydream that had he been given just those basic necessities, with parents that at least made enough money that he wasn't eaten discarded burgers out of a McDonald's dumpster...

That he would be normal.

“What do you think is going on out there...?” DC's soft words dragged Drake lazily back into the present reality of his pitiful fucking existence. “Do you think...do you think that the smiles on their faces make them feel as good as that powder...? As that good shit...? Could we...could we ever feel that way without that good shit?” He could feel DC's eyes burning into his skin. “I don’t know, but, if I’m damned to this life, then there’s no fighting it, and I’m...if you’re damned with me, then let’s go to Hell together...what say you?”

“If life is just Hell without our manufactured euphoria,” he muttered, “then how much worse can Hell be...?”

When Drake finally dragged his pale gaze away from the little figures that he envied so much to look at DC, his newfound friend's eyes had stopped boring into his skin. Instead, DC had closed his eyes and had leaned his head back. For a moment, Drake studied his friend's face. His posture. The memory of DC's eyes, so dead and lifeless, were burned into his memory, and he briefly pondered whether or not his own gaze held that same look.

He concluded that it did, but not all the time.

Drake let out a huff of laughter through his sore nose, his lips twitching into a smile for a split second before inevitably falling again. Nothing stayed around long for the boy, even brief moments of euphoria.

"Well..." he started slowly -- the boy of many words was suddenly finding himself at a loss, and it was reflected as his gaze shifted back to look at those people. All he really wished to be was one of them. Instead, he always felt like he was on the outside looking in. Like he was drowning in a little fishbowl, and he couldn't hear anyone because their voices were muffled by the water that he was drowning in.

(Trust him -- it made sense with Drake logic.)

"I... don't... know," he started slowly, his words unsure as he started speaking. "I don't think... they get the same euphoria, ya know? The same rise, the same... high." The more that Drake drawled on, the stronger his words got, and the more sure his comments were. "But... I can't help but want to be out there, ya know? Feel the same kinda, ya know... the same kinda high, that happiness, and shit, without having to..." he trailed off, his thoughts drifting back to the drugs momentarily, but he didn't mention them. DC would know. "That'd make us normal, right? Being able to feel without extra shit."

Drake didn't know where it had all gone wrong, where he'd stopped feeling on his own and had started needing shit to get a rise out of him.

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "But uh... fuck yeah, I'll go to hell with ya. Ride that little boat down to uh... the Land of the Dead or whatever the hell it's called. I think that's Greek, though, ya know? Pretty sure I remember reading that somewhere, because I was all... oh my god, I wanna ride a boat to my eternal damnation, or something dumb like that, ya know? Dumb but fun."

HIs smile faltered -- it took too much energy to keep it plastered on his face, so he let it fall away.

"You know all those people, like... adults and shit that are always like... 'it gets better.'" His voice momentarily rose up as he mimicked those overly cheerful people that loved to preach what felt like absolute nonsense to him. "You don't believe that shit, do you? Do you think... it'll be like... this... forever? Even when we're eighty... twenty..." he corrected himself when he remembered that there was no way he was making it past twenty-five, and that DC was probably in the same boat, "that we'll be chilling in the backseat of trucks, doing shit to try and get some kind of rise and feel... like... them?"

He didn't pull his gaze away from the figures as he spoke.

| mentions: N/A | interactions: DC | tags: ohdittoh |

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