#whiskey on the rocks & adderall

[whimsicalmeerkat]

whiskey on the rocks & adderall - teen wolf - ch 4

On AO3

Stiles scrunches up his nose. “What, like someone just stumbles into being an emissary or something?”

Using those words to describe how Stiles became Derek's emissary is remarkably apt.

[whimsicalmeerkat]

WIP Wednesday time! Maybe I’ll even manage to get unstuck on some fics. Here’s hoping! For once I don’t have anything I can’t share. Filenames & snippet below. Parts of the snippet have already been posted as answers, but I haven’t done a lot of writing this past week that can be shared, plus I like how it’s turning out. Make me write!

Filenames:

won’t you take me from this valley - Regency time travel nonsense

a time to mourn and a time to hope - dead Stiles (currently at an explicit incest scene, so don’t request if that’ll bug you)

Stackson friendship movie fixit

fellcubs fic

whiskey on the rocks & adderall - Stiles goes to college

Snippet from won’t you take me from this valley:

“May I kiss you?”

Stiles definitely wasn’t expecting that. Fortunately, the answer is easy.

“Yes, definitely.”

Stiles is saved from babbling by Derek reaching for his hand and using it to draw him closer. Their bodies aren’t quite touching, but somehow being that close without contact is more intimate than if they were pressed together completely.

Derek grasps Stiles’ waist carefully. He wraps his other hand around the back of his neck, using it to draw him closer. Stiles’ head falls back when Derek lowers his to kiss him.

It isn’t Stiles’ first kiss, but it’s definitely the most natural one. All of his previous experiences had been awkward party game kisses—generic and focused more on the act than the people involved. This kiss is nothing like that.

Derek’s mouth is a contrast of soft lips and prickly late-day stubble. He’s careful, like he knows Stiles doesn’t have much experience kissing, but not hesitant. He traces his tongue over Stiles’ lower lip, slipping it into his mouth when he makes a small sound and parts his lips.

They kiss for what seems like forever and no time at all. It feels like the most natural thing Stiles has ever done. He falls into the sensations. He’s surprised to find himself panting when Derek draws back. He flexed his hands against Derek’s biceps. Apparently he’d grabbed onto the other man’s arms while they kissed.

WIP Wednesday Game

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

Requested/Friend event mentions under the cut! If you'd like to be pinged next week, let me know!

Friends @fiore-della-valle @redbirdblogs @greenbergsays @idkfandomwhatever @luckyspike

@obaewankenope @mad-madam-m @anonymousdandelion @geometricfractal @prettybirdy979

@eriquin | Requests @aparticularbandit @madnessfromthemountains @makeroftherunes @1attheedge

@whimsicalmeerkat @kidsomeday @lizhly-writes @skyderman @adhdavinci

@owlbearwrites @anachronismstellar @anyctibius @rilannon @lazinesswrites

@zyrafowe-sny @dreaminghour @blue-eyedbeta @candyskiez @dreamerking27

@kalira @virgulesmith @i-want-delfeur @selkies-world @exceedinglygayotter

[sterek-ao3feed-archive]

whiskey on the rocks & adderall

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51698263 by whimsicalmeerkat Derek helps Stiles and Lydia move into their new apartment in Palo Alto on the Tuesday before classes start. He’d insisted the pack avoid living in the dorms of their respective schools. He’s also paying for said apartments, so far be it from Stiles to argue. He hadn’t been looking forward to explaining to a roommate how his stash of dried wolfsbane really isn’t pot, so he’s all over anything that means he never has to do that. ~ The pack goes off to college. There’s pining, obliviousness, and at least one major diplomatic incident. Words: 3394, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Series: Part 5 of waltz about whiskey Fandoms: Teen Wolf (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin, Original Characters Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, References to Knotting, Scent Marking, Derek Hale’s Eyebrows, Pining Derek Hale, Oblivious Stiles Stilinski, Alpha Derek Hale, Badass Stiles Stilinski, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mates, Other Additional Tags to Be Added read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/51698263

[shaunsummers]

Some Sluts Move In

It was attachment at first hug. So small, so precious. She'd kill for her. "You're so tiny." Wrapping her in her arms for a warm hold, Sierra gladly pulls her in to return the squeeze in kind. There was already temptation to invite Tek over for dinner and with Jade allowing her to dangle off of her, she knew they missed each other. Wouldn't say it but there was no need. She was well versed in 'Jade' by now. Did Tek, she wondered, like puzzles? Enjoy a round of Mortal Kombat? Care for an unasked for Ted Talk level presentation of the Funko pop wall in her living room? For now, it was a mystery.

-------------

With all the extra hands, the labyrinth of boxes managed to disappear well before the sun could get close to the horizon. And with a brief intermission for a beer run, a U-Haul return, and a demanding Tek forcing Shaun to take her back to the apartment—she needed an extra set of clothes, and there was no way she wasn't staying at Rebel's that night—they could finally settle into party time.

The three that needed the highest dosage of Adderall had already taken over the stereo, and despite not even being downstairs, the entire Britney Spears discography thumped loudly across the first floor; Shaun already had a minor headache.

It was obvious she wasn't the only one, either. But seeing a reflection of her own misery in Jade, she is quick to pour them both a whiskey on the rocks. "Let's have a smoke." Shaun ushers them towards the back door and onto the patio, closing it extra tightly in effort to drown out the sound before plopping down into one of the metal chairs. "You out or no? I have a whole carton in the truck, so feel free." She takes a cigarette from the pack before tossing it onto the table in offering, flipping her zippo open for a light. They used the same brand, conveniently enough, so it was handy when they inevitably started chain smoking together.

[lcrdoflies]

SAWYER MCLAREN ( THOMAS DOHERTY ) is an EIGHTEEN year old from CONRAD, MONTANA. HE is known around the island as THE WILD CARD because he is EASYGOING and FREE-SPIRITED but can also be STUBBORN and FOOLHARDY. HE reminds of baseball bats, dog-eared books, and single-malt whiskey.

BASIC INFORMATION

NAME: sawyer dean mclaren

NICKNAMES: the hick/texas, soy dog, blue eyes

BIRTHDAY: december 2, 2002

AGE: eighteen

HOMETOWN: conrad, montana

BIRTHPLACE: conrad, montana

RELIGION: agnostic atheist

ETHNICITY: white

NATIONALITY: american

EDUCATION: some high school, no diploma

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single and always trying to mingle

SOCIAL CLASS: lower

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

HEIGHT: 6’0

EYES: blue

HAIR: dark brown

BUILD: slim athletic

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: a scar on the left side of his nose that extends to the corner of his mouth

NOTABLE FEATURES: strong jawline, skin that freckles in the sun, tattoos of varying propriety

PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: if you pay close attention, you can see he walks with a limp in his gait; sawyer likes to tell people he got it in a brawl with a grizzly bear (he didn’t)

ALLERGIES: none

PERSONALITY & BEHAVIOR

HOBBIES: wood-carving, knife-throwing, bed-rocking

LIKES: big dogs, bad ideas, comic books, the smell of rain, open fields, fireflies, fast cars, conspiracy theories, cheap liquor, expensive liquor, stick-and-poke tattoos, falling in love, collecting patches, writing on his hands and clothes

DISLIKES: the man™, conservatives, commitment, tension, tight jeans, dark chocolate, going to church, being told what to do

QUIRKS: speaks with a lazy country twang that’s often mistaken for southern, refers to people by pet names, uses laughter as punctuation, likes to philosophize about the future of the universe, thinks jack daniels is an acceptable substitute for water, writes illegibly, can recite the entire ending passage of the great gatsby from memory but can’t tell you what he ate for breakfast yesterday morning

STRENGTHS: a natural leader, thrives on teamwork, uses the “uneducated hick” label people put upon him to his advantage when it comes to outsmarting others

WEAKNESSES: once he gets an idea in his head, it’s hard to convince him otherwise; puts a little too much trust in others, bad with directions

POSITIVE TRAITS: charismatic, sociable, open-minded

NEGATIVE TRAITS:  stubborn, aimless, reckless

MENTAL DISABILITIES: adhd

SHARE 5 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER

sawyer served 14 months of an 18-month sentence in juvenile detention for auto theft and joyriding. the fun part about this fact is that the only difference between juvie and deserted islands is the food.

with two older brothers, sawyer is the youngest child in a family of four. his mama dipped when he was a kid: old enough to remember a life with her in it and young enough to brush off the hurt she left behind. his daddy, on the other hand, took a “tough love” approach to raising sawyer and his brothers. if they got hurt, he let them cry it out. when they made mistakes, they had to figure out how to right ‘em on their own. on sawyer’s twelfth birthday, his father gave him a rifle and taught him how to shoot – said he needed to learn how to defend himself. sawyer spent the better part of his adolescence chasing after a childhood he never really had in the first place.

sawyer probably would’ve made the top percentile of his class if he’d ever formally gone to school. despite his impetuous antics, he’s naturally intelligent and loves to learn. he used to spend a lot of time in the library as a child, reading whatever he could get his hands on, from comics to nonfiction. some of his favorite books are treasure island, don quixote, and the odyssey.

he picked up stick-and-poke tattooing in juvie as a creative outlet for folsom prison blues. sawyer’s not an artist by any means, and most of the tats he has look like bad children’s drawings, but he takes pride in his ability to help others make equally terrible decisions.

no, he’s not related to that mclaren. yes, he absolutely knows how to gun a car down the freeway. 

WHAT WAS YOUR CHARACTER WEARING ON THE FLIGHT?

on the flight to kona, hawaii, sawyer was wearing:

a ratted, army green jacket with a hood and four pockets

a long-sleeved sweatshirt

a white undershirt

a black bandana tied around his neck

slim cargo pants, rolled at the ankle

a plain pair of socks

a plain pair of boxers

black sneakers with duct tape wrapped around the right sole

PLEASE LIST 3 PERSONAL ITEMS OF YOUR CHARACTER THAT WASHED UP ON SHORE

a rusted dog tag with the initials O.S.Y. engrained into the metal, seemingly by hand

a paperback copy of lord of the flies, most of its pages illegible or torn from water damage

a 30-day supply of adderall xr with twenty-two pills left

EXTRAS:

spotify + will update as added

[r3b3lgrrrrrrrl]

A LunaTic and Her Gunn (Part 115 2Xs2) "True Intentions"

@crystalbaby12 @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @5sosfam1dlover @rosefilledhearts-blog

"I've got different colored sticky tabs for the different spaces." Luna announces as she enters her storage unit.

Jackie and Sam are there with The Movers. Luna goes through picking out which pieces will go to The Brownstone, her Studio Apartment and the Recording Studio she just bought. She had signed the closing paperwork electronically with Monica and Ben earlier this week on the latter properties. The Apartment is ready but the Recording Studio needs a contractor for the equipment installation. Jackie being on top of that, they start the gutting process next week. Everything else is being moved out today.

"Whoah!!! Be carful with that!!" Sam cries out in concern as she watches The Movers roughly handle an original, stretched Mapplethorpe.

"What the FUUUUUCK." Luna groans as she rubs her forehead. "Why wasn't that crated?" She asks no one in particular as her phone rings. "Hello?" She sighs into the receiver.

It's Kylie. Luna's therapist. Calling because it's 2P on every other Thursday. Luna excuses herself, trusting Sam and Jackie while she finds an empty stairwell.

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"It's just conflicting, Ky... " Luna let's out with an annoyed sigh and a cloud of smoke from her pen while playing with Colson's padlock around her neck.

She's been on the phone with Kylie for the last 45mins talking about everything and anything. Colson, Justin, trust, feeling over exposed, setting up the lable. Her therapist advising her to breathe as always and to make a Pros and Cons list regarding marrying Colson. Knowing there is no option, Luna humors her with an Okay before they get off the phone.

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"How do we look?" Luna asks after coming back in from the stairwell.

"Good." Jackie begins to reassure her. "Everything you want is loaded into the two trucks. I'm gonna ride to The Brownstone and Sam to The Apartment... Uhm, Lee said you're good to go at Electric Lady Land around 7P... "

"And I talked to Mikey, he'll be there no problem." Sam chimes in.

"You guys are fucking AWESOME. Thank you." Luna pulls them in for a three way hug. "I gotta go meet Petey." She informs them once they release. "You guys good without me?" She asks.

Both women nod. Giving promises of phones calls if there's any problems as Luna heads back towards the stairwell; popping another XR and two 30s during her descent. It shouldn't be THAT hard... They're only responsible for moving half of her life.

---------------------------------------------------

Colson gets in touch with The Boys and heads to Amsterdam Billiards for pool and beers. Popping his own handful of Adderall along the way. Stepping out of the cab, Mod greets him with an excited hug.

"What up, Kid!" He squeezes his unhappy friend. "Aww, come on... Don't be like that, you know Luna'll come around. She always does." Mod tells him with a slap on the back as they walk inside.

Benny, Baze, AJ, Rook and Slim have a table racked up. Mod grabs more beers as Colson joins them. They're all talking about the GMA performance. Agreeing it was killer. While Rook also can't stop talking about Jackie.

"Good luck with that, Rookie. I don't think Loons is doing any of us any favors right now." Colson sighs as he leans down to break.

"Shit. Speak for yourself, that's my homie, Dawg." Rook disagrees with him as he swigs his beer.

---------------------------------------------------

Luna meets Pete on The Delancey's rooftop bar. He's already sat when she walks in. Noticing her, he stands for them to hug Hello. His normal excitement clearly missing as she orders a drink.

"I heard you and Colson got into it after I left." Luna cuts right to the core.

"Yeah. He wants to blame me for him running his mouth." Pete starts to complain to Luna's silence. "Like I started all this shit."

"You kinda did... I love you Petey but whether I cheated on Colson or Justin, like I told you last night, it's none of your business. My betrayal didn't land on you or even Colson so really the two of you are fighting over some shit that doesn't even concern you. It's that simple." Luna explains.

"So you did cheat on Beebs?" Pete asks her, ignoring everything else she had said.

"Yeah, Petey. I told you last night that I had an affair. I'm not proud of it but it happened." Luna shrugs as she fights back tears of guilt.

"Who was it?" He pries.

"What? No. You don't get to ask questions like that... Like, I don't understand why this feels like you're mad at me for some reason. I didn't do ANYTHING to you." Luna furrows her eyebrows at him as she takes a sip of her drink.

"Yeah but you did do something to my friend that he never did to you." Pete looks into his beer and then up at Luna.

"You didn't know Justin and I's relationship as well as you think you did. Just like you don't know nearly as much about me and Colson as you think you may. My turn? Your judgmental attitude towards me is really disappointing and if you're so worried about your FRIENDS than go make up with the one that's still in town. I'm outta here though." Luna swallows the rest of her Old Fashioned with two gulps. "Hit me up when you're done being a dick." She calls over her shoulder as she walks out of the bar.

---------------------------------------------------

Mike's sitting alone outside of Electric Lady Land when Luna arrives. Lighting a cigarette, he looks up. Green eyes taking her in as he stands to grab her guitar case from her.

"What's goin' on, Luna?" He asks as he sits back down and takes a drag from his Marlboro.

Luna fishes around in her bag for her joint box and flask. Finding them both, she takes a swig before offering it over to his acceptance. Lighting a joint, she sighs out a cloud of smoke as they sit in silence. Sometimes no talking is good.

After a while Sam shows up. The three of them head inside to meet up with Lee. Thanking him, he tells Luna no one was even booked as they begin to set up in Studio A.

Realizing they need producers, Luna calls Slim. Then Snaps Colson. Setting her bag on the table, she pulls out supplies. Weed, whiskey, cigarettes and more weed. Popping another few 30s before laying her guitar back onto her body.

---------------------------------------------------

"Yeah! No problem, we'll be down there ASAP." Slim says into his phone. "That was LunaTic, she wants us to come produce the track." He says excitedly to Baze once he hangs up. "Dawg! We gonna make some music in Jimi Hendrix's fucking spot, Yo!!" He exclaims as they slap hands across the pool table.

Colson's just about to put his two sense in when his phone goes off. Digging in his pocket, it's not the message he was expecting. It's a Snap from Luna.

"If I want? What kind of fucking shit is that?" He scoffs in his mind. "Why's she so fucking hot even while she's being such a fucking a bitch." He finds himself becoming annoyed with how much he wants her and her resistance towards him. He shoves his phone back in his pocket without responding.

The Boys are getting ready to head to  Greenwich Village when Colson's phone goes off again. It's the message he's been waiting for. Telling The Boys he'll meet up with them later, he's out the door before they pay the tab.

---------------------------------------------------

Luna's leaned towards Mike in the booth when Colson walks in. He can't hear them but he doesn't like that he can see him making her laugh. Mike's a little to comfortable in his interactions with Luna in Colson's personal opinion. Luna catches the back of his blonde hair and significant tattoo as she looks up, watching as he walks out of the room. He quickly heads down the hall towards the bathroom, promptly pulling out the quarter ounce of cocaine he'd grabbed from Nipple.

Colson walks back into the studio just as Luna, Sam and Mike begin recording. Sitting with Slim and Baze at the soundboard, he grabs a pair of headphones and slips them on. Listening and watching intently. Luna can feel his eyes burning straight into her soul.

Nailing it on the third full take, they leave it alone. Luna doesn't want it mixed. Layered, yes but not mixed. She's always preferred the gritty, garage rock sound over studio polish any day. Coming out of the booth, she approaches Colson as he stands up.

"You came." She purrs with a drunken slur to her sentence as she wraps her arms around his waist.

"I go where you go, Kitten. Always." He promises her before lifting her chin to kiss her deeply; enjoying their first real kiss of the day but opening his eyes half way through to stare down Mike from around the side of the top of her head.

Hanging out afterwards, they celebrate with beers and lines. Luna declining as everyone else partakes in Colson's party favor. Having done enough other drugs all day, she's still buzzing from earlier so she's solid without it. Preferring to burn and drink instead.

"What do you have recorded so far?" Mike asks Luna about her upcoming album.

"I think maybe three out of an ambitious twenty!" Luna laughs softly at herself.

"I'm down to help with anything you need." Mike offers as he passes her a joint.

"Thanks... I'm probably gonna take you up on that." Luna answers. "I don't really have a band right now and we... "

"That's why you got us." Rook interrupts her while plunking down on the couch beside her and tossing an arm around her shoulders; he doesn't like the way Mike has been hanging around Luna either.

"That I do." Luna giggles as she kisses his cheek.

"We backed her on Nightmare and I produced Outlaw." Rook declares proudly while studying to the musician.

"That's cool, Little Man." Mike responds unfazed by Rook as he stands up. "Luna, you got my number if you wanna use it for anything. I gotta run though." He smirks at Rook as he leans down to peck her cheek.

"You want me to walk you out?" She offers.

"Nah, I'm good... I'll catch you around though." Mike smiles at her before heading for the door.

Watching the entire interaction, Colson follows behind him. Calling out his name, he catches him in the hallway right at the front door. Mike turns around unamused.

"You know we're engaged, right?" Colson questions him with an irritated tone.

"Yeah... And?" Mike cuts back while cocking his lip.

"AND? And I don't like the way you fucking act around her so back the fuck up." Colson snaps at him.

"Gonna be kinda hard since it seems that SHE wants ME as her new bassists." Mike laughs at him while slapping him on the shoulder.

"Gonna be kinda hard to play ANYTHING when I snap your fucking fingers." Colson warns him as he shoves Mike up against the wall; Mike's 6'2 so there's not much of a height difference between them.

"Try it, My Man." Mike chuckles, unimpressed by Colson's threat.

"You know what, you're right... " Colson let's him off of the wall. "Maybe I overreacted." He says as he opens the door for Mike and he begins to walk through. "Or maybe I FUCKING didn't!" Colson growls as he grabs Mike's right hand and jerks him back.

Slamming it with the door, in between the frame. One. Two. Three. Four times. Most likely breaking it.

"YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT!" Mike screams as he grasps his mangled hand.

"You can walk away right now or you can crawl away with two broken legs also." Colson advises as he props the door open again.

"You're gonna FUCKING regret this." Mike snarls to Colson's emotionless stare as he holds his hand and turns to leave. "That was a bad fucking move, My Man." He calls out from the sidewalk.

"Maybe it was... Maybe it wasn't... But DAMN if it didn't feel good." Colson walks back to the studio with a pep in his step for the first time today; having released a majority of his stress. "I never liked that motherfucker anyway." He thinks as he opens the door, looking to locate only Luna. Knowing in the back of his mind that her and Sam are gonna probably fuck him up for what he just did but he doesn't care. Fuck that Dude, he doesn't want him around Luna regardless of the cost.

---------------------------------------------------

"There's stuff!!" Rook exclaims pointing at the large, round arial rug, crates and boxes in The Living Room as they return to The Brownstone. Everyone but Luna is zooted, even Sam. "Yo!!" Check out these fucking chairs!" Rook continues to holler, now from The Study.

It's also stacked with boxes of Luna's books and vinyls. Having one wall with floor to ceiling bookshelves, she's looking forward to using them. Walking in, she finds Rook lounging on one of the two highback, purple velvet chairs she owns along with the exposed Mapplethorpe.

"What's up with that picture?" Rook asks as he accepts a beer from Luna.

"My grandfather shot it." She tells him proudly as they clink their beers together.

"It's really cool. Like the two flowers are reaching out for each other. Like death grasping for life." He says thoughtfully.

"I think that's what he was going for." Luna smiles to herself, admiring the exceptional piece.

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Luna makes her way upstairs to the shower. Turning Fletcher on, she lights up a joint as she cuts up another two 30s and swallows two Xanax bars. It's been a long day, she hasn't been to sleep in almost 48hrs and she's incredibly shaky from all the Adderall. Wanting to simply wash everything away and knock the fuck out.

"Hey... " Colson's sitting on the bed when she comes out of the bathroom.

"Hi." She answers as she stops and looks at him with a sigh.

"Please come're, Luna." He asks for her as he reaches his arms out yet again.

This time she does. Sitting on his lap in her towel, she wraps her arms around him and nuzzles her head into her spot in the crook of his neck. Resting his chin on her head, Colson and Luna hold each other silently besides his constant sniffling.

"Loons, I'm sorry." Colson speaks first. "I shouldn't... "

"Please. I'm SO tired." Luna whines. "But, Colson, it's not the secret that you told. I would've told Justin had he cared to notice or ask. It's that you told A secret because I've got bigger ones than that. You have no idea." She sighs sadly.

"Like what, Kitty?" Colson pries with concern.

"Seriously, I am so fucking tired, Col. Can I please just sleep. I promise I'll tell you everything." She pleads with him as the Xanax begins to take over.

"Okay... " Colson agrees as he kisses her forehead. "Lay with you?" He asks.

"There's no way you can lay down right now... Just come to bed eventually, please." Luna requests.

"Yeah." He promises "I love you." He tells her before taking her face in his hands and kissing her passionately.

"I love you too." She kisses him lightly on the lips again once they release before crawling off of his lap.

Dropping her towel, Luna climbs into their bed. Wrapping herself in the warm, custom blanket, she snuggles into the pillow with heavy exhaustion. Colson leans down and kisses her cheek. Dropping another I love you into her ear as she mumbles the same. She's out before he closes the door.

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Colson, Sam, Baze, Rook, AJ, Benny, Mod and Slim are downstairs for the next few hours. Jamming, talking uncontrollably and bouncing in and out off the front stoop to smoke cigarettes as they blow through the bag of coke. 

The house is still bare so they decide it's a good idea to start setting Luna's books up on the shelves. They're all high as fuck, doing whatever they want. Sam and Mod begin trying to organize her vast collection but are making no sense. Baze gets caught up in a hardback limited edition entitled The Great Big Book of Rock and Roll. Slim and Colson are in awe when they open a box of her records. Sitting on the floor, they start going through them like little kids in a candy store. Rook's really flying and gets bored quickly, heading into The Living Room to beat his energy out on his new drum kit. Benny and AJ are the only chill ones as always. Maxed out in the purple chairs, they continuesly puff on and pass blunts to the other wackos. Luna sleeping through it all.

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Sam and Colson find themselves out on the stoop alone. Their normal awkward silence is gone as cocaine fuels their conversation. Talking all things Luna. This is one of the reasons Sam barely hits the slopes, she talks too fucking much when she's on 'em.

"You can't be mad at Pete." She offers up her opinion. "Luna's like another little sister to him." She tries to explain.

"Yeah but he's supposed to be my bestfriend." Colson disagrees.

"I get that... So can't you understand the fucked up spot you put him in between the two of you?" Sam counters as she takes a drag off of her Camel.

"Yeah... I think he thought she cheated on me... " Colson trails.

"Look, he had a really hard time with Justin and Luna's relationship too. We both did. Justin would disappear and we'd be looking for him with Luna. Sometimes we'd find him sometimes we wouldn't. Sometimes he'd call Pete, me or Izak on his own. Pete and Izak would hide him... It was fucked up." Sam shakes get head in dismay as her own heart breaks. "Justin would get clean, be good for a minute but then relapse all over again and she'd be a fucking mess. If anyone tried to paint their relationship as picture perfect to you than they didn't truly know them. Luna and Justin had a lot of problems." Sam admits to one of the first people ever; Colson seeming to have that effect on people.

"She doesn't really talk about him... I mean a little but I can tell it's restrained." He sighs.

"There's my Sammy Bam Bam!" Baze interrupts them with a grin as he opens the door.

"Make up with Pete." Sam pats Colson on the shoulder as she stands up to head inside with her boyfriend.

The Cocaine Cowboys eventually round their night out. Sam following Baze to his room as Rook, AJ, Benny, and Slim head to theirs. Mod being super grateful for the spare bedroom he slept in last night. Colson making his way up to a still sleeping Luna.

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Stripping his clothes, Colson climbs into bed with Luna. Her body is warm as he slides himself around her. Firmly running his hand up her outer thigh, along her hip and ribcage before crawling around her breast. Feeling every inch of her once more as he runs his hand back down her slender body.

Luna moans as her hips begin to shift back and forth out of need and instinct. Colson grows harder against her back as he slips his fingers along her pussy lips. Feeling her juices spill out as he lightly dips his finger inside of her.

"Mmm... Fuck, I've missed her taste." He mentally moans, not being a able to resist sticking his fingers in his mouth as his tongue dances around her unique flavor.

"I wanna fuck you." Colson husks deeply into her ear while he grabs her tit.

"Mhm." Luna murmurs hazily as she perks her ass into him.

Getting the Go, Colson seperates her delicate lips with his fingers. Taking his time, he slowly guides himself into Luna. Feeling her body tense as she moans and pushes her ass deeper into him. Tangling their legs in each other's, Luna reaches behind and grabs the back of Colson's neck to pull him closer to her. Kissing every inch of her that he can reach, he fucks her sternly while she bounces lazily off of his cock. With her face and closed eyes still resting softly in her pillow; she moans and fucks Colson contently in her sleep and drug induced state.

There's something about a SleepFuck that's incredibly satisfying to Luna. Her walls clutch Colson's dick in pleasure, making he thrusts harder. Releasing himself as he feels her cum all over him.

"FUCK." He breathes into her bare neck.

"Mmm... " Is Luna's only response, she's already almost back asleep.

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Pete shows up on The Brownstone's stoop with two coffees. Colson meeting him with four blunts. The two friends take a seat. Colson firing up the first blunt after Pete hands him his coffee.

"Yo... I'm sorry, Dawg." Colson starts as he exhales. "I put you in some shit... "

"Nah, Homie." Pete cuts him off as he accepts the blunt. "Luna's business is her own. No matter who it's with." Pete sighs. "I just worry about her, Man. And you too. I've seen you both go through some fucked up shit and I don't want to see it again, I guess." Pete half shrugs as he takes a pull.

"Look, Sam ACTUALLY talked to me last night so I get it a little more than I did before." Colson tells him as he accepts the blunt.

"It was just hard... " Pete shakes his head at the memories.

"I don't want this to fuck us up." Colson bares his soul to one of his bestfriends.

"Me neither." Pete agrees as he reaches for the second blunt and fires it up.

Both friends look at each other. There's an understanding between men that can happen without words. This is one of those times. With a simple nod, Pete and Colson are good. Going on to enjoy their coffee, each other and the NYC morning as they get high and bust it up like nothing ever happened.

---------------------------------------------------

Luna's extra miserable when Colson wakes her up for their flight back to LA. The lack of sleep, too many drugs and her gunshot wound have her aching in every sense of the word. She doesn't shower. Just throws on sunglasses, cuttoffs and an oversized Hotel Diablo hoodie.

They make it to JFK just in time for their 11A flight. Everyone is dragging, not only Luna. Proving that cocaine is a Motherfucker. Once seated in first class, everyone knocks back out. Luna curling up against Colson as his face lays on her head and arm rests upon her bare leg.

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It's just before 8P by time they make it back to The LA House. Everyone is tired. No one is happy. All dropping their luggage in The Living Room before heading to their beds. They're so mentally jacked, no one's even thought to check The Charts, let alone eat at all day.

---------------------------------------------------

Luna and Colson sleep clean until the next morning until her alarm goes off. Colson groans as she shifts away from him. Climbing out of the bed, she reaches high to stretch. Colson watching her out of one slitted eye.

"Why are you up?" He asks flatly.

"So you can truly see me." Luna answers before disappearing into the bathroom.

It takes a shit ton of coaxing and drugs to get Colson moving after Luna's shower. Complaining the whole time as she hands him water and joints. Once in the shower he starts to feel slightly better after he jerks off. He's FINALLY fully functional after his Adderall and coffee kicks in.

Not getting as much sleep as Luna and doing way more drugs, he's really edgy. She hands him a football before they walk out of the bedroom. He's so pissy they leave the house quietly without his trademark WE OUT.

---------------------------------------------------

"Can I have the keys?" Luna asks, she's dressed in an overall romper, white shirt, long socks and one of her leathers as they walk towards the Rover in the early Saturday sun.

"Why?" Colson asks back as he tosses them to her in his own ripped jeans and black T.

"I need to drive and you need to listen." She answers before sliding into the driver's seat.

"You're talking to me now?" He counters with a slight attitude as he buckles his seatbelt.

"Do you think this is a fucking game?" Luna whips her head towards him.

"No." He answers solemnly as he sparks a joint.

"You don't seem to fucking get it at all." Luna shakes her head as she pulls out of the driveway.

"Look Loons, I'm sorry I fucked up with the Tommy and Justin thing. I shouldn't have said shit no matter how I was feeling." He exhales his apology as he passes her the joint and finally pops the Xanax she gave him.

"You still don't get it, Colson. How many times do I have to tell you.. It's not the secret you told. It's that you TOLD a secret. Period. You don't seem to realize that I'm dirtier than a fucking affair... Fuck." Luna let's out an exasperated sigh. "Let's be honest. In the short time you've known me; I've committed coercion, shot a federal agent, am in the process of setting up an underground abortion clinic... Oh! And I was blackmailed into issuing a public apology for fucking up one person out of what? A fucking dozen? And that's only been in the last 3MNTHS... Seriously, I am a fucking criminal." Colson stares at her as everything begins to register. "Fuck, I've got things going on that you don't even know about yet." She continues to worry as she hits the joint a few times while staring ahead. "And now, I'm terrified to fucking tell you about them."

"Like what?" Colson asks her with a concerned, yet amused SideEye as he takes the joint.

"Why should I tell you? Every criminal who's been caught is usually taken down because of their irrational lover." She looks over at him with a light smirk and hazy blue eyes for the first time during their car ride.

"You really gonna play me like that?" He scoffs at her before inhaling a huge hit.

"I don't know. You wanna say don't call Jax but are your stupid ass, jealous comments gonna get me popped one day?" She bites back as she fumbles for her cigarettes.

"Are you fucking serious?" He spits out as he starts to get angry with her. "What the fuck do you think I would do to you and what the fuck else are you doin' that's worse than what I already know? And where the FUCK are we going?" He demands as they continue to drive.

Luna's quiet for a long moment as she smokes her Newport. She's trying to keep herself calm and figure out exactly how to tell Colson about what things. Already having made her decision long before they got into the SUV to give up her biggest secret.

"Tell me, Luna." Colson asserts as he lights another joint.

"All in?" She asks him firmly as she looks over at him and holds his stare while he grabs her hand to reassure her. "I told you... I'm dirtier than you think. I own properties that clean money and stash shit for one of the biggest distributors on The East Coast." Luna admits in a hushed voice.

"It's for Tommy, isn't it?" Colson immediately snaps as his mind flashes back to his conversation with Benny.

"OH MY FUCKING GAWD!!" Luna can't help but scream. "You are so fucking hung up on other dudes that it's insane and probably what's gonna get me caught!" Luna stops. "How can you not see that I tell you more about myself WILLINGLY than any other human being on This Earth? That you know more about me than Justin ever did." Luna's lip trembles as tears escape from her eyes. "So, yeah... It started with Tommy but I have bigger associates now... " Luna shakes her head. "That's only a blip though. There is so much more at stake for me than that!" Luna slams her palms against the steering wheel in frustration as she begins to sob. "You have no fucking idea." She shakes her head again as her voice breaks.

"Then what is it, Luna?" Colson softens his tone with her.

Coming to a stop light, Luna turns her head and looks Colson dead in the eyes. Her hands are clutching the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles are white. There's a look on her face he's never seen before. It's a mixture of sadness, pain and determination. Taking a shuddered sigh, Luna flicks her cigarette out the window. She finds herself begging The Universe that he won't betray her this time as she's about to tell only Colson her true intentions. Lighting her own joint, she inhales deeply and holds the hit in. Looking over at Colson, she studies him. He stares back, waiting for her words.

"I'm gonna kill Smurf." She states icily before turning away, releasing the brake and focusing on what's ahead. "Still wanna marry me now?" She asks, puffing on the joint without taking her eyes off of the road.

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Part 2 of 2

To be continued...

[guiarecordsmusic]

Destaque Pop electro This is @yourfriendjake - K.O. | Support by @groover.br  @groover.music @grooverobsessions @guiarecordsmusic Disponivel em nossas playlists nas principais plataformas digitais ! Jake Huffman - K.O. Jake viveu uma vida inteira como artista bem antes dos 30 anos. Seu single auto-produzido, Giving it a Try, é uma homenagem a um sonhador indomado que viaja pelo país em uma jovem banda de rock. É o culminar de sua história única e trabalho duro combinado com composições excepcionais e produção fantástica. Jake criou um som que se aprofunda em suas raízes do rock e chega ao que só pode ser descrito como o som dos anos 20. Adderall & Whiskey foi produzido e escrito por Jake Huffman, mixado por Andrew Oedel e masterizado por Brian Lucey  . . Envie o seu material para nossa avaliacao na Groover/GuiaRecords Submit your song on Groover/GuiaRecords . . . . . . . . . . . #grooverbr #grooverbrasil #groovermusic #musica #music #gravadora #guiarecords #guiarecordsmusic #musiclabel #popmusic #instagram #playlist #musicaeletronica #electropop #france #brazil  (em Brazil) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChCzGpUrcRr/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[whimsicalmeerkat]

I’m actually caught up for once, so I’m excited to see what interests people. No 2-for-1 this week, but there are some things that haven’t been on here in a while. Make me write!

Filenames:

whiskey on the rocks & adderall - Stiles goes to college

a time to mourn and a time to hope - dead Stiles

Time Travel Extended

as through a glass darkly - mirrors/reflections

Fandom Trumps Hate 2024 - PT

Snippet from FTH PT:

Chris feels someone’s eyes on him. He has many sets of eyes watching him—people who have come to his daughter’s viewing to gawk at his tragedy and the much smaller number of people who have come to mourn with him. The quality of this gaze feels different, though.

He scans the room, keeping his face stoic. He won’t show his tearing grief to the townspeople of Beacon Hills and he doesn’t dare show it in front of the hunters who have traveled into town. They aren’t here to mourn. He knows a territory grab when he sees one. Too many of them were allies of Gerard for it to be anything else. They certainly aren’t here for anything so benign as support.

He finally reaches the section of the crowd where his watcher is. His eyes meet Stiles Stilinski’s. Stiles flinches, but he doesn’t look away. Chris respects that. He’s not sure he would be able to do the same. Not after everything that’s passed between them. Not after—

Stiles looks ground down, much worse than merely beaten. His brown eyes are dull and surrounded by black circles that are almost as bad as when he was possessed. The grief and guilt are new, or perhaps heightened. Chris finds himself having a hard time looking away from this young man who looks as broken as he feels.

There’s movement and someone steps between him and Stiles. Chris isn’t surprised that it’s Derek Hale. He’s always been protective of Stiles. Chris is glad for it now. He nods at Derek, then turns away. It isn’t safe to do more in this crowd. He has to admire him for showing up. He can tell by the tension in his shoulders that he knows there are hunters here.

WIP Wednesday Game

snatching from @kedreeva because have been given permission!

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

@eriquin, @adhdavinci, @post-and-out, @stonemaskedtaliesin, @princescar, @auburnlaughter, @captaintoomanybattles, @lingeringmirth, i know there are more of you but you are the ones i remember off the top of my head

I'll put mine in a separate note!

[whimsicalmeerkat]

Whiskey on the Rocks & Adderall for WIP Wednesday please!

Here you go, forever later. I’ll catch up, though, I swear!

~

“And?” Derek prompts, raising up on his elbow and trying to look at the screen.

“What do you mean, ‘and?’ He’s pissed.”

[mollyohmolly]

the first half of age 26

(now five years ago, last half of 2013)

26 overall: not a banner year. I briefly toured a bit of the world, and I’ll keep that as my solace, but overall this will be remembered as a year of grave missteps. And will I ever learn? Yet to be determined. For the sadsack rundown, this year I: -gained 40+ pounds -moved back to Seattle for a sad, sort of humiliating summer -got two telephones stolen off of me -had a few falling outs -remained single for the duration -did not advance my career (read: begin) at all -drank myself into oblivion many, many nights -spent a stint homeless and broke -got fired -borrowed money from my folks -shipped my dog off to my folks since I was too much of a deadbeat to take care of him -am now laid up in my room because I tumbled down a hill blind drunk and rolled my ankle out and don’t have health insurance There were beautiful moments nestled in there, but they are momentary delusions at best. Began my year in maybe my favorite place on earth, a stretch of coastline along California Highway 1. I was living in a hippie home in Lower Pacific Heights in San Francisco with a ragtag group of weirdos, and I was working at a rock venue in the city’s trendiest/most rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. I was sleeping with a chatty blonde boy -- the lights tech -- half because we laughed a lot and I was lonely at the time, and somewhat because he lived around the corner from the venue. I convinced a Canadian boy I had met the previous summer to fly down for a birthday adventure, so he booked a WestJet. If you want something, ask for it. We had a great story if left adbriged - we met dancing in Vancouver one warm August night; lost track of my friends, got locked out of the house I was staying; he stayed up with me all night in a diner; took a bus back to the house as the sun came up over the (?) mountains. (Leaving out making out against a car, sleeping together.) I moved to San Francisco that autumn, and the next March I flew back up to Seattle to get Adderall/show off my California tan, he bussed down from Canada, and we had this idyllic weekend with friends and laughter that in some ways made me idealize Washington all over again. From there, we moved on to Skypes and sexts and adorable phone calls where I just listened really for signs of that damn Canadian accent in my lonely little bunk. My best friend from high school decided to move down to San Francisco from Portland, chasing the sun and good times and whiskey. Laura arrived the weekend of Bay to Breakers, a veritable bro fest. Our friend Lisa was there that weekend with her bro boyfriend Jeff, and we did the whole brunch/Dolores/Divisadero bar thing. I took her everywhere; things were not going to be so lonely. One night, Laura and Todd the light tech and I went to see Akron/Family show at the Independent on Divisadero. I was really the only one stoked for it, as that band had provided the soundtrack to many forlorn rides on the 595 from Olympia to Tacoma to Seattle during college, staring out at the gray Northwest. Turns out their sound had changed from foresty to bad electronica. Laura bailed and Todd walked home, and as I was walking home Nick the Canadian sent me a series of beautiful text that stirred my weary little heart after months of near-despair in San Francisco. “I don’t know what it is, but you get me in a way I’ve never been gotten,” is maybe the last thing I read before I felt plunged forward onto the concrete. So that was the night I was mugged, and the next day my mom and aunt flew into town, and there I was with bruises up and down my knees and thighs and a busted-up hand from punching a grown man in the nose with a strange shock of untapped strength. My heartsick mother replaced my phone with the newest model and we spent the weekend by her pool and exploring the city somewhat. She hated my house, but loved the wharf. Rented a Mercedes and careened down Lombard. Took a duck out, wore a sailboat shirt. Nice time, glad to have had it. I picked Nick up at the Oakland airport in an Audi we had rented for the weekend. He picked me up, he spun me. My hobby, as Stephen said, is importing boys. Tim, Hadleigh, Andrew, Brian, Jake: my favorite moments are at airports. I wore this white summer dress, he wore bright shorts. Went back to my house, my roommate Ryan called him a “Canadian ken doll.” We packed up the car with some tent, some muenster, and off we drove. Highway One is maybe one of the most magical places on earth, a stretch of impeccable California coastline. Craig and I first drove down years and years ago now, had dinner at Orson Welles’ old cabin, sat by a fire on a ledge at the end of the earth. So that’s how I wanted to spend my birthday, figuring that would set the tone for the rest of the year. Put on a playlist, drove into the sunshine, down long expanses of exquisite coast, his hand on my leg, his sideways smile in my periphery, all lips and hair and restless energy. Stopped in Santa Cruz, had lunch on the beach. Felt like we’d been together for years, a wonderful illusion. Bit of his temper towards others was cropping up. Didn’t care. His arm around me, always. He ran up behind me on a ledge. Stopped at coves, watched sea lions. Fell in love for a few days. Put up a tent alongside Big Sur River, then drove to the Henry Miller Library, got into a bottle of Bulleit and some Arnold Palmers. Watched a very formative band, one of my favorites, Two Gallants, play their melodies under soaring redwoods. Nick wrapped his arms around me while the singer smiled that golden smile, elbows rubbed off of his sweater, a brilliant perfect night, drove back, built a campfire, felt like it would never get better, and it never did. So for a weekend, we were this brilliant couple. We never could be: he lived on the other side of a border and it wouldn’t work. But we got along just fine, had the same sense of humor, had a great time because it was fleeting. The next day we took our time getting back to the city, stopping and climbing along bays and ravines in Carmel and old churches in Davenport and everything was wonderful. Met Laura at al our regular bars on Divis on Saturday night, got daydrunk with all my coworkers at the Chapel on Sunday, went to a fancy cocktail bar in the Haight, blacked out, made out, bought a grab bag of bullshit from the bodega for dinner the last night, made out, cuddled, cursed, laughed, cried, bonded, Monday morning my birthday came around and we rented another car called “Maple Syrup” and drove to Crissy Field and he took me to lunch at a French restaurant in an alleyway downtown -- drove him back to Oakland and after he checked in at the desk he came back out of the airport door and instructed me to give him “one more hug” before he flew away. Everything in California fell apart all at once. My $550/month sublet ended and housing was bleak. My parents wanted to ship Brogan back, but he had nowhere to go. Washington State wanted $800+ for my stint on unemployment. The Chapel was giving me a few measly shifts a week, and the money wasn’t stretching, and I couldn’t afford a down payment on lease in this tech-rich city. By fluke, I saw a Facebook posting for a $667/month sublet in Seattle with a group of Seattle University alumni that I somehow had ended up friends with. If I could reverse any decision, it would be this one. But I’m not sure; the summer that followed was one mistake after the next and the regrets would only stack and marinate, but maybe I’d have ended up worse. Maybe moving into Laura’s new apartment would have strained our friendship, maybe a lesson in humility was necessary, maybe it was just nice to have my dog around for a summetime and maybe I wouldn’t be in the apartment that I’m in now if not for a series of disasters. Or maybe had I stayed I would have met a great lad and had a great adventure and now I’d be splitting finances and writing for a living or I’d have lucked into some office job that I’d grow to resent, but wondering gets me nowhere. The fact is, I made a terrible choice, one that I thought would fix everything but just launched me into an awful, unshakeable depression that I’m only now beginning to see the other side of. I decided to move back to Seattle for the summer. With money that my grandmother had left me after her passing, I had booked a plane ticket from New York to Reykjavik to Amsterdam, and then a return ticket from Copenhagen a month later. It was very financially irresponsible, but fuck it, I figured. I doubted my ability to ever have my feet on steady ground, so I may as well get something out of the messes I make. So I moved back to Seattle for the summer. I can’t think of this past summer without cringing, fully. Everything I did was wrong. Everything was bad. I lived in Judkins Park, which is a good mile or two out from Capitol Hill, where I drank and worked and hung. I had all of these illusions of life back “home” after forgetting that I did leave for a reason; there was nothing left for me. It took me a few week to find jobs, and when I finally did, I took anything I could get. I got a job through my old manager at a new high-end restaurant called the Old Sage; the only job left was a fucking host. For weeks, we had to come in in the mornings to train and get the restaurant ready for open, taste scotches at 10am, and for what? So I could work the door at a total dud of a restuarant that was priced above what anyone was willing to pay on 12th avenue? They threw me a few shifts bartending at The Coterie Room down in Belltown, which was painful in its own way. The other job was a fucking GRAVEYARD shift at a hipster DINER that just opened, Lost Lake. Embarassing. So for 8 hours a night, from 10am to 6am, I would sling fucking breakfast food to drunk people who would have to wait upwards of an hour for the stoned cooks to put their mush on a plate and then I’d tip out every goddamn person in that terrible system and walk with like, $150 maybe, and then I’d walk home the 40 minutes to Judkins Park to save money and I’d try to make it interesting by trying to listen to a new album on the walk home every day, but all I’d hear is the familiar chorus in my mind: you’re 26 and walking home from a diner and you live a sad life and you should quit it all you fucking desperate idiot. And they’d do first call at 6am so there’d be this group of fellow idiots on the bar side at dawn and then I’d walk home listening to Wolf Parade: “I’m a disaster. I could not be burning faster. I walk into webs, and take my meals with weirdos.” Then I’d walk Brogan and sleep through the sunshine and hope it all would end. I did not end up with Nick. I was honest with him when he left San Francisco, saying I would not pine for him and that I couldn’t promise anything but that I’d of course love to see him again. We made plans to go to Banff for his birthday. A few weeks later, I was moving a few hours from him but it was too late. He went home to the girl he’d previously quit. She was plain, fit, dull but probably sweet, into yoga and beer and running, 27, and more importantly, local. I think they live together now. Well, fuck. My romantic life was one dud after the next and mostly didn’t happen because I worked around-the-clock for very little pay. Zach Tyerman returned home from med school briefly and we met up at Manhattan Drugs for drinks, then Poquito’s for dinner. We met on my roof the night Craig stole my passport to see me again; a few weeks later Craig and I were dating, and we did that for a few years. Zach moved in around the corner with a guy I had once dated, Ryan Calderon. He hit on my friends, he flirted with me. He was a goofy fellow; Craig and I would joke about it. Zach and I would study at Vivace or Roy Street a lot during the wintertimes. He brought me to dinner to meet his mother and all his aunts, and I won them over easily since I wasn’t dating him so I wasn’t nervous impress them. His parents would come visit me for brunch at 22 Doors. I wrote his essay for med school; he got in. Our friendship was predicated on never sleeping together, so as I got dressed and drank the first few whiskey lemonades of the night, I promised myself: don’t sleep with Zach. When I saw him, he looked sort of great. He had a new haircut, more gentlemanly, and he was dressed well, and age seemed to have softened his features in a nice way. And it was way he treated me: he had flipped the switch to on, and without the usual teasing contempt he reserved for women with boyfriends. He used to say I had some frustrating charm. And I only frustrated him further that night. In assuming sleeping with him might ruin our friendship, not sleeping with him was probably more damaging. We went to Carly’s going away party at Big Mario’s. She was flying off to Hawaii for the summer to be with her parents, who were negotiating a divorce. I’d be taking her room in the third floor of the condo until she got back, the very week I was leaving for Europe. Kaitlyn had decorated the bar with palm trees and tiki lights, and I showed up drunk, and I regaled Zack Bolotin and Shaun Callahan of the story of my very last night in San Francisco. While waiting in a bar on Mission Street, I was approached a man who offered me CINCUENTA for “in-house” services. Mostly I was offended by the price. (Also that night: left my purse with the keys to my apartment with all of my luggage in it at another bar. Right before my flight, while all of my roommates were out of town. Always a fuckup!) Anyway, between dinner at Mario’s we had segued briefly to Linda’s and picked up a friend of Zach’s from highschool, a kind, outdoorsy guy named Alex. And now at Mario’s, Alex had his hand on my leg underneath the table and Zach stormed off into the night. Sent some wild texts. Trying to make amends the next day, Zach seemed to take the whole thing very personally. “He should have read the situation!” and “I feel like you were doing this to hurt me for some reason.” It seemed a lot like when Zac found out about Andrew, so maybe it runs in the name. But anyway he didn’t miss much: Alex and I went back to Judkins, fooled around, and somehow when Kaitlyn and Carly got home, Brogan got out and bolted, and I ran FULL SPEED down Norman Avenue -- never sprinted so fast in my life -- and across fucking Rainier Avenue through traffic BAREFOOT and eventually cornered him and scooped him up by a parking garage maybe a half mile from my house and then realized I wasn’t wearing shoes. Alex invited me to a bonfire at his house the next day, to which I responded (sort of joking? but kind of not?) “I’m not going to Ravenna.” To this day, Zach kind of rudely alludes to this whole situation via text. Fourth of July was my first day at Lost Lake, so I went down and began that awful chapter. While there, I ran into Eric, a thirty-something man I had met the previous summer at a soul night at Chop Suey. We had exchanged numbers, but I ended up with a friend of his, a real weirdo named Aeden. There was still something about him that made me incredibly nervous. And our story had a very loose end. But not to worry! We tied it up that night. Todd flew up to Seattle for his birthday and we had an okay time. I picked him up and he was so incredibly chatty and I realized this was a terrible mistake and I was so irritated the entire ride up from the airport. But it was his birthday and he had flown up, so I figured I’d just show him the town and try to have a good time and not give him any illusions about this being a lasting relationship. So we did. Went to the docks, some bars, Belltown, walked Bro, had some good adventures, rented some cars, did poppers with Tim, made him dinner, he had the time of his life and he still waxes poetic about the week so all in all, I’d say it was his version of my weekend in Big Sur. Then I met Party Bro, a guy who came into Lost Lake at 5am in a puffy vest and a shiny cap and ordered chicken fried steak with a kind friend, then conned me into staying by offering to buy my Uber home if I stayed for first call. He was a real douche and I knew it and he knew it and that was that, I guess. He was unapolegetic about being a party fiend and in love with his own damn life. But I guess I figured that was what I needed; I was leaving in a month and I wasn’t trying to find a reason to stay in Seattle. This was a guy I had 0% chance of falling for. He tried to kiss me getting into the Uber. Then he came to a bar, Montana, where I was hanging with Drew and Brian who’d flown in and tried to kiss me. Then I figured I wouldn’t put out for him, because that’s the way to keep these guys around for a good time. He asked me on a date, a real date. He made reservations, he picked me up in his car, it was a warm summer night. I wore a little black dress and heels, he wore dress shoes, we looked great. He ordered a big platter of food on the back patio of Poppy, and I decided not to tell him how picky of an eater I was, and gamely tried the salmon. I’d like to think we both brought our dating a-game. Then we went to one fancy cocktail bar after another, and he didn’t let me pay a dime the entire night, and Doug Wargo saw us and whispered, “Whoa” to me. We went to Sun Liquor Distillery and then plain ole Sun Liquor and it was a great first date, and I could tell he was very well rehearsed at first dates. So that was an okay thing to distract me from the bullshit of the rest of the summer, there was some dancing, some nights at dives, a canned bullshit speech the night he introduced me to his friends, and of course after I slept with him it sort of petered out. On his birthday at Havana, Kaitlyn let him buy us shots and then told him she was not a fan, and then her and Carey and I sort of ran off into the night, so that was that. During Block Party -- all the roads in Capitol Hill get blockaded off and a bunch of bands perform -- I worked all three nights at Lost Lake, so I got to go all three days for free. It was okay. Not what it used to be, or I’m not who I used to be. It ended spectacularly: Party Bro came in to say hello and kiss me good luck at the beginning of my shift, and towards the end of the night he came in blackout drunk holding hands with a rando girl, and then tried to text me some bullshit - so I put my phone down on the counter behind the bar, never to see it again. Felt like a real fuck up - hadn’t had the phone for more than a month or so since the last one got mugged off of me, and now it was gone again, and for what? Some scumbag I was just hanging on to so I could feel a little less lonely for a little while? Cool. Spent some nights with Nicholas, as has been our way for years and years, but by now it meant less than ever. Whenever I look back on a bad time, I try to rationalize it by considering maybe some good came of it. I did this for San Francisco round one: at least I got to ride out my crippling loneliness in solace, and also I got a great friendship with Drew. Out of this summer, I got a surprisingly great friendship with Carey. The first few weeks in Seattle, I stayed in his room downstairs while he was on a motorcycle trip through Southern California. It was great because the doors opened to the yard, where Brogan could frolic. I spent those weeks with Kaitlyn, a solid friend, and Carly, a peripheral friend. They complained about weird passive-aggressive text exchanges with Carey, a weird poster he’d hung in the bathroom, and the general living situation with him. He wasn’t so bad, I countered. “You’ll see,” they forewarned me. He returned, I moved upstairs, we shared some whiskey, and then we just sort of got along really well. He got along with Brogan. We had the same interests in life, although despite being a stoner, he was way more motivated than I was. Not a hard feat. We were into the same music. We cared about similar things. Liked the same beer and whiskey and bbq food and that made for a good summer hang. We had met summers ago, had practiced our Spanish on each other at cafes, and then had a fairly unspectacular session together before a Weakerthans show, so all of that was out of the way. Things were cozy. Kaitlyn was getting involved seriously with a guy, and so it was just me and Carey a lot. We’d hang on our computers, stay in an watch TV, ride his bike to the bank, grocery shop, share car2go’s to the hill, grab drinks or dinner, catch shows, drink beer, plot our lives. Spent a lot of time on the T-docks along Lake Washington. It was like the best parts of coming home to someone without any of the messiness of a relationship. One night at Judkins Park, I felt this weird desire to just tell him everything that made me tick somewhat incorrectly, just because I felt like at that time it wouldn’t affect his opinion of me really because it didn’t matter, but at the last moment decided against it. I didn’t know how to begin to phrase it. We were in a car2go, headed to the hill like usual. Fuck it, I figured, I like this friendship at the very basic, well-functioning level that it is. All of this would ultimately implode while I was in Europe, but for a few months Carey was one of the people I was closest to, if only from proximity. I do remember nice nights: -Tim got tickets to Hairspray! and it was weird and we almost left and it was raining hard but we were dressed up and it was fine -Seeing Elway with Carey and Peter at El Corazon - the pop-punk soundtrack to our summer -Brian came to town for Block Party weekend in July -One night at Montana with Tim & Drew & Brian and then also Party Bro -Wandering around the hill with Feven -Going to Fisherman’s with Kaitlyn, where we used to work, and getting the tour from Jim -Seeing a lot of sunrises -Seeing a lot of sunsets -A lot of days spent at Madison -Block Party with Kait and Carey -a lot of cab rides -Drew packing up my room -kareoke at Pony with Tim & Stephen and then also Ryan McMichael, in town from Paris -Dom sleepover -SubPop festival in Georgetown -weird rose wine night at some fancy place in Eastlake with Kait and Erin -Marc driving up from Portland and little adventures - exploring Seattle -weird perpetual flirtation with weird Linda’s bartender - a loose end that will likely never get tied up -knowing it was all fleeting But mostly I’ll remember how weird it all felt. Saying farewell to Seattle was all too easy. My illusory trip in March had been washed out by a stale, sad summer. My time there was dead and gone. So I did what I’ll look back on as truly idiotic: I left with absolutely no plan, and not enough resources to return to anywhere. The government had tapped my bank account and drained some money for my unemployment debt, and living in Judkins Park had cost more than the $666 rent, with storage, cabs, and general well-being. I was bloated from eating diner food all summer, and had maybe $1200 amassed after everything for my trip. I quit my jobs with very little notice, so as to burn the bridge and not tempt me to just return to them when I got back. I planned on bringing Bro to NY while I was away so my folks could watch him, but Carey offered to watch him for help with the next months’ rent. Because Bro was acclimated to the house and oddly adored Carey, I figured it was best to leave him be rather than hurtle him across the country. This decision maybe would come to overshadow my summer in Seattle as one of my worst decisions of the year. So off I went. I flew to my parent’s house in upstate New York, and Tim arrived the next day. We hung with our old friend Erika, who had since had two children with one more on the way, and had also gotten married. It was strange. I was sleepy. We spent all day gathering last minute supplies, like locks and weird sheets and walking shoes. (The locks were too small, the sheets were pointless, and the shoes were only broken in by the end of the trip.) Then we packed up our bags, they drove us to JFK, and we boarded our Icelandair plane. Look, I won’t ever regret this trip. There’s a million minute things and some very large ones that I would absolutely change, and a lot of it is within me. I went on this trip very, very lost. I went without a plan, and even less of a game plan for when I returned. I didn’t expect to find the answers out there, but I was hoping that it would at least give me some perspective, or I’d gain some interesting experiences. I’m getting old and I’ve got to get out there any way I can, and I did. All that aside, I went about a lot of things the wrong way. Timothy and I agreed from the get-go that this trip would almost certainly at times try our friendship, and it certainly did. But this friendship’s endured bouts of bullshit before and it will again, oh well. First stop was Iceland. I had become transfixed by the place via Google Earth many moons ago; I’d spun the globe and found this strange land where people actually lived, and a little lagoon where people swam, and it seemed otherworldly. (Years later, my sister would become transfixed and sully my interest a little, but nevermind that.) So we booked the free layover and a hip hostel by the water. Got my first passport stamp at customs. Bought a few bottles of liquor at duty-free. Took a shuttle to our hostel, and our very first night, things went awry. I was anxious to explore, but Tim was cranky and didn’t like the taste of his vodka and just wanted to Skype with his boyfriend. The hostel was a ghost town -- off season in September -- and I sat in the dead but beautifully curated lobby and wondered how the trip would go. We had absolutely none of it planned, minus a few vague ideas: for me, Barcelona was a must; for us, the labyrinth in Berlin was a long-time plan; and for sure, our flights were leaving out of Denmark. It was fucking freezing in our hostel room that night and the next and the next. The next day was better, we explored downtown Rejkjavik -- a small town by any stretch of the imagination -- all of the magical street art and skate parks and rad dads in thick sweaters and the whipping wind and the little shops and cobblestone walks. Then we took a shuttle with a nice Canadian couple to the Blue Lagoon, and it shot straight up to one of the more surreal, magical moments of my little life. The drive there looked like we were scaling the moon, and we drank vodka 7up out of Icelandic water bottles. We changed in futuristic locker rooms where I shared awe with an older Canadian woman. “Look at where we are now,” I must have repeated several dozen times to Tim. And then I spun around in the warm water memorizing every curve of each hill and every plume of smoke and the expression on every placid face, like I used to when I was young, and I filed it all away for when everything else gets bad. We drank some expensive beers and paid via our wrists, and then I had a truly spectacular exit: we ran to catch the bus, Tim pulled my arm to lead us to the correct one, and down I went, headfirst into a beautiful glacial spike. Boarded the wrong bus and then the right bus with a bleeding head gash and napped the whole ride home. Tim fed me water and ibuprofen and made us friends for the night, and then I went out dancing with a fresh head bump. I’d eventually fall in every country I visited, but the first fall is the deepest, and I gashed a hole in the only pair of jeans I’d brought with me, day two. Same ole story, different backdrop. But Iceland was weird and magical and met got my first taste of traveling life, where everyone hails from far-flung places and asks each other, “How many months have you been out?” Met a cute girl from Baltimore - danced all night - drank water - Haarlem - dance clubs - regulars - beautiful intriguing blondes as far as the eyes could see - winding streets, whipping wind - met some rando, deliriously stylish Icelandic students in a closed-up Mexican shop/drank their tequila - the next day was one of the most painful mornings of my life: hungover to hell, freezing, massively dehydrated, and with a gaping head wound. Veronika from Baltimore left a bottle of alcohol and a note in her wake, off to drive off towards the Northern Lights, never to be seen again. But that’s how it goes. And later I got drunk on that traveling life and also a Mexican writer’s Mezcal - walking down the hall to a huddle of chairs by the window, seeing their silhouettes in the light from the water and the mountains - seemed unreal. Some Canadians, a German girl, two English blokes, the Mexican, and once we drank everything up, we went downstairs to where a man named Magnus was hosting a bunch of beautiful, sweatered musicians grown and raised and grisled up there, with a set by a man named Snorri. And so the night went - up a hill just following along, a feeling I felt once in the Hollywood Hills - in a corner of a bar with a softspoken man who studied caribou in Greenland - dancing to a song I vowed to remember as I recorded the moment away in a small room - every moment stranger, colder, kinder than the last. We barely made it out of Iceland. I stayed awake all night, just Tim, the caribou man now, and me in that cold 8-bed room. Got us up for the 4am shuttle to Keflavik. Babysat Tim the entire time, nausous and obnoxious. Got on our flight to the Netherlands, Tim vomited while we were taxiing. Then again. Cruised in to another odd world, this one with long swathes of colored fields (tulips!) and long rings of canals. Then we got to Schiphol and my card was rejected at the ATM, despite forewarning my bank of impending travel. Also, despite paying the $25 for international service, that was also a fluke. Exchanged some cash at an exchange to get by, Tim bought us Burger King in Schiphol for being such a baby, and I secured a place to stay via Couchsurfing. The address was maddeningly confusing and the directions even murkier, but we got on a train and winged in and finally things were feeling foreign, with all the gibberish on the signs. I’d found a nice Scottish lad to put us up for a few days, and he had a flat on a canal in Leidseplein that his corpo job put him up in and he let us stay in for free. It was lovely: white walls, exposed beams, two floors, very modern. It looked exactly like where Craig would live and how he would keep it.  The lad was nice, his speech very garbled. He gave us the entire top loft, which led to a garden patio. Spent about four days in Amsterdam. It was my first European city, so I drank it all up - the bikes, canals, flower shops, buildings from the 1500s on, cafes, languages. I had never visualized Amsterdam much. The Red Light district was disarming, fantastic looking women framed in little windows offering themselves up. Not sure what I expected there. In some windows, they were doing mundane tasks, like snacking or texting or removing nail polish. Went to the photography museum and saw a photograph of Newburgh, New York. By a canal, flipped through an entire photo book of self-portraits over several decades; watched a man’s body degrade, shift, had to briefly confront my own terror of aging, already felt. Ate an expensive breakfast and realized we ought to start scrounging around grocery stores to save our cash - hated having to give so much consideration to money but necessary. Smoked in a weed cafe, but all the weed in Europe is cut with tobacco. Tim found a massage chair, changed his world. Found a really old cafe, felt really weird in it, got lost on the way back. Still a lot of fresh panic from that mugging last spring. Didn’t go to any of the big museums or the beer tours because I don’t know. I’ll save that for when I’m older. This trip was, as I’ll repeat often, the sampler platter trip. It seems like a very American way of saying I’ll dip my feet in a few seas or whatever. Went out with Iain, our host, nice bloke. Kind of was over Amsterdam and the cold after a few days and ready to journey on though, and convinced Tim the sun was what we needed. Years ago, I planned to do a semester in Barcelona. I had spent a semester in New York studying art, which consisted of just going to galleries and museums and plays and ballets and operas and concerts for a few months and somehow getting college credit for that. I lived in the ground floor of a classmate’s fucking $7 million dollar brownstone while there, and I split the roommate with my classmate Kate, and we plotted replicating the program in Spain. And we hammered out the details and I saved up several thousand dollars to do it and then when the time came Kate -- working parttime as a florist in Olympia -- did not raise the funds and then my relationship fell apart and I moved into a terrible apartment in Capitol Hill and postponed the trip to the winter, then the spring, and then by summertime my grandmother had passed and my cousin was getting married, so I spent it back in New York instead, and I never went to Barcelona. So if there was one fucking place I was going on this trip, it was Spain. It seemed like the place where I belonged, if that’s such a thing -- I loved the language, and I loved all the stereotypes -- the siestas and the long nights and the lax sense of time and the beaches and the dancing and the casual drinking and the small plates and it seemed like it would fit well with my idealized self. So we went. Tim chose the hostel, I whined, it was kind of the worst -- a lot of younger kids, a late-night hallway brawl, not much charm, but a big patio and, you know, a place to sleep I guess. Food was cheap. All was well. We arrived unexpectedly the first day of Barcelona’s biggest festival, La Merce. Just a wild party in the streets waiting for us. I’d met a South African bro on the plane ride, who at first weirded me out because he never moved from the middle seat when the aisle was open, but was rather nice, spoke with a vaguely British/Afrikaans accent. We ventured out on their relatively simple train system to where the festival was, along the way met a cute guy from Seattle, now studying mathematics in upstate NY at Cornell. Brilliant! The festival was brilliant as well and perfect and wonderful and all else, and beer was a euro on the street, and we wound our way through these little alleyways to find a bizarre dance with a bunch of gigantic puppets, and children building human towers in white with red sashes, and drank Manhattans in some pub, and danced to this African woman who was intensely wonderful and I promised I’d look up though  I had no reference. We caught a train back - walked the wrong way drunk - Tim was pissed and drunk and weary of me probably - furious - walked ten paces from me and I’ve never felt such weird tension, disappointed - ended up getting in a cab and it was playing this British kid Jake Bugg - “Broken” - his voice was wobbly, maybe a little contrived - but at that moment it broke my heart in a million little ways and I couldn’t shake it and I felt rejected kind of cruelly by a friend and it was sort of crushing - this came at a time when I felt wholly rejected, kind of cast off, adrift, and I needed something, anything, because I was not enough for myself. We acted the next day like nothing had happened, as we do. We met up with the South African, Stephen, at Barceloneta, and for the first time I swam in the Meditteranean, and it was warm and lovely as beaches tend to be. We agreed to meet up again, and a memory burnt into my mind is meeting up again at the Arc de Triumf for the festival that night - Stephen in his backpack, but further off, for some reason a perfect image: Sam Hopkins, the Cornell baby genius, leaned up against the ark, one foot up, with a bar of dark chocolate tucked into his flannel, hair askew. We had a lovely night and then another and then they, too, were gone from our lives, with vague promises to meet again in Capetown or Seattle. On a Sunday we climbed Montjuic for another part of the festival that allegedly included a circus, but instead ended up at an EDM festival. I was out of sorts with Tim and it was weird when maybe it could have been wonderful if I didn’t live so much in my goddamn head, or wasn’t so sensitive, or maybe if I took more of the molly that our new Swedish comrades offered up. There was another girl named Ally that only fueled my crumbling spirit, although I can’t place why. But there was a bunch of sweet humans, and we had a good night, a Pernilla and a and a, should have took more drugs maybe, should have let go for once, but the fear was burrowing into me and I felt it hard that day and that night and even at some dark salon bar I would have loved, I felt so entirely out of sorts. I felt wholly undefined. And it’s not easy to snap out of it in a communal room with three German guys. We decided to slow our pace because the time we had already spent in transit was irritating and who ever is in a rush to get out of Barcelona? So I found the next hostel and it was a damn good decision. The next week was long and wonderful and cozy. Within a few minutes of settling in, we met a Slovakian girl named Nina and a French-Canadian boy named Dominic, and set off to the beach with them, and collected other friends that week. We found L’Ovella Negra, a little pub for travelers that offered sangria by the five-gallon bucket, and the hostel offered a full slate of activities mapped out on a chalkboard. That night we went to La Merce and then a club and there Dominic the young French Canadian, off to southern France in the morning, kissed me and we kissed again among all the characters along Las Ramblas and then I told him he should stick around a few more days and when we got back to the hostel he booked his bed for a few more days and then we made out in a space made for hanging out clothing to dry. Should have left it at that night, but no. He stayed. We collected more friends, had more adventures, went to more clubs and bars, went off to Sagrada Familia, insane and intricate. Connor came along, a big, moody young guy from San Luis Obispo. The “tour guide” for the hostel was a Polish girl named Kate, but she was so casual about her role, it actually made for a way better experince. Kind of a rather beautiful weirdo. A few more. I settled in with Dominic because, I don’t know, looking back I needed affection, and he was sweet and simple, and he liked little things like going to the Dia  market together to make a simple breakfast, and maybe I just wanted that feeling of someone wanting to be around me so much. Ended up kind of hating myself for it, but not til later. For now everything was nice. Dominic and I went to Park Guell. We took naps, woke up at odd hours, drank one-euro wine by the bottle. Gave Tim and I the airing out from each other that we needed. Easily one of the best feelings was when we all decided to stay even longer, and lined up by the desk, and rebooked our rooms again. So Barcelona will always exist as this time in my life when reality was suspended and I was maybe the maximum amount of cozy one can be before death. Could never list half of what we did there. Decided on Berlin next, since we were eating up a lot of time in Spain. We only had a few bad moments in Barca. One night we agreed to go to a gay club for Tim, and everyone backed out, but Dominic and I still went and shored up enough euros for cover and drank shit beer in a musty room while Tim whined for a good half hour that no one would do gay things with him when we did, in fact, come hang. Another night we all took Adderall, and Tim became kind of a dick, and Dominic was kind of a youth about it and reacted poorly to his now-racing mind, and Connor disappeared for a solid 24 hours in the Barri Gotic, and I just felt elevated and chill like I always do when I take it. And while he was grouchily coming down, Tim and I squabbled a little bit about our tickets to Denmark, because sharing finances AND making travel decisions together was kind of becoming a burden. There was also the morning we left for Germany, because we hadn’t actually communicated about getting to the airport after the ticket-booking showdown, and when the time came Dominic, now claiming he loved me, took awhile to say goodbye to, and we had to run to Plaza Catalunya to board a shuttle, didn’t speak to each other once during that ride, and then RAN across the entire airport with our fucking backpacks, while all the while thinking: If we don’t make this plane, this might be the end of our friendship. So then there was Berlin. I broke down that night in my hostel, the Heart of Gold. Finally everything caved in. It dawned on me that I was heading “home” soon but that I actually did not have a home; my parents were in NY, my dog and belongings in Seattle, my best friend and a few solids and a job I guess were in SF. But they all felt like I was going backwards, without any forward momentum. I had an 8-bed room, but I was alone in it, and I slept for a solid day, and when I woke up I had no concept of where I was, and it was one of the eeriest feelings I ever felt, though peaceful. I had created nothing meaningful to return to. So I wallowed a bit. Berlin was cold and drab and I felt like I was coming down from Spain, and that familiar yearning for a sense of belonging. So a dull panic washed over me. Germany’s history is bleak, so attempting to distract myself playing tourist was futile, so I just wrote by the River Spree. A group of deaf people sat around me, the only person occupying a bench, and one stood in front of signing to them. Felt surreal, like a joke I’d laugh at later. I sat up late and read the internet in the lobby, also a 24 hour bar, the only area with wifi. It was meant to promote interaction over technological addiction, but in actuality it caused everyone to gather in the lobby to plot out their days on their devices, alienating everyone. One night, a lovely moment: a rando group of travelers gathered together playing music, a quiet performance of “Fly Me to the Moon.” My aircraft was grounded, and they offered to rebook me. “I’ll meet you anywhere in the world,” Dominic wrote from Toulouse. So I contacted my parents, upset, and they booked me flights to Paris, and I told Tim. Discouraged, I posted on FB about my flight being grounded/being bummed in Berlin, spoke with Carey about the delay, and got a message from Dana putting me in touch with some friends of hers. Had another bad moment with Tim the next day nearing the Berlin Wall, but kind of getting tired of telling those stories now. Doesn’t matter. Later he tried to make amends when he found a festival -- it seems we arrived just in time for their Reunification festival -- and I tried to muster up some excitement, but I’d been so weirded out in my hostel and with Tim it was difficult. Rode a ferris wheel with a Syrian, watched the poppunk band The Wanted perform, got a scarf for the cold, drank an Irish coffee. Taryn told me that if ever I feel weirded out while traveling, to find an Irish pub, and she was right. They’re the same everywhere. Checked in to Tim’s hostel since he convinced me it was better, but switched rooms to an all-girls rooms to allow us more space. Somewhat bolstered by the promise of Paris, and not ending the trip on such a sour note. But then Dana’s friend Warwick contacted me, and I met up with him and his wife and their friends in a little smoky pub in Nuekolln. In high school, I had a penpal named Colin, and he spent a semester abroad in Copenhagen, and he’d written to me about the Dutch concept of hygellig. Cozy. And I’ve been chasing it ever since. And then there it was, at Leidak. I drank nearly two liters of wine, got reamed at by the old German cashier in German, got on a random train, wandered around in a wino daze, and then there it was. I hadn’t taken to Berlin the way people told me I would - it was quiet and cold and harsh and bleak, and I used those descriptors to exhaustion - but a quiet, simple sort of night changed my mind, because it was so quiet and simple, and because the humans were so kind, and because I knew they had endless strings of quiet, simple nights drinking Dada cocktails at little smoky pubs and talking about this or that and maybe some nights were wild but all I ever wanted were the mellow nights I knew they experienced in abundance. I looked around: I would have loved to be a part of any circle of humans in that bar, and I heard snippets of their languages and laughter and I wanted in. I guess it’s that simple: I wanted in. I didn’t feel so much as I belonged with this particular set of humans as I felt I could belong somewhere, a feeling I hadn’t had in a long while. I made eyes with a bright-eyed boy across the way, and my next memory -- this one clear as fucking day -- was being held against him at a U-bahn station in Kreuzberg -- I remember because when we momentarily broke off from me I asked “Wait...where the hell are we?” and he answered, with his sloppy smile, “We’re in Kreuzberg” -- and note I don’t think anyone has ever kissed me quite that fervently -- he reminded me of a schoolyard bully, can’t place why -- and we ended up back at his large flat in Kreuzberg via taxi -- and goddamn if I hadn’t sifted through this night 200x since -- Laurence, you ruined Paris for me. I awoke in his bed with all my stuff back at the hostel in Mitte, but it was settled, I would stay with him for the rest of the weekened - “Now let’s go get you sorted” - since I was just wandering through, there was no pretense about a relationship, no bullshit. And so we went, and we got sorted. Found Tim. I made shit hostel breakfast with what leftovers I had, some stale bread, some scrambled eggs, and while I cooked he came and put his arms around me, a simple movement, but I still riding that high of a fleeting sense of belonging. He was a writer, teaching English, approaching 30, a bloke from Manchester. We napped at his place after wandering around Kreuzberg, and then he went and fucking kissed the top of my head just when “Slow Show” came on, unknowingly, and he held me the whole time as I promised not to fall for the loveliness and novelty of this stranger, but by then it was too late, si claro, he could easily shoehorn into being the next Nick: a beautiful taste of something I’d always want to drink some more of. Nick had done a similarly absentminded thing -- he’d wrapped me up into his sweater with him while waiting for the bus that morning in Vancouver -- and even then my heart was like oh no, oh no. And ever since, I’ve been giving up on decent guys whose only real fault is they never caused my dumb little heart to spike in some silly way. We met Tim at the labyrinth, a plan we hatched long ago. We drank in the corridor for awhile, then got the gold coin - a woman spun me and sent me off - first fright was own damn reflection popping up - crawled around in that wild, haphazard maze for awhile - standing there was Laurence, taller, eyes bluer, hair wilder - found Tim and the other Laurence, crawled on the floor to a neon-white room and danced and crawled back and went upstairs and kissed Laurence for awhile. Everytime you access a memory, it degrades like a shitty jpeg, so I try not to tap into these things anymore. We had dinner back in Kreuzberg at some Italian place and then fell asleep together again and woke up; I had a flight to catch and he had a match to get to, so he walked me to the bus stop and I said farewell and he went, nearly offended, “Wait a minute, kiss me goodbye.” So I kissed him goodbye and went to Paris to meet Dominic “under the Eiffel Tower at sunset.” Paris was doomed from the start. Never agree to meet anyone under the fucking Eiffel Tower at fucking sunset. Never flee to Paris as a means to delay figuring out your damn life. I never gave it a fair shake. Don’t even feel like thinking about it. Flew to Orly and stopped at a McCafe to charge up, got an awful message from Carey, checked my depleted bank account, I don’t even really want to go through this part of the year right now. It’s like a cloud fogged me over from the inside out. Blood went tepid. Can’t explain it. First few moments in France: I don’t know, what the fuck ever. You know what, Paris was beautiful, and odd, and winding, and I had some great nights, drank some great wine, met some weird humans, and maybe some other time in my life I’ll process it, but not now. Point being, by the end of the trip, I was a mess. And I had to catch a flight to Denmark from de Gaulles. McMichael had taken me to the train and bid me well - I fell one last time in the square before leaving. Gave me a strange smile, like we both recognized how fucked up it was, and I remembered him in his apartment on Melrose years ago, and again in his apartment in the first arrondisement of Paris playing “Life is a Pigsty,” wearing the same face. On the plane, tucked into a copy of a The Big Sleep I’d picked up at Shakespeare & Company at Laurence’s suggestion, I found a series of post-its written haphazardly by a drunken Dominic from his last night in Paris and it all slowly dawned on me. Between those and Carey’s increasingly agro messages, man, I crumpled. I’m weak enough as is, but damn. So Copenhagen was weird. Caught the train to the hostel Tim suggested in Norrebro, only to find it all booked up and in fact, every hostel in Copenhagen all booked up. Sent out some flairs on Couchsurfing from an Irish pub where the barman had a vague Manchester accent. Can’t explain the daze I walked around Copenhagen in, carrying my full backpack, feeling utterly defeated. Knowing that all of this navel-gazing and sorrow was overinflated and bearing down on a good time, but maybe necessary, no I didn’t realize that at the time. I just wanted to drift off into the sea and let go of it all. The trip was over, my escape was over, and reality was even bleaker. I could not have charted a rockier landing. And where to? What next? What did I have now? I saw so many lives pass in front of me that I wanted to try on for size, but not this one any longer. Melodramatic, sure, but I suppose in a foreign land all alone there’s some lenience on grand, sorry self-pitying. A Taiwanese man found me on CS and I met him and a few others at a lovely pub after being berated by my taxi for not having a chip on my card. Threw all my krona at him and ran in, backpack and all, to a rather nice place. Had a lovely night with another host and his surfer, a blonde book publisher out of Helsinki. Taoi ended up being kind of a weirdo, but nevermind that. Everything faded away for a little while. Called Dominic to apologize, and perhaps explain myself, wished him the best on his travels. So by the end of the trip, I was a real mess. I hadn’t combed my hair in a month, and it was curly as hell and nearly dreadlocked. I took my flight to Norway, where everyone has blue eyes and everything is polished nicely and beer is nearly 20 bucks a bottle and I was hungry and weary and broke and tried to sort of bathe in the good nights, the good humans, the good stories, the good hours, the good moments I’d memorized from every angle. There was no shortage, and I tried not to let the fear leak in to those, quarantining them to a kinder home in my mind. Took an 8-hour flight back to JFK. Was alerted at customs that it seems I now had two pink eyes. Rushed to the bathroom to clean up before seeing my parents, and there was my mother, and there was her vision of her lost-at-sea daughter: two pink eyes, matted hair, unwashed clothing, torn jeans, kind of gaunt and very tan. They fed me and let me sleep for a day or two and then I broke down in my parent’s bedroom and admitted I had absolutely no plan for what came next and not even an idea of what I wanted out of life and very little money and no way to take care of my pup adequately and all of this came from their 26 year old daughter. They went to work and when they came back, they offered me a bailout: I could come home for a little bit while I got back on my feet. Safe and sound in my bed, I almost considered it. But you know what, fuck that, fuck all of my whining about poor decisions, I love my parents and I know this offer was put on the table in order to help me out and ultimately get me back on the east coast and away from my haphazard nomadic ambling, but thank the LORD I did not take them up at them. It would be like redacting the past near-decade of my life. Ultimately, they gave me a grand as a loan to sort my shit out with the promise I’d repay it from a paycheck at a financially lucrative, upstanding job, and soon, but as it so happens I’m not that on it, but at least I’m not living at home. The following winter was one of the most depressing periods of my life. I entered into a phase of homelessness, unemployment, couchsurfing, meandering, freeloading, and just being a general degenerate while I tried to get my ducks in a row. And I pitied myself, dear lord did I pity myself. More, I despaired every decision that had led me to this life. Couldn’t pin it on any one thing - I was pretty consistently irresponsible. Realized early on I’d have to cash in on every ounce of good fortune I could, cash out really. So I did. I stayed with Nicholas for two weeks in Seattle while I collected Brogan, paid off Carey, paid Tim the remainder for our trip, moved my stuff from one storage locker to a cheaper unit, collected leftover checks, whatever. Got to Seatac, then to SFO. Stayed with Todd for a few weeks on 19th & Valencia in SF, WITH Brogan, but didn’t sleep with him so as not to make it any weirder, eventually he got weary of that arrangement. Shipped Brogan back to New York, stayed with Laura for a month. That took us the holidays. Couldn’t afford to go home for either, for the first time in my life. Thanksgiving Laura and I ate mashed potatoes at an Irish pub, and then drank at Pop’s. Christmas we ate at a Chinese restaurant, and then drank at Casanova. She left from Makeout Room to see about a boy, and so did the others we were out with, so it was just me and this stoner bro, so spent the night with him. Picked up every shift I could at the Chapel, working 6-7x a week. Agreed to a $900 sublet on 26th & Folsom for the month of January while I worked on setting up a living situation. New Years Eve was my last night at the Chapel though; worked the mezzanine bar alone, and when 12 struck I was just sort of there to watch it happen, stayed up into the wee small hours of the morning with my coworkers and then disappeared off of the schedule. Had to go in not once but twice to ask if I was fired, and finally Keith told me: yes, we’re letting you go. Per the owner’s requests. Cool.

favorite moments of the year: -blue lagoon -sam - arc de triomf -cab - pigalle -party bro - poppy -hallway @ kex

[whimsicalmeerkat]

I had a day today, so let’s gooooo… I’ll keep this open through tomorrow as well, because why not.

Filenames:

won't you take me from this valley - Regency time travel nonsense

whiskey on the rocks & adderall - Stiles goes to college

moon gave me permission recursive murder husbands

Trading Up - meet cute

Daemon Sadi & Maleficent fight crack fic

Snippet from won’t you take me from this valley:

“I specifically said he could do anything he wanted to me as long as I could touch him and then he didn’t let me touch him and I feel like I have the right to be mad at him but then I realize I’m getting mad about that instead of reflecting on the glorious, glorious sex we did have. But maybe I should be mad?”

“Dude, please stop talking about having sex with Derek.”

Scott’s voice floats up from where he’s flat on his back on the grass. Stiles kicks at him from his position sitting against a tree. Scott barely has to move to avoid it.

“Yeah, that’s definitely not gonna happen. At least I’m sparing you the gory details, which makes me a better friend than you were, Scotty boy.”

WIP Wednesday Game

I am not seeing a new one this week, so I'm copying the rules from kedreeva. :)

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

I'll reblog with my stuff shortly.

Tagging some writers off the top of my head (by no means comprehensive!): @branmuffins22 @abstract-moth @gakriele-lvs-blog @bright-thorn @sir-ballister-boldheart @kestrel-wylde @madlad06 @candyskiez @violet-prism-creatively @watery-melon-baller

[kylebfaught33-blog]

I’m not an Addict, I’m just in College

Who would have ever thought that I would end up here? A little less than a decade ago, I had the world in the palm of my hands. I had recently graduated from Jonesboro High School in the top 5% of my class, had over 30 college hours under my belt, and a partial scholarship to the University of Arkansas. What could go wrong? In my mind I had everything figured out, International Business degree with a minor in Chinese, a quick internship and I will be established in a fortune 500 company by the time I was 25. Now a decade later I am still working on my bachelor’s degree, and sit here flabbergasted as to what exactly went wrong. The easy answer is that I was just too immature to breeze through school with a nonchalant attitude. The more complex answer is one that I wish to expand upon here, and that is the inherent dangers of college kids experimenting with drugs and alcohol to dangerous levels.  

  I was never a choir boy in High School, but my alcohol and drug usage was very minuscule in comparison to what I developed in college. It all started when I moved away from home to attend the University of Arkansas. This is where the seeds of addiction began to take root. I did all the stereotypical college kid tropes: joined a fraternity, stayed up all night, and skipped a plethora of classes, all stemming from my activities from the night before. In my head I was having the time of my life. Staying up all night partying and drinking the night away with no real hesitation or any inclination on how these actions were going to have drastic ramifications on my future. I should of figured this out after one night in particular in my dorm room. My roommate and I had a few mutual friends up for a fun filled weekend of partying. It all started innocently enough, a nice fun night at the fraternity house with copious amounts of beer, whiskey, and girls. The night however would take a drastic turn when we went back to the dorm. At this point our collective group had drank enough to warrant worry from most parents, but we were freshmen in college and ready to make some really dumb decisions. That is when the baggie full of marijuana came out and we packed a bowl and started smoking in the bathroom. Hind sight being 20/20 this is a really idiotic decision on so many levels, however in my state of inebriation all I could think was pass that my way. The next thing I know I hear a sound that haunts me to this day. It was the loudest knock and scream I had ever heard, “ FPD open up”. My heart raced, I swear I sobered up faster right there than I ever have in my entire life. I saw friends ducking in closets trying to hide from the impending arrests about to be made. My mind was racing all I could see was myself behind bars and my life ruined. Somehow someway I managed to talk myself out of getting arrested, my friends did not get so lucky, and all I got was an alcohol violations from my dorm. No big deal there. Why tell you this story? The answer is simple, this is the first in a long line of examples where drugs and alcohol have been involved where life altering situations could have occurred. A rational adult would learn and grow from this situation. An immature college kid will see it as a lucky break and continue down a dangerous path of drug and alcohol use.

 After that insanely close call in my dorm I decided to ramp up my partying level to the next degree. Instead of most weekends it turned into basically every night. Why is this? I had discovered this magical new pill, Adderall. When I say wonderful I truly mean wonderful. It enabled myself and my group of friends the ability to not only stay out all night drinking and partying our lives away, but it also enabled us to wake up, sober up, and have more energy and focus than ever before. If taken correctly Adderall can help students focus in class and be seen as a real positive for college students. This is not how I was using the pill. I was using it to stay up all night and cram for exams, write paper, or worse party on. This is where college kids end up down a worm hole they may never get out of. I find myself to this day still in this worm hole. The dangers of drug and alcohol use are very real. As an adult today I can see just exactly where I got off my path to success and where I deviated to and why. It is imperative that high school and college students know and understand the real dangers of experimenting with drugs and alcohol. The most important of which is the addiction side. I had no idea I could have problem with drugs or alcohol because I was in college. In my head everyone was drinking copious amounts of alcohol, popping pills to recover, and then repeating said activities the next day. Hell we had a saying in my circle of friends, “we can’t be addicts if we are in school”, freaking genius. A few of my friends were able to succeed in finishing school relatively unscathed, but I can honestly say I battle my demons everyday now. I became increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol to get through the day to day activities. Again in my head I was fine because I was in school, my grades were decent, not up to my normal standards but passable, and I was holding down a few jobs to feed my addictions. What changed was when I decided I was done with school and just wanted to work full-time. I was in a dark place, I had just lost my grandfather who was always the rock I leaned on when things got tough. So what happens when internally you are justifying your partying lifestyle with “it’s fine because you are in school”, to still having the same partying lifestyle without the school? The answer was addiction. All of the signs were there I just chose to ignore them. I was depressed, lonely, and increasingly diving deeper and deeper into substance abuse.

What do I want people to take from this? The first thing is that it is never too late to get help. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you ever even realize you need help.  Addiction is a disease that can take hold and control your life no matter how old or young you are. Some people can handle social drug and alcohol use and some can’t. I always thought I had mine under control until the day I didn’t. I am not naive enough to stand here and say “hey kids don’t do drugs they are all bad”. That’s not inherently true in all cases. What I am saying is do not fall into the trap of “I can do whatever I want while I am in school then just stop after”. It really isn’t that easy. I had to learn the hard way, however this story will have a happy ending. After 5 years out of school I have a degree path in sight, will be done this May, and have been clean and relatively sober for over a year and a half now.

[whimsicalmeerkat]

Hello hello! Can I have some lines from whiskey on the rocks & adderall - Stiles goes to college for wip Wednesday please? :D

Nearly two months, this has taken me. Hopefully it won’t disappoint.

~

“Someone is texting you,” Derek says.

Stiles huffs.

“How do you have enough energy left to listen for the sound of a text to my silenced phone?”

[whimsicalmeerkat]

whiskey on the rocks & adderall - teen wolf - ch 3

On AO3

Derek is wolfed out three steps into Stiles’ and Lydia’s entryway when Lydia walks out of her bedroom. She looks at him and rolls her eyes.

“Stop growling and go sit down. I’ll make some tea and we’ll talk about it.”

Occurs right after that major diplomatic incident you were promised.

[whimsicalmeerkat]

I’m back! Collabang is a 2-for-1 so be sure to let me know if you have a preference of what your sentences come from. Make me write!

Filenames:

Collabang fic

devils-maker - angsty time travel

as through a glass darkly - mirrors/reflections

with lightning in his hands - twisted sleeping beauty

whiskey on the rocks & adderall - Stiles goes to college

Snippet from devils-maker:

Peter walks back to his bench, trying to move in a way that appears normal and not like someone who has just had a very strange conversation with a young child whose father happens to be the sheriff. It’s really not something he’d like to have to explain. He’s not sure where he would even start.

Certainly not with the fact that he’s a werewolf and that child had just identified his role in the pack—a role they don’t make public knowledge for very good reason.

Most people familiar with werewolf culture and packs are aware of the role of left hand, and it wouldn’t be hard to guess that Peter is Talia’s, but he’s observed that people focus on the enforcer aspect of the role. In some packs that does seem to be the primary purpose, but for the Hale Pack the left hand has also always been in charge of intelligence gathering and analysis.

From a young age, it was clear that Talia would be the alpha and Peter would be her left hand. He learned how to perform his duties to the pack at his grandmother’s knee, sometimes literally and he was always a star pupil.

All this to say, this is not the first time he’s heard the name Malia Tate.

WIP Wednesday Game

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

Requested/Friend event mentions under the cut! If you'd like to be pinged next week, let me know!

@fiore-della-valle @redbirdblogs @greenbergsays @idkfandomwhatever @luckyspike

@obaewankenope @mad-madam-m @anonymousdandelion @geometricfractal @prettybirdy979

@eriquin @aparticularbandit @madnessfromthemountains @makeroftherunes @1attheedge

@whimsicalmeerkat @kidsomeday @lizhly-writes @skyderman @adhdavinci

@owlbearwrites @anachronismstellar @anyctibius @rilannon @lazinesswrites

@zyrafowe-sny @dreaminghour @blue-eyedbeta @candyskiez @dreamerking27

@kalira @virgulesmith @i-want-delfeur @selkies-world @exceedinglygayotter

@oitreewrites @post-and-out @writingattheedge @qqaba @ykthefancyclamwiththepearlinside

@princescar

[whimsicalmeerkat]

Whiskey on the rocks & adderall!!

make me write | whiskey on the rocks & adderall

~

“Apparently I’m not,” Stiles snaps. “I promise you, we aren’t together. In what world would I ever keep quiet about that?”

“One where Derek asked you to,” his dad says, looking like he’s won the argument.

And, OK, that’s true. But it doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t a couple.

“Dad, I promise I will tell you if Derek and I ever start dating, but we really aren’t.”