#alcohol use tw

[winteratdusk]

Totally forgot to share this when I first posted, but chapter 2 of my new fic is now up! Some Steve/Bucky hurt/comfort, as always.

It was November of 1941, the air was bright and clear and cold, and Bucky was starting to feel like he was living at the end of the world. Or, with the world at war, responsibility on his shoulders, and the draft looming closer by the day, Bucky's just trying his best to stay afloat. Drinking seems to help, until it doesn’t.

Main, overarching warning for depictions of unhealthy alcohol use as a coping mechanism. More specific warnings are in the tags and chapter notes, so please be sure to check those as well! Chapter 2 snippet below the cut:

Bucky sat slouched over the bar, staring into the depths of his drink. 

It was a dive bar close to the docks, one Bucky always glanced over his shoulder before entering, afraid Jack or someone else from work might be passing by and see him go in. Since he and Steve had finally gotten over themselves, taking the plunge into the relationship that, to Bucky, had always felt halfway inevitable, they went out dancing a lot less. It was both exhausting and unfair, inviting out girls just to keep up appearances. They now spent more time out at bars like this instead – places where Bucky could run his hand up Steve’s thigh or link their hands together under the table and know that nobody would bat an eye.

There had been a time when Bucky had loved it, the openness they found in these places when everywhere else they had to be so careful. He was enjoying it far less now that he had to spend his evening listening to Steve animatedly talking politics to the shiny-haired boy sitting next to them at the bar, leaving Bucky to either try and fail to keep up or drink in silence.

“It’s bullying, is what it is,” Steve ranted, that familiar bit of Irish starting to creep into his voice. “Hitler thinks he can push everyone in Europe around, just like he’s already been doing to his own people!”

The boy beside him was nodding intensely, dark eyes fixed on Steve’s face. Bucky knocked back the rest of his drink and tried to subtly flag down the bartender.

“Exactly,” the boy agreed. “It’s not about glory or adventure or anything, like other guys keep saying. It’s about justice. We’ve finally got the chance to do something good. You’re joining up, right?”

Bucky saw Steve deflate for a moment before quickly squaring his shoulders again. “Trying. Wouldn’t take me the first time around, but I’m gonna prove them wrong.”

“And you?” 

The boy beside Steve addressed Bucky just as the bartender handed him his next drink. Bucky winced, hoping that neither Steve nor his new friend had caught on to the fact that most of the empty glasses in front of them were Bucky’s already, or that somewhere along the line he’d switched to ordering doubles. 

He wasn’t trying to get drunk, not really — it had just felt so good to loosen up a little, and he could hardly fault himself for not wanting that feeling to stop. 

“Buck?” Steve asked, expectant.

“I, uh… yeah,” Bucky said. “Yeah, I think I will. Just gotta make sure my folks are taken care of first. And I mean, I already signed up for the selective service last summer when they told us we all had to, so…”

Bucky knew it wasn’t the righteous answer Steve’s friend was looking for. He only hoped he was imagining the matching frown echoed on Steve’s face.

Bucky was saved from having to sit through any more of the conversation when someone sat down at the old, out-of-tune piano in the corner of the bar. As the first off-key notes of a drinking song permeated the room, the atmosphere shifted, faraway problems disappearing in favor of current celebration.

Steve’s new friend had turned around, talking to another man on the other end of the bar, and Steve’s eyes were on Bucky again. They were glassy and framed with long eyelashes. Their deep blue looked dark in the low light, and Bucky’s stomach swooped with a sensation like falling as he felt himself leaning towards them, tunneling into them. 

Steve’s lips parted, saying something that could hardly be heard over the raucous music. They were bright pink, glistening with the last sip of his drink, and Bucky wanted so badly to kiss them, to claim those lips for himself. He forced himself to hold back, pressing a hand flat to the sticky surface of the bar beside his drink to keep himself from touching Steve anywhere he could reach. 

[battlebuilt]

open starter, not accepting responses !

" i actually have no idea what's in this, " nyla confesses, tilting the glass in her hands. she knows very little when it comes to alcoholic beverages or how they're concocted, but she loves the fizziness. " maybe... vodka ? i just asked the bartender to make me something fruity and fun, i'll have to find them again to give my thanks. " she takes a small sip and her face contorts, lips puckering for a moment. the taste is definitely not one she's used to drinking. " are you enjoying the party ? "

[slavghters]

*     OPEN  STARTER       ›       INSIDE  THE  BLOATER .

an  incessant  thrum  — coming  from  the  speakers,  from  the  corner,  from  outside  the  windows,  too —  vibrates  through  her  veins  like  a  tingly  caress  while  her  hands  dry  a  recently  washed  glass.    everything  around  her  is  loud  cheers  and  loud  talks  and  bliss,  and  the  smile  omar  offers  her  from  the  middle  of  the  bar,  where  he  is  surrounded  by  people,  ignites  one  of  her  own,  warmth  erupting  within  her  chest  like  a  balm.   eyes  drifting  away  from  the  celebrated  man,  jack sighs,  content,  realizing  how  much  she  had  missed  this  just  now,  the  moment  she  has  it  back,  and  the  soft  upturn  of  her  lips  is  still  there  when  she  turns  around  behind  the  bar  and  faces  the  owner  of  another  empty  cup.     “ hello,  pretty  face,  what  can  i  get  you ? ”     her  charm  seeps  from  her  lips  like  honey,  soft  and  enticing,  and  her  previous  gentle  smile  becomes  slightly  playful,  causing  mirth  to  shine  in  the  brown  of  her  eyes.     “ are  you  on  a  mission  to  get  shitfaced  or  are  you  taking  it  easy  tonight ? ” 

[vandcrlylecrybaby]

oh i believe i had potential...

name: tallahassee andros

nickname: tal

pronouns/gender: he/him, cis man

sexuality: fluid

birthday: september 27, 1987

zodiac sign: libra ☉ | scorpio ☽ | gemini➶  

residence: brooklyn

employment: sandwich shop owner

mbti: ESFP

enneagram: type 7w6

moral alignment: chaotic neutral

... if i had got right

TL;DR:

trigger warnings: drug use, drug abuse, drug addiction, alcohol, alcohol addiction.

florida native who left home when the band he started with his brother got signed after years and years of playing dive bars, bowling alleys and birthday parties. very much a has-been, even though his old band comes back on throwback playlists and people go ‘oh hey what happened to them’ (the goal and the vibe is like… del amitri meets nine days meets a much less successful third eye blind)

(really though absolutely no one is gonna recognize this dude for that anywhere ever lmao) but don’t worry he will tell you all about it. sometimes he has the grace to hold off until someone asks why he was like 150k followers on twitter [after saying it’s because he’s really funny and insightful]

minorly and mostly peripherally success was all tallahassee needed to absolutely rip his life to pieces. he landed himself in rehab after a particularly bad fight with the band’s tour manager. when he was given the choice of potential prison time or rehab, he chose rehab. but he wasn’t read to get clean, and after his 90 days, he was right back where he wanted to be.

over the next few years, tallahassee burned every bridge and every relationship he ever had. friends, partners, family – he had dug himself into a hole trying to dig out of his habits. he sold his place, he sold his car, his sold his first guitar. after an incident on a stage in austin, he landed himself in rehab for the second time, and lost his spot in the band. (that he named and started, but whatever, he swears he’s let that go)

this time, it was going to stick, he decided. this time, he wanted it. it was the hardest 90 days of his life, until he was released and discovered that every day from here on out was just as difficult.

he left california, spent some time freelance writing and traveling the country. (he was not entirely unaware that the thing he was running from was in the driver’s seat with him.)

he ended up in new york by chance, and (mostly) stayed by choice. his bronco broke down outside of a bar, and he decided it was divine intervention telling him it was just fine to go in and have a drink. predictably, he woke up in the drunk tank with a court date a month away. so he stayed. at first, in rent-by-the-week motel on staten island. didn’t matter – he spent most of his time bouncing between NA and AA meetings, anyway. his court date came and went, and tallahassee signed a lease. worked odd jobs. bought a house. bought a sandwich shop. built a life and put down roots in hopes that the man who was hellbent and setting fire to it all was still somewhere on the west coast.

people person (derogatory) and is insufferable when he isn't getting enough attention (and he is never getting enough attention).

i could have been there...

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

NA or AA buddies. (sponsor and sponsee especially)

sandwich shop regulars

friends

exes/flings

anything n everything

... i could have been special

ESTABLISHED CONNECTIONS:

tbd

VIBES:

pinterest | playlist

[goofily-moved]

the way @sheepcote and I are tipsy and playing dbd and just got jumpscared to shit by Michael Myers

[faorism]

Elliot drinking, Parker and Hardison kissing

you right. from this post.

[iyla-devar]

A New Mission || Solo

TIMING: 2011, shortly after Iyla moved to town SUMMARY: Iyla's first gala in Wicked's Rest proves everyone is useless, but at least she finds a snack. TRIGGER WARNINGS: Infidelity, Alcohol use

“No, no no! Up on the left side you dip- Oh just let me do it.” 

Iyla shoved her “event coordinator” out of the way, pinning the banner in the correct spot on the wall. Lord, it wasn’t that hard. Sometimes Iyla wondered why she even bothered with coordinators when they all fucked it up anyway. But she needed the extra hands, even if it meant she had to follow them around and fix all their little mistakes.

“There, see? Now I have to go and make sure everything else on your plate was completed to my satisfaction.” Iyla waved the mousy woman away. “Go make yourself useful and bring me a macchiato.” 

Iyla spun and sauntered away, her heels echoed on the hardwood floor, probably installed somewhere around the time of Iyla’s Disaster Ball. It desperately needed refinishing, but Iyla had a soft spot for these sort of historical embellishments, especially when it came to locations for her charity galas. What better way to put her clients in the mood to spend thousands on old, crackling pieces of “art” than to surround them with similarly long-lived decor? 

Auctions and galas and charity functions, they all reminded her of her better life, one where she wasn’t beholden to the vengeance of others, where the most complicated thought that plagued her mind was what wine to serve with the scallop hors d'oeuvre. Sure, she had access to reality bending superpowers, but what good were they if they couldn’t bring her Tomas back? 

Sighing, Iyla plucked a wayward vase off one of the sign up tables, replacing it with the much more appropriately sized bouquet from one of the dining tables. She rolled her eyes. Was it too much to ask to use some damn common sense? This was her first event in Wicked’s Rest, a town so boring they had to create a cryptid problem just to keep them relevant. But this was going to be her home now, and she was going to make her mark. Even if the event coordinator seemed intent on ruining it for her.

In a matter of hours, the room was filled, soft orchestral music the perfect soundtrack to hushed whispers and gentle clinking of silverware. Humans milled around, trying to assign meaning to each of the paintings and sculptures, debating which would be the perfect accent to their gilded toilets or plush living room sets. A few patrons swung by to offer their platitudes, ‘amazing party, Iyla!’ ‘Beautiful, as always!’ ‘What an amazing array this time! Really making it hard to choose just one piece!’

Iyla smiled, the party feeling empty. Not like the lively fêtes she used to throw in her heyday. It was all starting to bore her when she inhaled the most glorious scent: wrath, tinged with revenge. The fury whirled, noting a solitary figure intently gazing at a Willem de Kooning piece.

“Ah, Revenge.” Iyla smiled sweetly at the woman, clasping her hands in front of her. “Are you a fan of Kooning?”

The woman snorted, downing what was left of her champagne. Iyla snapped, prompting a waiter to hasten over with a new platter of flutes. “My husband. For some reason, he loves these stupid prints. Poems and finger paints, if you ask me.” She gulped at the fresh flute of bubbles. “Or maybe he just enjoys things made by children. Or more specifically, just children. Barely out of college. Probably still making finger paint- Oh lord…I- forgive me…” The woman drained the rest of the glass, patting her hair down self consciously. “I’m Darcy, Darcy Coates.”

Iyla inhaled. Betrayal. Infidelity. A marriage holding on by a thread. This could be fun. Not to mention everyone in here had been meticulously hand picked for attendance, they were each fair game as far as Iyla was concerned. 

Coates…yes, her grandmother had been in charge of washing the linens for her ball back in 1926. 

“Iyla Devar.” The fury held out a dainty hand. “You don’t happen to be related to Isobel, do you?”

The woman - Darcy - smiled, a sad sort of smile Iyla had come to know meant someone died. “Yes, my grandmother. Did you know her? I’m sorry…but she passed on about a decade ago.” Iyla bristled. She’d gotten to live far too long. What had she washed those linens with anyway, kerosene? Oh well, her granddaughter would do just fine as far as Iyla was concerned. Sins of the father and all that jazz.

“If you ask me,” Iyla leaned in, shifting the subject back to one that was useful to her. “This series, this entire thing,” She gestured around her. “It’s all bullshit. These people, they spend thousands on glorified children’s paintings, to what? Show their friends? To have them just so others don’t get their hands on them?” She scoffed. “Revenge. The best revenge? Would be to buy this hunk of junk and burn it on his front lawn.” Iyla shrugged, noting the way the other woman hung on her words. “But that’s just me. You might have something much more creative in mind.”

Darcy Coates stared at the painting, her pulse quickening. Iyla could practically hear the gears turning, contemplating just how much she hated her husband. “I could help you with that,” she purred, as if reading the woman’s mind. “And I think we could create some art of our own.”

Maybe living in Wicked’s Rest wouldn’t be so terribly boring after all.

[elora-opulence]

It had been weeks since Elora had heard anything from Jean-Claude. Their last interaction had been a painfully brusque text exchange, in which JC was nothing short of cold, and Elora hadn’t tried to contact him again since. Life had been horrible without him - she knew that he had come to mean a lot to him, but she hadn’t realised just how much. He was her confidant, the person who she could rely on to go home to at the end of the day, who would kiss her and cuddle her and cook as best he could for her, who would listen to her when she cried, always so kind and gentle with his words as his hand would stroke through her hair.

There were bright spots in her life. Things with Ryden weren’t so strange anymore and work was good. Her side hustle was booming, even though she could do longer deal outside the Den and JC’s shop. And most importantly, Micah. Soft, sweet, funny Micah, who always made her laugh and gave her excellent advice. If she was being honest with herself, her feelings towards her new friend were well and truly confused. The last time they had hung out, she’d wanted to close the gap between them and kiss him. But, she hadn’t, and another night alone had passed.

Tonight, there was nothing on the schedule. No work, no hangouts, nothing. And so, she’d decided to get a little buzzed - her favourite way to pass a lonely night. After downing a good half of a bottle of whiskey, she’d popped some pills, and then some more. She followed that up with a couple of lines of MDMA, and then a couple more pills, and now she was spread-eagled on her bed, her heart racing and vision blurry as she looked up at the ceiling. Normally she was on top of her drug intake, knowing just how far she could push herself, but tonight… something felt off. She felt out of control, struggling to maintain consciousness, and for the first time in a long time, she felt scared that she’d gone to far.

She scrabbled at the bedside table for her phone, typing in the only number she remembered, forgetting in her high and drunken state that she had numbers saved. The ringing tone rang again and again, until finally she got JC’s voicemail. “JC. I- I don’t think I… I think I did too much. I feel weird,” she mumbled, her words slurred and voice soft. “I need help,” she managed, and before she could hang up, she’d passed out. 

@duderosiers 

[ongreenergrasses]

🧨 for the emoji prompt

LOVE this one for Andy/Booker!

“Hey, Book!”

Booker takes another long (long) swallow of his beer before turning around. “Andy?”

Andy’s clearly unsteady on her feet. Booker kicks out the stool next to him so she doesn’t have as far to go before she collapses onto it. If she’s feeling it, Booker can’t even count how many she’s had.

“Let’s steal a car,” she says. Her eyes are frighteningly focused.

Booker looks over at the clock. It’s 8pm on a Wednesday. He looks back at the counter, and his mostly finished beer. At Andy, who’s slumped over and resting her chin on her crossed arms.

“Fuck it,” he says, and drains the rest of his beer.

Andy hotwires the car. Booker sits perched on the hood and smokes a cigarette. She’s too wobbly to drive, so Booker shoves her out of the way and guns it just as he hears the door of the house open behind them and someone shouting curses. Andy jumps in and steals the cigarette out from between his fingers on the steering wheel.

Book takes them on as winding of a path as he can to lose the cops. There almost certainly won’t be cops, they’re not somewhere where that’s an option, but he likes to cover his bases. Andy finishes his cigarette frighteningly fast and lights up another.

There’s adrenaline still pounding through Booker’s veins. His hands are shaking with it. Maybe that’s why when he chances a glance over at Andy, her profile looks so striking. So beautiful.

(It’s not. But he tells himself that.)

“What’re you staring at?”

“You,” he says, before he can help himself. “You’re beautiful, Andy.”

Andy stares at him. Her mouth’s slightly hanging open.

“Huh,” she finally says. “Thanks.”

It hurts.

“I don’t think I can steal shit with you any more,” Book says, taking Andy’s cigarette for himself.

“Why not?”

“I’ll - ”

It’s the adrenaline making his heart beat too fast. Making him stupid.

“I just can’t,” he says.

I’ll fall in love with you, he doesn’t say.

Andy shrugs. “Suit yourself.” She grins. “I’ll miss this, though.”

There’s a bang from the back of the car.

Andy busts out laughing. Booker rolls his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, pulling over and stomping out to look at the flat tire, “I’ll miss it too.”

emoji prompts

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Wonderful

CW: Intimate whump, frank/mocking noncon discussion, captivity, forced relationship (... sort of), threats of violence/death

(As always, Jax is @comfy-whumpee's OC and is used with permission and oversight)

-

Brayden Marcoset has never hated a single soul as much as he hates his cousin’s stupid fucking English muffin of a man.

Savvie had taken a perfectly good house slave, trained by the best man in the business, and then she somehow ruined him entirely. Placid and obedient had become watchful and cunning. As if she’d turned a fucking housepet into a caged, half-rabid… coyote, or something.

Not that Brayden’s ever seen one other than on television, but… still. Metaphors don’t matter.

She’s given the man delusions of grandeur, pulled him into her bed when he should have spent his nights in the servant quarters or bedded down with the hunting hounds where he belongs. 

It’s one thing for a Marcoset man to take a liking to staff - that's just part of life - but none of them ever demanded to marry one. And no Marcoset man ever tried to make any of the resulting little bastards into legitimate Marcoset heirs. 

It’s disgusting. 

Brayden’s eyelid twitches just looking at him, where he sits on the long end of the sectional like he even deserves to be there. Savvie dresses him in clothes that are worth more than he is, simpers and smiles and kisses him, calls him sweet little nicknames and all but throws herself at him 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It’s hell, having to play along with her ridiculous little games.

But… here they are, he and the man Savvie insists on calling her husband sitting across from each other like this is normal or fine and not Savvie twisting and bending the rules of reality to her will like she always does.

Jax should be standing unobtrusively in a corner waiting to be given an order. He should be wearing the staff uniform of white shirt, black pants, black collar, and eyes on the ground.

He should be her little secret she brings to her bed and then sends away right after and he should be grateful for being her favorite.

Instead, he’s sitting on the couch as miserable as Brayden is, wearing a pair of tailored jeans and a sweater Brayden owns himself in a different color and now can’t wear ever again, not now that the muffin has worn it. 

Not now that he realizes Jax looks better in that style of sweater than he does. 

Grudgingly, he admits to himself that Jax looks pretty good in general. Too thin, thanks to Savvie’s iron control over how much he eats and when he gets the chance to eat it, but… good. He’s got that hint of lean muscle you can’t quite hide, and his hair looks good. Maybe he’s got shadows under his eyes, but really… that’s not so bad. He’s handsome enough, even with the shock collar permanently locked around his neck. 

Next to him, looking ethereal - she thinks, anyway - in an empire-waist gown with too many layers of faint pastel shades that she believes turn her into some kind of watercolor queen, Savvie has a hand on his knee as she gestures. She pauses, looking between he and Jax, and Brayden feigns a reaction - he has no idea what she just said. 

Neither does Jax, he thinks - he’s staring slightly off to one side as Savvie chatters about their most recent ‘babymoon’, a trip down to the beach house to enjoy the waves, work on her next album, and really just focus on being ‘us’ for a while. She’s only twenty-three weeks pregnant and they’ve already gone on two of the damn things, Savvie dragging Jax with her like the idiot little dog on a short leash he might as well be.

How many more can she plan? How many more of these stories is he going to have to pretend he’s listening to?

Brayden watches Jax instead.

His jaw is angled more sharply than it was when he’d first arrived, years ago, as if he’s always biting something back. Brayden had seen him a few times before back then, before he’d gone to the cops and it had nearly cost them all everything… Jax had been blank, then, too, but it had been… different. 

Now he isn’t really empty. 

Jax's face always looks like a computer with the monitor off but programs still whirring all the same. Whatever there is going on behind his eyes, Brayden can’t see it. And he’s usually pretty good at reading the shit the servants think they’re hiding. Or roughing them up until they tell him anyway.

But with Jax, it’s like looking through completely frosted glass. Shadows, a hint of a color, maybe, but… nothing clear. Never enough to get any understanding. Being trapped in Savvie’s life - in her bed, in her arms - has made Jax into a better liar than he’d been when he first arrived.

That’s not just irritating.

That’s dangerous.

But Savvie doesn’t see it.

Savvie pauses, leans over, whispers into Jax’s ear as she gives his knee a squeeze. Brayden watches a soft smile flicker across his face, gone as fast as it came. He whispers, Yes, Miss Savvie in that hushed voice that makes Brayden’s teeth itch. Savvie pushes herself to her feet. Her stomach isn't really that rounded but she acts like it’s already huge, rubbing her hand over it, up and down. Brayden barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. 

He gets the sense Jax feels the same as he does, for once.

“I’ll be right back,” Savvie says brightly. “Keep an eye on him for me, won’t you, Bray? Just… part of the magic, I guess, is having to go to the bathroom every six minutes. I swear…” She’s still talking when she leaves the room. Has she stopped since she got here? He’s pretty sure she hasn’t. She barely even pauses to breathe.

But at least the room gets quiet, now. 

He glances over at Jax, who doesn’t look back. But, like a shark scenting blood a mile away, Brayden sees how his scarred hands shift where they rest, falsely relaxed. Brayden watches his ring finger twitch, the simple band Savvie put there glinting dimly in the light. 

“How badly do you wish she would just drop dead right now?” He asks, seemingly idly, tipping his cut-crystal glass to watch the whiskey and ice swirl around each other. “More than before she got herself pregnant, or less?”

Jax’s jaw shifts. Those eyes move to his, briefly, all innocent uncertainty. “Don’t know w-what you mean,” He says, voice low. 

“Oh, give up the bullshit,” Brayden says, huffing as he takes a drink, leaning over with his elbows on his thighs. He finds a half-smile, but he doesn’t mean it, and he doesn’t try to look like he does. “We all know how you feel. You might as well be honest with me about it. Besides, we’re basically family, now, right? I was at your wedding. I was your best man, your best-... what, d’you call it your best mate in merry old England?”

He laughs at his own mockery of an accent that has only the slightest relation to Jax’s own, taking a drink. This is his fourth whiskey of the evening and the other three went down smooth. The world is getting brighter, with sharper edges - just how he likes it.

At the mention of the wedding - where Jax had gone where he was told, done what he was told to do, said the words Savvie gave him to say, and probably gone back to Savvie’s home that night and whispered sweet nothings like a man with a gun to his head - Jax’s fingers twitch again. They close into loose fists. He doesn’t even bother with a reply, this time. 

Just looks away again.

“Hey.” Brayden frowns, snapping his fingers, but Jax doesn’t even flinch. “I’m talking to you.”

 More silence.

“Come on. Give me something to work with.” He sits back again, raking a hand back through his hair. “You’re a treat to have around for a visit, aren’t you? So very talkative. Goddamn chatty. Jax, why are you even here, anyway? You don’t have to be.”

That gets him the briefest bit of eye contact, but nothing more. “Miss Savvie was invited for dinner,” He says, voice low and blank and empty. It makes Brayden’s anger rise like a storm surge inside him, battering his resolve. 

The rest of the staff… react. They murmur obedience, they smile when he tells them to, they answer every question with yes, Master Brayden or no, Master Brayden, or whatever you want, Master Brayden. But Jax, the worst of them all, has to be treated like he matters just because Savvie thinks his dick hung the moon. 

Brayden moves fluidly onto his feet, ignoring the way the world spins a little. Maybe, he thinks, he shouldn’t have another whiskey after he finishes this one. He moves around the coffee table, closing the distance between them. Jax’s fists close tighter and tighter, until his nails must be breaking skin. As Brayden bends and then leans in close, Jax subtly leans away, trying to keep distance between them.

But Brayden isn’t in the mood for distance.

Not tonight.

Instead, he shifts gears, switches over to easygoing, we’re all guys here friendliness. “Seriously, man. We all know she’s batshit, she always was. We all know it. Nobody really thinks this is Romeo and Juliet but her. You know? You should be scrubbing floors right now. Or… I don’t know, maybe you should be somewhere else. Like back home, huh?”

Jax takes in a breath, his eyes determinedly focused on a spot on the wall somewhere over Brayden’s shoulder, but he doesn’t reply. This close, Brayden can smell the cologne Savvie makes him wear. 

“It’s okay,” Brayden murmurs, looking towards the door Savvie went through and then back. “It’s just the two of us here. Be honest with me, Mr. Marm-... Marcoset.” He’s slurring a little as the whiskeys catch up to him, but it doesn’t matter. “You spend half the night thinking about putting a pillow over her fucking face, and you know nobody who actually knew her would even blame you, so why not do it? Or… look, it’s just us here and now. Just you and me. Tell me why you don’t just… go, get out of here, get the fuck out of my sight. And don’t say the collar. If you’re here at this house, the shock collar can’t be set to make you stay at her house, so… why not just fucking take off before she can get to the remote? You could make it outside before she even notices. I wouldn’t even say anything, I’d just sit here and wait. I’d even give you a good head start.”

He drops his voice lower, soft and poisonously seductive. The kind of voice he might use on a pretty servant girl, not his cousin’s idiot husband. Just above a whisper. The same way he might have otherwise murmured to one of the staff to be in my room at midnight, to Jax he offers a different kind of poison laced with sugar. 

“She left the keys in the car, didn’t she? You know she did. Go on, Jax. I won’t say a damn thing. Just go. Get the fuck out of our lives and be free and then I never have to see your ugly fucking face again.”

He’s nearly breathing whiskey-breath in Jax’s face, and still, the man doesn’t move. Doesn’t even wrinkle his nose.

Brayden chuckles, forcing it, because he’s getting absolutely nothing from the man still seated in perfect still silence on the couch, but he can feel under all that empty space the rising tension. He can tell he’s getting to Jax, at least a little. 

He wants to throw him to the floor, kick his ribs until he hears the satisfying snap when one of them breaks, and then keep going. Give Savvie back her man with black eyes and busted-out teeth, a broken jaw. Show him how little he means, no matter what Savvie tells him.

He’s just staff.

He’s just something else the Marcosets own.

He doesn’t deserve their name, and he isn’t even grateful for it.

“Come on,” He murmurs, nearly close enough to touch now. “You know you want to go. You could get out before there’s some little monster screaming for you alongside her all night, some bastard baby you’ll hate as much as you hate her. Throw a punch, I’ll let you hit me even. Make it look like a fight and not like you’re just following my orders, too. Go on. Or… well, wait a second.”

He sits down next to Jax, slinging an arm around his shoulder like they’re the best of friends, leaning in until he’s nearly close enough to kiss.

“Do you... do you not even want to go? Huh? Is the problem that you really want to be here? Got a lil case of the Stockholm Syndrome? That’s not real, you know. They made it up... doesn’t matter. But hey, maybe you have it anyway. Maybe you like fucking her every single night. That’s why you never take the chances, because… because we know there are chances, don’t we, you and I? After you dick her down real good, she falls asleep and you have hours, but no… you stay right there and wait to be told to dick her down again, huh? Because you want to be here." He laughs again, barely making a sound. "You sad little shit, you actually love her and you don’t even know it. Love her so much you’re having a baby together. Some little fucking clone of my cousin, but hey. Maybe the little goblin will have your eyes, huh? You can teach it to say yes, Miss Savvie like a goddamn moron just like you. Gonna be the baby's first words, right?"

There.

Jax’s back and shoulders feel like iron, tense as steel bearing too much weight under the soft cashmere, beneath Brayden’s arm. The way that tension turns to shaking makes him smile. Jax’s knuckles are bleached against the fabric of his jeans, his face paper-white beneath some red that lingers in his cheeks. 

It’s a good look on him.

It’d be better if he was bleeding.

Too much whiskey has Brayden’s hand creeping back up, over the back of Jax’s neck to the shock collar’s lock. He knows the combo, the whole family knows the combo they use for the shock collars. “I’ll take it off,” He whispers, “And give you twenty minutes. How far can you get, I wonder? I want to see. Don’t you want to see how far you can get?”

Jax’s eyes, locked as they are on the wall in front of him, flare slightly. Brayden’s close enough to hear his breathing suddenly go shallow, and then catch. 

“Come on,” Brayden whispers. “Run, rabbit. Run.”

Brayden’s fingers brush over the lock, the hair that just barely curls over it at the nape of Jax’s neck. 

“Don’t,” Jax says, voice tight. 

Brayden’s lip curls in disgust. “Why not?”

“Because, Brayden, in this particular moment he is smarter than you are.”

The voice of Brayden’s father booms from the doorway,.

Brayden feels blood somehow both rush to his face and also drain from it at the same moment. Then his vision goes red. Jax had seen Isaac coming, hadn’t he? He'd seen, and he hadn’t said a damn thing.

Brayden gets back to his feet, stumbling forward before straightening his posture. Even in his late thirties, he’s still got a hint of nerves around Isaac. Being too drunk in front of his father feels like a great way to get himself in deep shit all over again.

Isaac Marcoset, always the biggest presence in any room he enters, moves casually as he rolls his sleeves back down. Smears of faint red on his knuckles are the only sign of the work he’s been busy with for the past hour. The head of the Marcoset family is all charm and darkness. He’s sly smiles and handshakes that sometimes go on just a little too long, and he’s also agonizing, lingering death in a back room, with staff removing bodies out the back door.

Brayden takes a breath. He feels the strangely teenage urge to hide his whiskey glass behind his back and fights it. “Hey... Hey, Dad.”

Isaac only raises an eyebrow, pouring himself a drink from the bar cart in the corner. The silence draws out, awkward and heavy.

Brayden clears his throat. “I-I wasn’t really going to take it off, I was… I was just fucking with him, that’s all.”

“I certainly hope you’re not fucking with him, Bray.” Isaac takes a drink, waiting for Brayden to understand his terse joke. No one laughs. “I realize he has some sort of attractive quality to him, although I have no idea what, but still. It’s bad enough that my niece lowers herself to bedding him, surely you can abstain?” 

Brayden's face burns so hot he half thinks he'll catch fire. "Dad!"

In the corner of his eyes, Brayden sees the corners of Jax’s smile shift into a shit-eating little smirk. 

The little shit. How dare he looks like that, like he's gotten one over on Brayden, and how dare he wear the fucking wedding ring that means Brayden can’t even do anything about it. Not anything permanent enough to count, anyway.

Brayden drops back into his seat, hunching his shoulders and glaring over the edge of his glass. He tells himself if Jax so much as cracks a fucking joke, he’ll break this glass, carve that smirk into the stupid fucker's face, and beg Savvie for forgiveness afterward. 

When he looks, though, Jax isn’t even looking at him. Those hazel eyes are locked on Isaac, as if Brayden simply ceases to exist when his father walks in the door. It’s a feeling that’s far too familiar, and it makes Brayden feel… small.

Which pisses him off even more.

And Jax knows it.

“Hello, Uncle Isaac,” Jax says, serene. As if they were all simply discussing the weather. But that shit-eating grin doesn’t leave his face, even if it never makes it to his eyes. 

“Hello, miscreant,” Isaac replies, apparently in a good enough mood to humor him. “I have to assume, if I’m forced to endure your presence, that my niece is here as well?”

“She went to th’bathroom,” Brayden mutters, drinking the rest of his whiskey in two gulps, using the burn as a distraction from his embarrassment and fury at even being embarrassed in front of glorified staff, Savvie’s little toy. “Mother said… what, twenty minutes ago? I think? She said supper’s served at seven.”

“Hm. Not much longer, then. Good, I’ve worked up an appetite.” Isaac settles into his favorite armchair in the sitting room, tapping fingertips on the upholstery. “You should learn to control yourself, Bray. My niece’s choice of men may not run to the most handsome or most intelligent-... or men with brains at all, really-... but despite his many faults… well. There isn't anything we can do about those. The miscreant remains whether we like it or not."

“Now you’re just hurting my feelings,” Jax says, with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. “Thought we were family now, Uncle Isaac.” 

Brayden glares at him - he’s been silent, but now he talks? Now he has little quips to say, once Brayden looks like a moron in front of his father and Isaac is the one holding fucking court?

Jax’s smile widens ever so slightly as he finally meets Brayden’s eyes. “Didn’t you just say so? You were at the wedding. You were my best mate.”

“I’m going to pull your teeth out with pliers!” Brayden lunges forward with a roar. He winds one arm back and whips his glass right at Jax, whose hands are up fast enough that it just bounces off his forearms, sprays half-melted ice cubes and whiskey-flavored water in Jax’s hair and clothes, and then cracks into pieces on the floor. “You little shit! I’ll pull out each and every fucking fingernail and make you regret-”

“Brayden Marcoset!” Isaac’s voice is louder than the pulse of fury in Brayden’s mind. “Calm yourself!”

For a long, drawn-out moment, he can’t move. All he can think about is choking the life out of Jax until his smirk dies, until his eyes go dim, and then the emptiness isn’t fake anymore, it’s real. And he can see that Jax knows he wants to, knows just how little there is keeping him from turning him into a smear on the floor for the staff to scrub out.

He wouldn’t even be the first.

Then, he takes a breath and sits down.

“Hannah!” He yells over his shoulder. “Come clean this mess up in here!”

She’s always close by. Hannah, one of the aforementioned bastards the Marcosets hold onto for their own purposes, looks entirely too much like Savvie. She, though, wears the white-and-black uniform, her collar snug around her neck, and her hair - that Marcoset hair, wavy and thick - is cut to her chin. She swallows, hard, when she sees them all. “Master-... oh, good evening, Master Isaac,” She says, feigning cheer, but Brayden isn’t in the fucking mood for it. "Master Jax."

"He's nobody's fucking master. Shut the fuck up. Just clean up the fucking mess,” He says, and waves his hand. Hannah takes in the sight of the cracked glass on the floor and droplets of water, Jax sitting there marked with it himself, and then her gaze moves to the fury on Brayden’s face. 

She pulls a towel from where it had been tucked over her belt for easy use. Her face is carefully expressionless. “Yes, Master Brayden.”

That’s more like it.

The three of them watch her clean in awkward silence - or Isaac and Brayden do, who the fuck knows what Jax is actually looking at - and then she vanishes as quickly as she came.

Brayden points after her. “That should be you,” He says to Jax, voice flat. “Cleaning up my mess, saying yes sir and no sir, and never giving me any shit. Got it? Savvie’s weird obsession with you is the only thing that keeps me from making sure you work your hands to the bone here on my orders.”

Jax opens his mouth - Brayden’s going to kill him, whatever he says next - but Isaac speaks before he manages to say whatever was on his mind. 

“Oh, let it go,” Isaac says, waving a hand. “You’re letting him work you up. When you do this, you teach him that he matters to you.”

“He-”

The door bursts open and all three men tense, then, but it’s only Savvie returning. She’s breathless and flushed and her eyes are shining. She looks like a princess in a fairytale as she rushes forward to grab Jax’s hands in her own and pull him to his feet. “Jax! Honey, come feel!”

She doesn’t even seem to see her cousin or uncle. Only Jax.

Only.

Jax.

Brayden’s teeth grind together watching Jax’s sly cunning disappear, replaced with the play-acting at earnest, if nervous, adoration that Savvie demands from him. Everyone else on earth could disappear and Savvie wouldn’t care, as long as she had her fucking English muffin to cling to.

Nothing fucking matters but him.

“Feel what, Miss Savvie…?” Jax’s confusion, at least, is genuine. His hands hang slightly limp in her grip. She pulls him to her, pressing his palms over her stomach through her dress, biting her lower lip and looking downward.

Brayden groans as he realizes what it is.

Jax glances at him and then back, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in for him, not just yet. Then he flinches, minutely, eyes widening. He pulls his hands back. “M-Miss Savvie-”

There are bloodstains, small but vibrant, on her dress now, from the wounds he’s made with his own fingernails in the palms of his hands. 

Savvie doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. 

She pulls him right back, her hands pressed down a little too hard over his to keep them where she wants them. Hard enough to make him wince. Savvie’s forehead touches his, and she whispers excitedly, “Did you feel her? Did you feel her kicking?”

Jax stares down, then, at their hands, and her rounded stomach. As if he could look right through it and see the growing life inside. “Yeah,” He whispers. He looks like he wants to sink into the floor, like he might be sick. “I-... I feel it, I th-think. That’s-”

“That’s her kicking,” Savvie whispers. “That’s her. Jax, sweetie, that’s…” She sniffs, taking pause for dramatic effect. “That’s our daughter. Our baby.”

“Th-that’s our baby,” Jax repeats. He sounds numb. 

“Oh,” Savvie whispers, sounding a little amazed. It’s an oddly genuine sound, dropping the theatrics, the eternal performance. As if this has knocked even Savvie out of her usual song-and-dance. She hesitates, and then shifts Jax’s hands a little. “She’s kicking harder for you, isn’t she? She knows it’s you already.”

“Y-... you think she does?” Jax’s voice nearly matches Savvie’s. The awe in his voice might almost be real. It’s brief, but they almost look and sound like a real couple. Just for a second. Just if you tilt your head, squint, and pretend you don’t see the shock collar locked on his neck and the way she holds his hands too tight. 

“Yeah,” Savvie says, and her smile is sweet as she lifts one hand to touch his face. There’s a pause, Jax’s eyes are locked on her stomach, he doesn’t react to her touch at all. Some of the syrupy-soft smile on her face starts to fade. The warmth in her chills. “Jax. She knows you’re her daddy, isn’t that wonderful?”

Half of Brayden is amused that she still has to prod Jax to give his line, to keep up the performance. Half of him is disgusted that Jax goes along with it, tips his head into the palm of her hand and gives her the big doe eyes she loves so much.

“Yes, Miss Savvie,” Jax answers, automatically, meeting her gaze now. He turns his face and it might almost seem like he’s kissing her palm, although even drunk Brayden can see that he isn’t really doing that at all. Savvie, though, sees what she wants to see - she always has. Jax’s fingers twitch where his hands are still laid on her rounded stomach, feeling the shifting movements of the growing child, the fucking anchor Savvie has tied around his neck. He manages something like a slight, faint smile. “It’s w-wonderful.”

It’s fucking depressing, is what it is.

“Fuck,” Brayden mutters, wishing he had another drink. 

[bigmandiego]

Open Starter ! Late during Homecoming After Party. Somewhere on Greek Row.

He'd wandered away from the KKG house, not too far. Only far enough that the lights had dimmed and he could lay on one of the grassy front lawns of the Greek Houses to look up at the stars in the night sky through his red and blood shot eyes. He had discarded his jacket in his car, along with the tie, unbuttoning his dress shirt to loosen it around his throat. It didn't make him any more comfortable, and was already feeling the hangover coming on. The end of his high mixing with the alcohol, mixing with the sinking feeling in his stomach at everything going on with the Greer bullshit. He already felt himself starting to feel sick. Diego had always felt more peaceful looking up into the universe and realizing how small and inconsequential all the drama that happened really was. But he had to admit... it was hard to think about anything else at the moment. He flung an arm over his face with a disgruntled sound, "fuck..."

[mari-zuko]

who: open starter where: KKG house when: homecoming night

Mari may have invited people over for an after party, but shortly after the Homecoming Court announcement, she had decided she had had enough. No way was Greer actually just sending messages in the campus chat like it was no big deal....right? After sending her text after text after text and still not getting an answer, Mari turned to handling things the way Mari handled things best. Shoving her emotions down and partying. Which meant she was more than on the way to being wasted as she stumbled downstairs, a look of confusion on her face when she bumped into someone who decidedly wasn’t a sister, momentarily forgetting she had invited everyone over earlier in the night. It clicked a second later, her face brightening up - as much as Mari Zuko’s face ever appeared bright. “You came!” she squealed, throwing her arms around the other person - another sure sign of her intoxication. “I’m so happy you did.”

[caspianxthex]

(continuing thread for @nckxshrwood )

Caspian noticed Nicholas's face when he pretended to be surprised at the taste of the brandy, and it made him smile; he could tell that the other man was buying his deception, which amused him. And Caspian didn't feel badly about that because he thought Nick was doing the same thing: using him for his entertainment. They were both doing it, though only one of them (Caspian himself) knew that. "Sherwood, hmm?" Caspian replied. "Why does your name sound familiar?" Something about it rang a bell in Caspian's mind, though he supposed Nicholas was about to tell him since Caspian had a feeling that the man liked to brag. Taking another sip of the brandy, Caspian remembered to pretend not to like the taste of it, though he fully planned to finish the drink and let Nicholas buy him another. Actually Caspian planned to see just how many drinks he could get the man to buy for him. There was something about Nicholas's tone that felt so pretentious, and Caspian had heard it before from people who had money - a lot of the people in his life had spoken like that to those they found to be lesser. That's why this was so fun for Caspian.

Smiling at Nicholas, Caspian asked, "And you decided to come over and keep me company? What a gentleman." Caspian tried to keep his tone serious, though it was difficult not to laugh. Instead he just smiled at the man again. "What if I told you I am a little sad?" Caspian questioned. "What would you do?" He finished his drink, and then he asked, "Do you think you could buy me another? It really is expensive, isn't it?" As if he needed to turn on the charm, Caspian leaned into Nicholas, resting his hand on his thigh gently and looking into his eyes as he said, "Please?"

[sebmorrison]

👌🏼

Seb clutched at his beer, leaning against a wall talking to the person stood in front of him. He was definitely too drunk, there was no doubt about that, and despite being able to hold his tongue sober, alcohol loosened it.

"You know- you know what the worst part is," he hiccuped, readjusting his hands position against the wall. "Sometimes- sometimes I'm happy she's not here- Greer- I- I love her- but she's a bit over-over-overbearing at times... like what I can't get with your friends? Like- like... I don't know? You know? I fucking miss her though- I fucking miss her," he mumbled, stumbling slightly. "Excuse me- I gotta go."

[talandros]

CHARACTER INFORMATION:

FULL NAME: Tallahassee Andros

NICKNAMES: Tal

FACE CLAIM: Peter Gadiot

PRONOUNS AND GENDER: Cis man, he/him

BIRTHDAY: September 27,1987

BIRTH PLACE: Tallahassee, Florida

HOW LONG HAVE THEY BEEN IN TOWN?: Eight years

SEXUALITY: Fluid

HOUSING: Coral Coast

OCCUPATION: Freelance songwriter

TL;DR:

TRIGGER WARNING(S): DRUG USE, DRUG ABUSE, BLOOD MENTION, ALCOHOL ABUSE

has-been washed up musician in a band that comes back on throwback playlists and people go ‘oh hey what happened to them’ (the goal and the vibe is like… del amitri meets nine days meets a much less successful third eye blind)

(really though absolutely no one is gonna recognize this dude for that anywhere ever lmao) but don’t worry he will tell you all about it. sometimes he has the grace to hold off until someone asks why he was like 150k followers on twitter [after saying it’s because he’s really funny and insightful]

florida native who left home when his band got signed after years and years of playing dive bars, bowling alleys and birthday parties

minorly and mostly peripherally successful but that was all tallahassee needed to absolutely rip his life to pieces

developed a drug problem on tour, got carted off to rehab (twice). the second time was the last straw and he was kicked out of the band. (that he named and started, but whatever, he swears he’s let that go)

moved to fairford for a fresh start roughly eight years ago and my dude has done NOTHING with that

living a good and california sober life, which suits him just fine

he is genuinely annoying but maybe in a way that’s endearing in select circles

FUN DUMB STATS:

Birthday: September 27,1987

Zodiac Sign: Libra ☉ | Sagittarius ☽ | Gemini➶  

MBTI: ESFP

Enneagram: Type 7w6

Temperament: Sanguine

Moral Alignment: Chaotic neutral

Element: Air

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

absolutely anything

ESTABLISHED CONNECTIONS:

tbd

FULL BIOGRAPHY:

OKAY THIS IS THE FULL BIO BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ IT it’s here for posterity

All Tallahassee Andros’ life had been a vacillation of falling in love. First, it was music. The instant his uncle had put a guitar in his hands, that old Fender with nicks and dings that could barely hold its tune, a part of him never put it down. It was all he thought about during school days and baseball practices — getting home and playing that guitar. For a long time, the sound was unbearable, something only made worse by his tenacity. But he started to get better. Started to understand how to wrap lyrics around a melody — stupid little songs about missing the bus and hating homework and loving the girl who sat in front of him in math. He had heard his uncle say music brought him peace, but that wasn’t the truth for Tallahassee. Tallahassee felt this frenetic need for it, an all-encompassing, jonesing sort of itch. Later he would learn it was in his bones to need things, and music would be his bridge into the land where no one ever said no.

He started his first band when he was 14. A garage band with neighborhood kids who didn’t have much skill between them, but they were still willing to spend every day writing and rehearsing and trying to make something of themselves. Even the members remained in a sort of flux, one kid tagging out and dragging another in. By the end of it, they had only played at the bowling alley and the pizza shop across the street, and the only member who had stayed was Tallahassee  Andros. He was, after all, the front man. A position he both decided on, and clung to. He wrote the songs, after all, and his parents cared the least about a ragtag group of kids playing discordant noises late into the night. Tallahassee’s parents were two people who, at best, tolerated each other – but wanted to do right by their kids. Doing right meant a lot of letting them do what they wanted, as long as they were out of their hair. That meant, for the Andros family, a lot of late nights and loud music.

By the time he graduated high school, their still unnamed band consisted of   Tallahassee on vocals and guitar, his lifelong best friend Will on drums, a friend of a friend from down the street called Kurt on drums, and his brother Dover on rhythm guitar. They weren’t great, but they had been featured in the paper, and their gigs paid. It was barely enough to gas up the van to get there and back, but money was money, and that made them feel real. A real band needed a real name, and after spending months kicking around the first thing that came to mind, the landed on something. They were all sitting around the garage smoking — shitty, dirtbag weed that Dover had pocketed from their uncle — when they landed on something. Far more pretentious than an early 2000′s bowling alley band had a right to be, but they didn’t know it at the time. Kurt had been flipping through a Nat Geo magazine, one his dad had left from his days of hoping to be a wildlife photographer, when he started reading about this cluster of sharks off the coast of San Diego. Requiem sharks, the author called them. The Wild Requiem.

As much as the boys agreed on anything, they agreed on that name. Later, people would ask how they’d decided on it — and every time, every member of the band came up with a different lie. Tal liked the sound of it — liked that experts seemed to be torn on whether the name came from the French word for that old final rest, or the word for a grimace that showed teeth. It didn’t match their sound, not really —  but he liked that too. They started to work on an EP – their best songs to shop around to any label they had the gas money to get to. They burned it onto CDs and slid them unceremoniously under the door of every record shop and radio station in a 50 mile radius. They all had to get other jobs, real jobs, while they waited for something that felt like a break. They’d gotten a few bites, and continued to play in bars and small venues, but they weren’t successful — they weren’t paying bills.

Not until her. Their final addition, the one that would elevate them from a shitty little band to something with potential, was Laurel. She saw the Wild Requiem playing at a basement party, and she immediately started giving them advice as soon as they were off stage. She was pretty, so Tallahassee  pretended to listen. She was also smart, so Dover actually listened. It was a mercy Tal Andros had stars in his eyes, or he would’ve kicked up a fuss at receiving unsolicited advice from someone who had only heard 23 minutes of their material, and what did she know, anyway? A lot, as it turned out. Laurel’s dad was the head of Guilty Pleasure Records, and even if she didn’t have a foot in the door, she was a talent on her own.

Finally getting bored of her advice, Tallahassee asked her to prove herself. At their next practice, the room felt impossibly cramped with the new body, and he’d never realized how messy the garage was until there was a pretty girl standing in it. Laurel cast a disdainful look around the place, nudging an empty beer can out of her way with her boot as she stepped inside. He knew right then, she wasn’t going to try and blend in with them. She was going to try to change them —  fix them. He wanted to stand in front of her and say this had all been a mistake, they didn’t need help, and they didn’t need her. He would’ve been wrong. She sang for them, a song of her own that was far more eloquent than anything they’d managed to write. She guided them through playing it behind her. She and Tallahassee fell into a harmony, and the room seemed to come alive with it. With her, their sound changed entirely. They were firing on all cylinders. They needed Laurel in the band, and Laurel wanted to prove herself in her own right. They put together a new demo, and despite her connection, they were not picked up by Guilty Pleasure. Instead, they were scooped by one of their competitors — a nothing little studio that spawned out of GP Records, and picked up the studio head’s daughter out of spite. That was alright by the Wild Requiem, and more than alright by Laurel.

They spent almost seven months on that first album, every second that wasn’t spent writing was spent recording. For all their differences — and Tallahassee was learning there were a lot —  he and Laurel knew how to make a certain kind of magic together when it came to music. She knew how to get on his goddamn nerves, but she also knew how to fine tune his ideas. The album, for all it’s faults, was a success in a way none of them prepared for. They had received a fair amount of local buzz, but being excited about the neighborhood band that kept you up with their late night practices was nothing in comparison to what they would get. Required Listening was a sort of alternative rock, pop rock album that was easy. Windows down, singing with your friends on a July afternoon music. It wasn’t what any of them wanted to be in the end — but they knew it was a sound that would give them a beginning.

And it did. They were booked as an opening act for a three-band tour, and their set time was roughly all of fifteen minutes, but that was fifteen minutes they got to perform in big cities all around the country. They were out of Florida, and onto a lifestyle that was entirely different than bowling alleys and dive bars. When he read about how rock stars lived, how freely drugs were passed around backstage, Tallahassee believed it, but in a distant way that he didn’t think he would have to learn to deal with. He gave into it, at first not wanting to look like an amateur, like some Florida dirtbag who was out of his depth. First it was coke, and that could’ve been enough for him. It should’ve been. How quickly it sunk its teeth in, and how much more alive he felt was something he couldn’t ignore. Before he knew it, he was staying awake for days at a time, one city blurring into the next, the second leg of the tour becoming nothing but a feeling. In that time, he and Laurel had started sleeping together. She was only a half step behind him on the blow, both of them letting long nights of hooking up turn into writing songs that were nonsense in the daylight.

Their album had started to chart during that tour, and even if most of the country didn’t know they knew the Wild Requiem, they would find themselves humming their songs. No one was coming to shows for them, not really, but they were still getting attention. Tallahassee’s recreational drug use had started to turn into a habit, and they all knew he was going to have a problem by the end of the tour. He had started taking uppers in the mornings, and needed downers to get anything close to sleep. He had started to balance a combination of them during the day to keep himself running at a level, riding that high. But if anyone cared, that was eclipsed by how worried they were about Laurel. At the start of the tour, she had been right behind him. But she had surpassed him somewhere between Tempe and Seattle, and she was already getting into the shit that came from street dealers in dark alleys. Her family was intervening, and they were setting her up for a rehab stint at the end of the tour. The end of the tour was important, because despite getting in their own way, despite being on a bender reserved for business veterans, they had written some solid music. The band agreed, the label agreed. The tour would end, Laurel would get clean, and they’d meet up in four months to start on the next album.  

Tallahassee wasn’t worried about her. Not even when she would wake up with dried blood under her nose, and she had long since stopped feeling like the level-headed decisive woman he’d encountered just a few short years ago. They’d all changed on that tour, though. Shy, quiet Will had a different groupie on the bus every night. Where Tallahassee had given in to the harder substances, Dover had started to get just short of falling down drunk before every show. Tallahassee himself had, by almost all accounts, become an absolute dick. Before his tenacity had been to the band’s benefit, but somewhere in the time he started snorting Dexedrine, it was to their detriment.

They were still a fairly small band. They didn’t have room for his ego.

The tour ended, and The Wild Requiem was still riding high. Laurel was carted off to rehab, and the rest of them went their separate ways, for the time being. The band had already agreed on a house outside of Los Angeles for when recording time rolled back around. It was this ramshackle place in Pomona, five bedrooms and one bath. It was a dream home for none of them, but they wanted to grind their sophomore album out in the right place, in record time. Tallahassee headed there instead of back to Florida, living out those three months ‘networking’ for the band. It was during that time that he did heroin for the first time. Bad shit, he knew, and the one thing he’d promised himself he wouldn’t fall into. It had been a bad look on Laurel, even he’d seen that.

That, it turned out, to be his second great love. And oh, how it eclipsed the first. Music was secondary to that feeling, to the extent that he wondered how he had ever loved it at all. By the time Laurel got clean, he was anything but. Recording their second album came with none of the ease of the first. She couldn’t be around him, and he was having difficulty tolerating her sanctimonious attitude. All of the fun of the first album turned into grit, but it didn’t suit their sound. It was sand in your clothes after a day at the beach grit, and it was hard to salvage, even with the push of the label. Their second album felt like a draft, and their label had even less faith in it than the band did. There was maybe one single worth listening to on it, but that single pushed them through. It even charted, and got them their own headlining tour. No big venues, no sold out arenas, but it was enough. They just needed to work through the rockier parts. By the time they left, Tallahassee was all rocky parts. No one told him how short the high lasted – how everything after turned into that need. When he wasn’t using, his blood felt like battery acid. He woke up with his teeth clenched, every part of him crying out for it. It became survival.

He and Laurel had long since split, if they’d ever been together in any real capacity at all. But they couldn’t stand to be around each other. They started to travel on two separate tour buses. Even in his addled state, he knew this would be the end of the Wild Requiem. Their album was critically panned. Two albums in, and crowds already demanded their ‘old stuff.’ What Tallahassee didn’t know was how it would end. He overdosed in Phoenix, but not before taking a nasty header off the stage in Austin. He thought he would get a grace period to work through it himself – he hadn’t. His team put him in a rehab facility, tour be damned. Dover stepped up and took his part, and they hired a new guitarist.

At the end of his 90 days, the tour had ended – and so had his time with the band. He pretended to understand it. Pretended right up until the moment he got high and tore their Pomona house to pieces with his bare hands – doors off frames, furniture in the yard, holes in the walls. He was a one-man wrecking ball, and when he came to in the yard with bloody knuckles and surrounded by debris, he checked himself back into rehab. Another 90 day jaunt for Tallahassee Andros, and a new album for the Wild Requiem.

They could’ve at least changed the name, he thought. He wondered if he had grounds to sue. Probably. But his only visitor had been his brother, and when he saw the worry in Dover’s face, he knew they thought they were saving him. And saving the band. The new album was good. It wasn’t great, but nothing they’d done had ever been great. It returned to the easy sounds of their first album, and Dover thought they had the start of something. Tal did too. He decided then, to let it go. He wasn’t meant for that life. He’d lived it for three years, and it had all but turned him inside out. The other thing no one mentioned when you got sober, is how much goddamn time you suddenly have. He stayed in California for a while, moving up the coast to San Francisco. In San Francisco, he tried to be a lot of different people. So many hobbies under his belt, all because he needed to replace one addiction with the next. Woodworking, gardening – the worst of them all had been when he decided to be a runner. That one lasted until he tore his ACL, because Tallahassee still hadn’t learned to do anything moderately.

While he was healing, he dared to get back into songwriting. That tapped into the very center of him, releasing something he hadn’t known he was still holding. His guitar remained untouched, gathering dust in the attic where he didn’t have to look at it, but the idea of setting something to music was enough. He left California when he turned twenty-eight. After all, he’d been a has-been by the time he turned 23, by 25 he felt like a relic. He tried Seattle for a while, but Seattle felt like Los Angeles in a suit. The novelty of ‘aren’t you that guy?’ wore off quickly, and he was craving a sort of anonymity. It was only then that he remembered the town in Washington that felt like a unique little something. Maybe it was a need for something peripherally familiar without being familiar at all – the feeling of being a strange man in a strange land.

For weeks he tried to remember the name of the town, and for weeks he landed on nothing. He looked at old tour schedules, old pictures, anything. He finally relented and texted Laurel to ask. The band had broken up, and last he’d heard, she’d gotten married. Some British dude that Dover said was an asshole. Laurel, instead of answering, asked to meet for coffee.

They met up in Redding, California – the almost midpoint for them both. The first and last time they ever agreed to meet each other halfway. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, just as he’d known she wouldn’t be. Their meeting was filled with apologies and awkward reminiscing, something he hadn’t considered when he imagined how it would go. The terrible thing about them both being sober is they had no choice but to be present. She admitted only after they’d slept together that she was still married, she had just wanted to see if there was still a spark. Neither of them were sure if there had been. She told him the town had been called Fairford, and she only remembered because they’d impromptu played a gig at a dive bar while they were there, and because of Tallahassee, they’d wound up paying damages instead of actually getting paid.

She wished him luck there, as though his bags were already packed. Maybe they all but were. She was glad they’d had this last time, she said. He supposed she wanted it to feel like closure, but he didn’t think it had. It felt like opening up a book he’d once loved, but only remembered the high points. Still, he smiled and agreed.

He did pack his bags. He spent two months living out of motels and hotels while he tried to figure out if this was, indeed, the life he wanted. He liked the pace of things here. Liked the person he felt like when he went for his early morning run, followed by a coffee on the way back. He liked that the nights were slow and quiet. Most importantly, Tallahassee liked the person he felt like he could become here. He started to find his way back into music, even if it was no more than playing his guitar at sunset. The way the soft chatter in the down the hall would fall a little quieter if he managed something that sounded like he’d once been someone with talent. He would stay, he decided.

He moved out of the motel, opting to buy a house. The kind of roots that could, in darker moments, reach up and wrap around his neck if he weren’t careful. He was, after all, still in the business of replacing addictions, and he had gone a long way from anyone who was willing to stop him. He hadn’t relapsed since moving to the Washington, though he had adopted a California Sober lifestyle. And after 10 years, Tallahassee learned to stop changing the station when the Wild Requiem came on the radio – even if he gritted his teeth at being called a one-hit wonder.

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[therapardalis]

The clock was edging toward 8.30. So not really especially early, there were plenty of people who would already be at or in transit to work by now. But as Thera peeled one eye open with the resistance and low-grade headache that said she hadn't hydrated enough between drinks the night before, it was still early enough.

Shit. OK, self-check. She rolled over, squinting at the ceiling. The bedclothes were a mess, but she was wearing something ... alone ... and there was no sign of anyone having been on the other side of the bed. Yeah, good ... that gelled with what she thought she remembered.

She was startled out of falling back asleep by whoever was knocking at her door doing so again, and with a groan she hauled herself to her feet and cracked it open with the same reluctance as her eyes.

"Y'know, this had better be good ..."