@444fm - elliot gets a starter bc wtf i've wanted you to play him forever !

the summer starts as innocuous as it always does. and maybe it's like, kind of assuring that she isn't kicking it off with an OVERDOSE FOLLOWED BY REHAB, because summertime boredom makes a monster out of a girl like her. and maybe it's good that she hasn't gotten her hands on any drugs because what the fuck is she supposed to do? resist it? rue hasn't the will, the reason, the hope for it. because while she knew the whole point of change was like, to be better, to try harder, to be someone who could like, rise above shitty situations, sometimes...

she fucking REALLY DID NOT WANT TO BE that kind of person.

maybe that's why the phone, fumbling within her shaking hands. the summer was considered by most a new lease on freedom, but the open ended hours, the yawning emptiness of its days and the magical quality of its nights, these were the things that made her want to use more than anything else. and lexi's like, off at some creative camp for the summer, and cassie and rue still aren't speaking, and maddy's going to check out colleges for next year now that she's graduating, and kat's like... probably BLOWING SOME DUDE in the parking lot of a CVS or something. she knows she shouldn't. but there she goes, making bad decisions all over again.

that's why them, the park. a place she picks because she can't stand the idea of looking at him directly, when she knows that things are different and he's using and she doesn't know if she wants to yet, but it's like, hard to actually say that shit. "i just missed you," she tells him through the receiver, a SIGHED ADMISSION. he'd been like. her favourite person for a night, for a season. an eternity by high school standards, and she doesn't know how else to twist that shit poetic, but that was how it fucking felt. so rue waits, her hands on chain link swings, knowing he'd come. elliot always did. and maybe that's what she's hoping for, a sliver of something that felt safe when she felt fucking dangerously not so.

- @444fm

@eat3rs - dakota gets this continued from over here !

RUE NEVER LIKED THE SOUTH. it reminds her of things like, returns home with her mother, off to see grandparents in sticky parts of the country, where the quality of life seemed to hinge directly on the trustworthiness of one's air conditioner. they sink, anonymous, from town to town ; he plays, he records, those stems help to fuel their aimless life, that remains uncomplicated and untouched. part of her, she thinks, is smoke, now. and maybe that's more real then the rue she had to be in east highland, the rue that needed to show up and pretend beneath the haze of a million different medications....

the kind of meds that she's off now, but that's got to have no effect, right? and it's fine, because she's with dakota, who she trusts with a wholehearted blindness that he hasn't earned, but she thinks is fated. she tells him that, one day, high on acid as they talk about god. he'll kiss her and she'll kiss him back and she thinks in the moment that GOD IS OVERRATED, and then they just kind of...

never PART WAYS ever again. she just never goes home.

at first, they're like cats. coming and going as they pleased, because they were, at the root of it all, weary. of each other, of life. he makes talking feel so easy, which feels like a miracle to someone who's tongue goes sticky at the idea of EMOTIONAL INTIMACY, but he has her talking about god, about her father... what does loss do to a person, how she feels full of holes and that she's never known what to do about the fact that most people think that to fill it up, she just needed someone. and that it doesn't work that way. she tells him about jules and he tells her about his father, about growing up...

and in places like this where there's a party, she asks him to go, so that they can disappear. molecules in the air, steam, they're dissipated and gone, and maybe when he's not there she really feels her control slip, the mask is gone. and she doesn't know when but during her take of coke, her nose tarts to bleed, there's a cut and it aches and she would laugh if it wasn't splattering over the white porcelain of the sink. sticky, icky, RED. the door opens, bruising at her hip, but it's dakota and they both stand there for a second before she's laughing, shakily, that feeling of his hand at her spine like... it feels like rebooting, doesn't it? "like this?" it feels awful ; warm, bubbling. terrible. rue reaches for dakota's hand. "i fucking feel like i'm drowning."

- @eat3rs

@444fm - maddy gets a baby sized starter !

"okay so like..." her voice coils and curves, like the smoke that hangs within the air - her gaze flickering over to maddy's own, who sits there FILING HER NAILS, unbothered, or so it seems.

they're like 15 and maddy is the unwitting idol of them all. or maybe that's the point. her PURPOSE. rue catches maddy with that guy at the back of the bowling alley. neither of them talk about it, that anxiety running through her, hot and loud. "a.. are you and nate on a break or something?"

- @444fm

@gabegoodmcn - gabe gets a new follower starter !

just another party, they tell her. it's just another party, and rue's looking to score, having had enough of a BULLSHIT DAY out there in the wilds. nah. truthfully, rue doesn't really know what she's doing, or why, or for what purpose. why do people need a fucking purpose for anything, anyways? it's just like, another thing people wrap themselves up in getting trapped into, she figures. another reason for people to be cruel or to hold themselves up against the greater goodness of what she sometimes wished the world was like.

but like. that's a LOT OF PRESSURE to put on just a party, she figures.

whatever... whatever, right? just. FUCK IT, whatever. she figures it's just a way to pass the time tonight get away from it all. like, turn her brain off and let the lights go dim for a little while before she had to get back to the cruelty of what the day looked like... both with a pounding hangover, and whatever filtered through her bloodstream, hot. sober... not sober... it's all the same, when you're alone, and she found that she didn't really mind pulling away to find herself in space for a few hours.

so like. who's this guy that she's helping in the bathroom now? he's puking when she comes in to do her coke, and it's like, kind of fucking annoying, but she's also not gonna like... just leave him there. even if the look on her face is halfway awkward and looking for an OUT. she's thinking about the coke. that's just rue being rue, but she's there, stiffly patting his back as she find another water, saying, yeah it's gonna be fine, just drink this, use that... a towel tossed closer to him to wipe his forehead with, her expression crunching, thinking about the coke. "you doing okay, dude?" distract, yeah. even if she hears it fucking singing from her pocket right now.

- @gabegoodmcn

@blakesque - rowan ♡'d for a starter !

what's ANOTHER CITY in the grand scheme of things?

for rue, it's an exercise of coming and going. the waves to the shore. maybe that's why she comes for the ocean, as if it wasn't some terrible hint from her chest, the way that jules used to always talk about the sea. beautiful, all encompassing. somehow, she always imagined it as more POETIC than it looked to her right now, with rue balancing the tray she was bussing against her hip, tongue pressing to the roof of her mouth.

ya, well... in fantasies, you always have money to burn. in reality, she's just another broke kid fumbling through town during the seasonal uplift of visitors, doing WHAT WORK she could while the work was there. nothing but another tourist in a way herself, gaze forever glued to the sea, waiting for meaning, waiting for something.

though she doesn't really expect that something to be the crash she hears inside. fuck. god damnit, rue flicking the butt of her joint into the sand, where, she tries to convince herself it was almost dead anyways so like, whatever. it wasn't a big deal. not when things sound like they're blowing up on the inside, rue weaving back towards the door to take a peek when someone almost BLOWS PAST HER on their way out, her dark eyes widening as the tray drops, the plates with it and...

fuck. fuck. FUCK. she doesn't really wanna fucking deal with all that. and of course the face staring back at her is familiar, rue swallowing a scowl as she took off, already running past rowan breezily, long legs put to work. "what? you gonna stand there and take the blame for all this? or get the hell outta here with me?" well. it was a choice at least, which was a hell of a lot better than she'd offer most other people in the same circumstance.

- @blakesque

@sunxsin - gets a stupid starter bc bc bc !

this is the part where things get FUZZY. where everything electrocutes and she can't process anything. where she's smoking a joint with ling yao pretending that they didn't just hook up in the bathroom at cindy jamison's party.

it's like, kinda cold and he's given her his jacket. and looking like, not at all out of place with those same stupid smiles and that dumb look and rue's so anxious she's about to BURST. "um. so. that was..." fuck. she fumbles, she fails.

- @sunxsin

@sunxsin - ling gets a random starter !

2 am mcdonalds is like... ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA, she tells him, the both of them talking it over at the end of the study session they've had at school. it's almost time for exams, and she admits that she's behind, which spurs their decision, but the bottles of soju that ling breaks out to help motivate her towards better answers is... admittedly a plan that falls on its face.

but hey, who cared anyways? she's craving salty fries, and, she tells him rather definitively, nothing is better than those POST MIDNIGHT FRIES at the golden arches. a truth that has stood by her through east highland, and beyond, leaning into the counter as she's left squinting at the screen, the both of them swaying beneath the harsh halogen lighting, the curious eyes on them. "... ok but liiiiiiiiiike.... do you only want fries oooooor...?"

- @sunxsin

@perniicious - buck gets a starter !

Head back, she’s fucking high - but what’s new with Rue, head lolling at the edge of the bed, she listens to Buck pluck out a melody out of thin air, and like, if she had the consciousness for it, she’d dive into it more. That he’s like, really talented and she thinks he’s gonna make it. Even if he doesn’t really TAKE THIS SHIT SERIOUS, she wonders what he wants for a future for himself. Because he’s like, definitely got one coming for him, not so far gone with his drug use that this shit isn’t still a game, not so unambitious that the money alone is the motivator.

They've been on the move together for MONTHS NOW - which is like insane she thinks, because like, months ago things had been so different in the same breath. She just wished... that things maybe were different. Tongue left to pry at the seam of her lips, cracking into a brief smile as Buck's gaze lifted from the top of the temporary motel whatever they were crashing at for now, $37 a night, like, the only thing they could really afford, and even then they were scraping it. "Sorry. I was... I wasn't really paying attention. What were you saying?"

- @perniicious

"I pay attention to things that most people ignore." (from Casey to Rue)

guts! the meme ( accepting ) + @notfrsale // casey

tick. tock. tick. tock. what's happening now as rue waits? she's never good at this part, the patient bit. to her it's like, the WORST PART of it all, and she knows, oh god she knows what it means to feel sick and wanting with unspoken things winding tightly within your chest. with casey it's almost impossible to ignore. it's one sided, she knows it, it has to be because god, this girl was made of fire and magic and beauty and terror, and she knew it. she fucking knew it, and what could rue ever do with someone so sure? so well wrapped in family and the allure of the circus?

to be washed out with adoration, it's rue's speciality. to miss the forest for the trees, or in this case, the murderer within the girl. for rue, she just sees the one that gives her a dress, who talks and hangs out with her and shows her a whole new world contained within a tent, beneath the big top. and sure, her like, siblings are kinda... different... but casey was warm, and lovely, and kind. and better yet, when she saw casey coming up, she had with her something UNEXPECTED within her hands, rue blinking twice as she rushed up forwards to sweep the other girl into a ginger hug, not wanting to crush what she held.

honestly she didn't expect it. it's breakfast of all things, her favourite meal. and not only that, it's like, the way that rue fucking loves it too, her lips curving into a warmer grin. "like... no syrup?" she doesn't see any, not even in a package on the side. she... kinda HATES SYRUP, and she never said that shit out loud, but like, she seemed to get it almost immediately after they'd had breakfast at that one place on west front like, once.

"I pay attention to things that most people ignore."

"you're just..." god. she's such a fucking baby for getting kinda emotional over it all, but who could blame her? it's just like, nice to be SEEN by someone you cared about so much, peeking at the other bag held. "wait. are we gonna do like... a whole breakfast outside thing? god. you're fucking amazing, you know that, right?"

@paltryst - tryst gets a starter !

It's weird to breathe fresh air like this. Who knew, you could take a 2 hour flight north, and find a whole new life... a whole new chance at living. Which is like, kind of reassuring in a way, even if she thinks that in the GRAND SCHEME of things, so much of what she did was the same. Something about balmy weather, with grayer skies, or maybe it's just that... honestly, out here, there's so much less to do for trouble aside from the drugs that it's all that she can get into, all that she really cared for, even if that shit is what landed her here in the first place. Freshly minted at 18, and still using, so what's a mother to do?

Put it out of sight, put it out of mind.

You could suffocate on a self-righteousness like that. But she doesn't... instead taking the time to like, bury herself into new people. Tryst is one of them, if only because he holds like, the temporary keys to happiness within her eyes since he's the only dealer she finds that isn't like, a total and complete CREEP out here. All drawling and kind in a way, and she likes when they drive around in his car with the windows down and he lets her play the DJ. Like now, with her seat reclined, and an ice cap holstered in the drink holder, and her phone sifting through Spotify like it was gonna change her life, bringing the joint to her lips idly, blowing smoke from extended lungs. "Have you ever loved someone like, so much you thought you were gonna die?" a heavy question, randomly spilt ; her typically unfocused stare suddenly fixed on him in the driver's seat.

- @paltryst

@ripmaxine - max gets a starter !

nails skitter across the wood, blunted ends that pick at the glossy finish... the absence of splinters. the things that she innately LOOKS FOR in a fit for distraction, all nerves, all of the time. that's rue bennett for you, her gaze never quite settling on anything, her tongue ringing nerves around her lower lip for the moment. the last time they were here, she wiped out hard, ripping a hole in her baggy jeans… blood in the fibres, rocks to pluck from torn skin.

that temporary pause - "okay so like... how am i supposed to keep myself balanced again?" tick, tick, her gaze drifts and snaps, never focusing on anything too long… just a bundled kindling of nerves. just a girl who doesn’t hold her nerve until she sees maxine, so sure of herself that it unpin that stress within her spine. “wait - no it’s like THIS right?” a moment passes; she’ll hold the pose for a moment before laughter bubbles up, up, pop… “like leaning back into the heels and shit… yeah?”

- @ripmaxine

@feralsmile - continued for julie from here !

They go to another party, even though their anxiety spikes out of their mouths; no. Rue’s got Julie floating now, hasn’t she? Feeling invincible on a little molly, feeling dumb on a little weed. Pop a pill and grin with your BLOODIED TEETH, they are wolves, and they are in their own habitat, even as people move and swirl around their ankles like the sea…. they pay it no mind, not when they’re fucking invincible right now, drifting, blooming, alive beneath the flush of lights, the squirming warmth of people, the closeness they hold, no longer bathed in the light of her bedroom, they’re ghosts in the night, and she thinks, maybe, that’s ok. She’s like her favourite person right now, and she can’t take her eyes off of her.

The night is like a series of flashes, Julie on the couch, eyes looking washed out red beneath the glare of someone’s camera. Rue in the kitchen, taking shots with friends as she laughs and comes back tasting like vodka. Jules dancing with Kat in the next room, and her palm gripping sweaty to Julie's own as she asks her WHAT’S WRONG, and she doesn’t know how to answer past the cotton mouth that suffocates her from the inside out. How it feels like flowers blooming in her lungs and all she can do is hack and cough up the petals, she’s drowning, she’s choking, and right now she isn’t even sure how to get ahold of herself except when she’s whispering something, anything, to her.

Then, then she can breathe.

Feet in the pool, they watch as drunk teenagers stumble around the edge, dive in, screw themselves stupid. Everyone’s happy, nobody’s happy, they watch the moon and talk about the idea of a new year and how it won’t make them a new them. “I’m going to be worse.” the chuckle is dry but there’s a hopelessness in what she says, because she has a feeling that it’s out of her hands, it’s JUST TRUE. She’ll be worse and she doesn’t even care, hallowed out vision finding hers as everyone begins to cheer at the idea of the countdown to the end of the world. Julie smiling so sweet, and Rue can't help but ask it, right? "Are you flirting with me?"

                                3... 2... 1...

That she doesn't expect that reaction, not from Julie, all that violent something poured out into a kiss, poured out and into her, before she's off stumbling and on the run. Rue too stunned to know what to do for a moment, and she's already racing to fill in the moment with excuses, because Julie's never been like that with her, no, she's the one that all the boys want, that could compete with Cassie in those that she SWAT AWAY like an inconvenience and... she kissed her instead, something snapping in her as she's left to chase Julie down, reaching out to catch at her wrist, to try to pull her to a stop so that she could look at her. "H-hey! Wait... wait? Like..." fumbling already, were we? "W... what was that?"

- @feralsmile

Send 💡 for our muses to wait out a power outage together // gia

bad situation meme ( no longer accepting ) + @brokenegoed // gia

exhale slow - she's just tired. it's already late, and it's her and gia and the house is empty, mom's out on the night shift... 2 jobs. it's one of those CRAZY THINGS that she's come to do to help manage the fucking nuclear blowout after their dad dies. it's like. all the debt. the house. the everything. they're only fucking kids, but rue knows better than most the way to dodge collections calls, the way her eyes know to skip over certain letters in the main, the red print, the angry accusations.

it's her and gia and rue's getting together everything that they need for mac and cheese when the power cuts - it's like, 8 pm and it's been storming for hours, so when it happens there's a startled silence that lasts for a solid moment before rue's voice, disembodied, could be heard drawling an 'ummmmmm' from within the darkness, before she's peeling into A FIT of laughter. "uhhhh, well-" fuck me, right? there's a low groan, rue reaching out to find her little sister's arm in the dark, the both of them feeling their way around as their eyes grew accustomed to the dark.

"sooooo your choices are... cereal and milk, or cereal and expired milk, which is what happens if you wanna be picky about the whole thing and wait until mom gets home." rue THINKS that she sounds like she knows what she's doing when she says it, like they're not like, 14 and 11 just trying to figure their shit out. it's fine. they're fine. aren't they always fine? the both of them, soon thereafter, on the couch eating fruit loops, no television to numb them in its static, but the both of them, crunching away in the dark, rue's arm slung casual over gia's shoulders as they waited out the storm together.

@sewninto - rachel con't from here !

Breakups fucking suck - and like, Rue knows ALL ABOUT EXES AND OHS, or maybe, not so much the big ohs or the little deaths, and more just... snaky fucking bitches. But it fits and like, Rachel sings within that same songbook, knew all the lyrics, and felt that same rhythm of betrayal, didn't she?

Which is why, when they're doing lines in her bedroom, gazes glazed over like fuckin' Dunkin, she knows that she's in GOOD FUCKING COMPANY. "This feels like some Burn Book kinda shit, and not gonna lie, I feel that shit is due for a little injection of colour. I think we both know whose names are there at the top of the list. Check. Check. Have I ever told you I once fantasised about setting a guy I hate on fire and shooting him? ... maybe I'm like, too ready for this shit."

- @sewninto

Send 🚗 for our muses to get stuck on the side of the road together when the car breaks down / rue & o

bad situation meme ( accepting ) + @headstrongblake // octavia

okay but like - where the fuck was ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE when you needed it? anxiety lances like a boil within her, bubbling, trouble, as she paces about the cracked cement. it's really her fault and she knows it, thus the worry, the guilt, that slicks on the inside of her mouth. let's take the scenic route, she'd suggested, thinking that it'd be like. nice. cute. something for the both of them to cling onto because like, rue's still trying to figure out what the hell she felt half the time. in? out? friends? something else? her head's a mess and she's never been good at navigating through feelings, and honestly, she thought this whole day trip out of town would help them and instead...

they're fucking baking in the sun out here. the car was a death trap of heat at this point, a clunker that they'd used for their last road trip across the country, the both of them like, SOLIDLY DETERMINED to make it to the beach back then. to go down the coast, to fucking find themselves or whatever lie that they'd sold themselves at the insistence that they weren't simply running away from what was hard. from what they knew was waiting in the aftermath of o's overdose and rue's fumbling problems when it came to dealing with it.

she thought it would make things better. leave it to rue to FUCK THINGS UP.

so she feels like fucking horrible about it, nervous glances passed as she smokes, endlessly, at the spare joints that she had stored in the car dash. octavia still there beneath the hood of the car, working away, rue's nervous energy likely doing nothing to help resolve the issue, flitting around like the mess she was. "can i DO with anything?" no, you idiot, you've done enough - trying to bite back at her own worry, knowing just how unreasonable that was when it came to octavia. "d... do you want a drink? there's still a little water left."

[ 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓 ]. rue rue!

the 5 senses meme ( accepting ) + @depictedmorada // maddy [ 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓 ] ― sender wraps a soft blanket around receiver’s shoulders

Rue thinks it's like, a mess of unfair circumstance. That Maddy's fallen for the wrong boy and sees her heart broken. It sucks and it's like, kind of the least interesting part of her, because maybe as teenagers they see where it begins now, and having lived long enough, they see the consequence of these types of loves in the adults around them. Maddy moves on from her betrayal from Nate Jacobs far sooner than anybody gives her credit for. What they don't understand, is that it isn't really about THE BOY at all. It's about the fact that it's Cassie, and what Cassie meant to the other girl. How betrayals from the ones you swore your girlhood loyalties to burned your bones into ash.

It's in the days after she throws that bomb into their friendship, Maddy comes by, all solemn and proud, though the sleeplessness that painted itself BENEATH HER EYES told another story. How Rue struggled to peel her gaze off the ground, knowing she did this in a way, though, it's kind of hard to know how to be properly apologetic when you're in the high throes of a fucking drug withdrawal, and she's shaking like a fucking leaf at the door. "M-Maddy, hey..."

But it's not even the nerves that get her in the end, but the way the other girl drawls on about girl code and saying something sooner. And Rue isn't really sure what she says to that, but knows that Maddy's rolling her eyes, the other's arm looping around hers to DRAG HER INSIDE, sitting her down on the couch, a blanket tucked in around her shoulders. Something to help with the shivering... how she already knows what to do, as if she's been made to play the caretaker one too many times. "Maddy, I'm..." her hand reaching out to grasp at the other's arm, just as she's talking about if she's got anything to eat in here, playing all these things up just to make it all seem okay, like nothing's happened, nothing at all. "I'm fucking sorry. I know how... I... I know how much she means to you."