facts.

❝ can presley be all three? ❞

❝ UH great question. let’s go with kill sabrina, i’d love not to have a conversation turn into a competition. even though i’d win. hm, well, fuck pres, i guess ? which means jaime and i would get hitched. it could work. we wouldn’t have to live on the same continent, and he could art & i could write. power couple honestly. ❞

     mandy  winked  at  q  as  she  called  out  to  her.  “ hey there good lookin’. ”  she  didn’t  want  to  let  how  they  left  things  spoil  the  party  and  so ,  mandy  opted  to  pretend  like  the  two  hadn’t  awkwardly  drifted  apart.  “ yeah ! it’s .. well , it’s school. school can only get so good, you know ? ”  she  scratched  the  side  of  her  head  and  let  out  a  small  laugh.  “ how’s the writing career coming along ? ”

beer in each of his hands and two more stuffed in the back pockets of his jeans, griffin’s alone in the backfield, out by the bonfire. he’s been alone most of the night. most people were only able to tolerate him in small doses and he knew it, so he floated around, never really landing anywhere for long. it was actually what he’d been reflecting on, gnawing at the inside of his cheek, when q approached him: only another example of that fact. one end of his mouth tugged up in a half-hearted attempt at a smile as he found her there, illuminated by firelight. there was once a time when he hadn’t felt so alone– that school year where he and q kept in close contact, despite being separated by a considerable distance as they were away at their respective schools. but when summer rolled around and the pair returned to elmridge, griffin learned that distance is what made it work. nobody, not even q, liked him too much up close. he washes down the thought with a hearty sip of his beer, willing his grin to stretch wider in greeting once he swallows. “i’ll have you know i was helping our dear friend delilah make the most of what is very likely our last dionysus party,” he tells her, “and i needed to have her all to myself not because i’m a grimy skeezeball, contrary to popular belief, but because i didn’t trust that you guys wouldn’t sabotage my plan to get her schwasted. y’know, so she can have real fun, for once. and before you get mad at me for, like, corrupting her or whatever, i only got her about half of the way there. buzzed at best. i can be very persuasive but she’s got an insane amount of willpower in that tiny little body. she’s not especially susceptible to peer pressure. not even under the influence.” his head knocks to the side with the realization that he’d lost her in the shuffle of the night. a shrug rolls off his shoulders. “anything that’s happened since is anyone’s guess, though. i’ll be sure to check her socials for updates. drunk girls love oversharing on the internet.” he gives a sigh, hand over his heart. “imagine lilah’s first drunk tweet?”

‘Lulu’? God …

Lucas would let it slide, Q clearly had no idea what she was saying right now. He could test that theory however, and he nodded his head. “You’re the one who didn’t want to ride with Ollie,” he said shrugging his shoulders. He wasn’t going to bring it up, but he had thought it was a little silly. “Don’t worry about Craps. I’m sure he’ll be fine alone for the night.” Or there would be dog poop on the floor when they got home. Either way. Lucas didn’t call the dog Craps for fun. Well… Yes he did.

“I’m fine, QQ…” He said raising his eyebrows with an amused look. “Don’t let me stop your fun. I need something stronger than a beer to drink right now anyway. Come on.”

It took all of five minutes before Jaime had a drink in his hand. Some sweet soul had handed it to him, he gave a polite smile and thanked them, but set it down somewhere else after the person walked away. Not that he didn’t trust people around here it was just … don’t drink something some random person handed you. Life lessons.

It was ten minutes after that he had a drink he’d gotten himself, and shortly after that before he heard someone call out to … him? He thought. Turning around he thought again. Because surely Q would not have been trying to get his attention. She appeared as surprised as him, and Jaime gave a small smile.  “It’s been a while, Q.”

He took a drink from the plastic cup, bobbing a little to the music before answering.  “Yep. I only just got in a few hours ago. Is everyone else already here?"  He knew the answer to that. Everyone had arrived in town before him, he meant at the party in particular.  "Uh–"  Jaime wanted to move on from the past. They were adults now, right? Grown up. Different? Perhaps. Besides, if Q was going to talk to him  (accident or not)  he would talk to her as well  "How’s school been treating you?”

SHE STARED AT HIM, IMPRESSED A little at how good he look. granted, money could do that for you. ❝ yeah. i guess it has, ❞ she mused. ❝ i tried to keep away from elmridge, but i only managed to skip the summer after first year before caving. ❞ then again she didn’t have an ocean as an excuse. 

she blinked. ❝ doesn’t that make it like 3am or something for you? hardcore. i respect it. hope you’ve got something other than alcohol to keep you going though. ❞ she looked around. she assumed they were. she hadn’t exactly managed to make perfect rounds herself. ❝ think so? ❞ she admitted.

presley had to shut her eyes against the not-so-subtle jab. yeah, she… she probably deserved that. even if it was years ago, but… presley hadn’t done much to mend their relationship, either. she swallowed hard, taking another sip of her drink and trying not to burst into tears immediately. “i shouldn’t have brought it up,” pres mumbled, “i’m sorry, okay? and no, i didn’t know that, it’s just… you know my family knows everything, so i hear everything, and i wish i didn’t. i wish i was an ostrich so i could just.” without bending over, she mimed shoving her head into the sand, spilling her drink in the process. “fuck, i’m so sorry,” she looked down at q, checking to see if she got any on her, but she ended up staring at her for a moment too long. she got prettier every year. “i might have got some on your shirt. i’m- i’m kind of high.” 

sabrina was equally as enthusiastic about seeing q.   while,  for the most part,   she got a rise out of being argumentative,  when it came to q,   she always felt like she was stuck in a corner,  playing defense.   something about the other girl just got under her skin and played at her insecurities just so.   she scoffed at q’s introduction.   “   i’m keeping my options open.   it’s elmridge,   the last thing i wanna do is get caught up with some townie week one and then get stuck having to talk them out of an ldr by the time the summer’s over.   you know just as well as i do that after nyu,   there’s nothing here for us anymore,  ”   she said,   some kind of definitively.   “   i’d say mix me up your worst,   but i worry that,   for me,  that’d somehow involve arsenic.   so just vodka and the first mixer you see’ll do just fine,   q-ball.  ”

She hears the voice before she sees the face, and already something invisible lifts off of Vera’s shoulders. “Holy shit. Q?” The bone-deep ache she feels trying to refamiliarize herself with a world she constantly leaves behind is unrelenting, but seeing a familiar face always helps. A wide grin stretches her features as she plays along, weaving through the crowd. “Last I saw you, you were yea high,” Vera continues, raising a hand next to her brow. “And off fucking The Man or something.”

if there’s one person oliver was willing to brave the scent of cigarette smoke clinging to his t-shirt for a week for, it’d have to be q. or quincy, even if he only reserved that name for in his head, after that time he tried it aloud and she gave him the silent treatment for a week in junior year. he grinned widely as he approached her, moving in quickly to scoop her up in a hug before she could protest or escape. “q!” he held the syllable, drawing it out before dropping her back on the ground, his voice loose in that way it got after his fifth beer. “what’re you doing all the way out here? y’gonna miss everything. we did the cha-cha slide!” 

     Slushie in one hand, phone in the other, and feet clumsily making way down the last hill before the party. Colette was endlessly excited for tonight (read: anxious) – and for that brownie to kick in right as they’re getting tipsy – but nerves also shot through their body. The anxiety of seeing everyone again, the anxiety of acting like everything was peachy and made sense for their last summer, and the anxiety… in general? “Q,” they began, a little hiccup following the name, “how lit you tryna get tonight?” The question came for one sole reason: to gauge their own level. Regardless, their hand slipped into the purse on their hip to dig into her purse to find the joint their lit up before even leaving the house. Instinctively they grabbed the lighter with their pinky, pulled the joint out, put it to their lips, and lit up. Out of the corner of their mouth, they asked, “Parking in the devil’s lettuce?” 

@q-dean​

EVENT: the dionysus party LOCATION: the barn TIME: halfway point AVAILABILITY: closed, @q-dean​

          her world feels as though it’s been flipped upside down. everything around her so loud and overwhelmingly crowded that it’s like the walls are caving in each time she bumps shoulders with someone. “ sorry …” she mutters, her ears cherry red as she weaves through the swarm of people that are too drunk to be doing the cha cha slide right now. not that it matters to them because everyone’s feeling the music like they’re a groomsman at a friend’s wedding, clearly having the time of their lives while simultaneously ignoring their wellbeing with every sip liquor in their cups — delilah’s no stranger to nursing her own by this point.

          she gulps back a mouthful of it when she spies q, the girl’s studded jacket hard to miss in a town that’s as ordinary as elmridge. “ you look familiar , “ lilah slurs out a joke despite her wide eyes filled with shock and disbelief. “ you … you know what else is familiar ? “ it’s hard to vocalize her thoughts, even after repeating what presley had said to her over and over again on her walk over to the familiar girl in question. “ your - your mom. your mom’s very familiar, q. “ she should know she’s not making any sense, but another swig of her drink says that she thinks she got her argument perfectly across. 

THE BARN ISN’T EXACTLY Q’S SCENE when it comes to these kind of events. the bonfire and fringe areas in the hills were more up her alley. controllable amounts of people, genuine conversations. she’d take drunk rumblings about life over sloppy bumps and grinds any day. she’s about to peace out and hide in one of those places again when she hears someone talking to her. it takes a few seconds before q can really process who and what is happening. ❝ lilah, what’s up? ❞ she’d yet to talk to the soft-spoken girl since arriving back in town. however, the delilah in front of her is different from the one q remembers.

Location: The Field (the parking lot side) Time: Around 10pm

There was a feeling you got when you put off doing something, and then the longer you put it off the worse it got. Then there came a time where eventually you had put this thing off for so long you didn’t feel like you could ever do it. You were stuck knowing you should have done this, but feeling like you had missed the chance. That was currently where Jaime was standing. Right on the line of needing to do something, and waiting to long to do it.

At least that was what it felt like as he sat outside of the Dio Party in his Mercedes.

There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something between nerves and anxiety. But … Excitment too? It was going to be fine. He kept telling himself that. These were his friends. They knew everything about him. Well, not everything. But he wasn’t hiding from them. Then why was he so nervous, how come he hadn’t gotten a ride with any of them them to this party? He’d arrived a few hours before he could and let them know.

Maybe he just started to enjoy the drama of it all. Arriving fashionably late, making an entrance and all that. The London Art Scene would do that to a boy. Sabrina would be proud.

Jaime took a deep breath, and pushed himself out of his car, making his way across the makeshift parking lot and towards the party already pumping music through the barn.

Get him a drink, and maybe some more illicit substances. He was going to be fine.

Q HAD A HANDFUL OF DRINKS she truly enjoyed drinking. however, on nights she was ready to submit to the blackout, she wasn’t concerned about things such as enjoying her drink. it was going to be just downed anyway. as she wandered over from the bonfire she made a beeline for the kegs.

she queued up and waited as various young adults indulged ahead of time. someone walking away from the keg looked surprisingly familiar. q wasn’t the type to pay attention to any peer that didn’t directly affect her life. that made this person all the more intriguing. she ditched her spot in line and followed after him.

almost immediately upon entering the barn, shooting her old classmates a smile, q came into her line of sight. presley’s expression faltered, as it always did when she and q crossed paths. it was like, for a split second, she was eighteen again, and watching q walk away from her, and her heart crumbled in her chest all over again. it was pretty hard to tear her eyes away, especially when she was feeling very out of body right now. and by the time she was aware and in the present, q was staring directly at her. fuck. she tried to smile, but it came out a grimace, “so… how’s your mom?” presley cringed at herself; that was not the best subject to start on. 

@q-dean