â  Jesus, are you alright? â she immediately asked upon seeing his state, only to be rewarded with a rather entertaining response. Bri had been there once or twice before, though her run-ins had definitely been more with doorways and fences. Never did she come back from it with the delight that he had though. Briadmnis most definitely ended up crying about it for a good couple of minutes before forgetting all about it. â Sure about that? â she questioned his victory, a raised eyebrow displaying just how amused she was at his cheerful wit, â Unless you somehow bent the post itself at which point, should I call for help? â Concussions were nothing to mess around with.
â of course I am, although Iâm not completely confident I havenât broken my nose just a little bit. It feels wonky. â he says, shaking his head before knocking back the shot, immediately flagging the bartender for a second, as well as one for Bri. â truthfully, I donât really know what state I left the pole in. I was kinda more focused on my face at the time. Maybe we can take a visit to it later and see if it needs a bandaid. â
"i -- i feel like this might not be your night, sammy," rosa remarked, thrown off-guard enough by his appearance that her usual stammer had mostly faded from her words. she watched him, looked him up and down, frowned. the blood didn't upset her as much as it made her feel vaguely detached from the situation, from her body. she watched him order a shot as though she wasn't in the room at all, but somewhere a bit further away. "at least you won," she said, "i'd hate to see the other guy, i -- i guess."
â what do you mean? â he says, the mask slipping for a moment before readjusting itself into a smile. â the nights still young, Rosie Rosa. Iâve got time to turn this night into the best one of my life. â thereâs a wink before he takes his shot. â enough about me, how are you? Fighting any street lamps? â
jace clocked sammy before he even reaches the bar. hard not to since he looked like a walking stereotype for a member of the club. not that he really cared if it left an impression with anyone, people were just gonna have to deal with the fact that they were never going to be as neat and clean as the santoros. he shook his head at sammy's explanation, eyes assessing the damage on his face and shirt.
"yeah?" he says, voice dry, trying to not show his amusement, "looks like it put up a decent fight," he couldn't even tell if he had actually ran into a pole or if he had just come from getting punched in the fucking face. "street light still standing?" he asked, glancing toward the door like he might go check.
he then nodded towards the napkins on the bar, "probably gonna wanna deal with that before someone decides youâre part of the nightâs entertainment."
Sammy nods at the question, a look of achievement plastered across his features. â oh, yeah, shouldâve seen me mate, I was like Mike Tyson or something. â he laughs at his own shit joke, picking up his shot and knocking it back. â yeah, itâs still fucking standing. Bit hard to fully take down, yâknow ? â
Sammyâs eyes follow the direction indicated, shrugging. â I already tried man, shits dry as fuck. Itâs a rented tux as well, but I wonder if I ask real nice theyâll still give me my money back. â
Jason didnât say anything right awayâjust let Sammyâs chaotic entrance unfold while he leaned against the bar waiting for the drinks he'd ordered for him and Dilan. It was all classic Sammyâthe grin, the skipping, the speckles of blood. And in any other setting, it mightâve earned him a side eye or a fond âdumbassâ. But in this fancy-ass ballroom like this? Jason just exhaled a faint breath through his nose.
"Shit, Sammy boy." He told him as he settled in. "Then, what? The fire hydrant break that shit up?" His voice was low and rough but stripped of its usual edge. Then, Jason turned back to the bartender, and caught his attention with a short nod.
It takes a moment for Jasons words to reach him - the mix of substances coursing through his veins allowing him to exist in a bubble of some sort. When the joke does hit, however, it earns a genuine laugh from Sammy, arm wrapping around the others shoulders â youâre kinda funny sometimes, you know that right ? â itâs accompanied with an affectionate wink before he picks his shot up from the bar.
He raises the glass to the other â to a shit fucking night. â
Sammy didnât particularly want to go to this event, but heâs self-aware enough to know his FOMO wonât allow him to not attend. He does, however, decide he will not be showing up until thereâs enough substances in his system to make it semi bearable.
Thus, by the time he shows up, heâs already walked into a lamppost that has given him a nosebleed, and now thereâs blood on his shirt. Itâs a fucking rented tux as well. STILL, heâs not one to let that ruin his night, and so with a boyish grin and a near skip, heâs at the bar ordering a shot. A laugh escapes his lips, nearly manic, an attempt to mask the bubbling anxiety. â got into a fight with a street light, I fucking won though, donât worry. â
(RUDY PANKOW, CIS MALE, HE/HIM) They say the city never forgets a name and FREDERICK âFREDDIEâ PARKER is no testament to that. The TWENTY FOUR-year-old has carved out their place in NYCâs underbelly. On the surface, theyâre all FIERCE LOYALTY, smooth moves and sharp eyes. But dig a little deeper and youâll find something far more dangerous , SELF DESTRUCTION, with no hesitation and even less remorse. They move through the streets like they own them, wearing the colors of the GHOST RIDERS and running the game as MEMBER. Some say theyâve always been here. Others swear somethingâs changed. Either way, theyâre not just part of the story. Theyâre rewriting it. (Charlotte, 27, she/her, gmt)
â he will sometimes send you funny emails. He prefers spaghetti over penne. Have you seen my son? Have you seen my beautiful boy? Tell him I miss himâ
TW: HEAVY DRUG ABUSE, PARENTAL & SIBLING DEATH, MENTAL HEALTH.
- Freddie was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His parents came from nothing, but all they wanted was a home and a family, and they were willing to work and struggle to ensure their children never went without in the way they had.
- Freddieâs earliest memories were of his mother leaving for work at 3.30 am and arriving back in the early evenings. She had a look of exhaustion on her face but always pushed it aside to spend time with her Freddie and his twin sister Frankie. She never missed a family dinner or a bedtime story. She was the foundation from which Freddie became Freddie.
- the twins grew up as the best of friends. While they didnât have money, they had something much more valuable: stable roots. Yes, they did not go to the best school, nor did they wear the best clothes, but they recognised their privilege in small ways. The kindest of children, sometimes wicked in the ways that children are, but neither were ever nasty or cruel.
- Freddie had always been a sensitive soul, and while his mother was the lighthouse that guided him home, his sister Frankie was the anchor that kept him stable amongst dangerous waters. Freddie was the sensitive twin, the one that ought to be handled with kid gloves. He was impulsive in ways, full of energy and unable to sit still, definitely not as bright as his brilliantly quick sister. Frankie was always superior in freddies mind, even if nobody ever said it. She was clever, she found it easy to make friends, she was as sporty as he was, with a quick tongue and sharp mind. Freddie was a ball of chaos, using his voice to compensate for his difficulty with maths and english, throwing his energy into football and most of all being his sisters cheerleader. Freddie never resented Frankie, but nor did he idolise her. No, Freddie was just always silently aware that Francesca Parker was the better twin, and he was always happy with that. He would never know that she felt it to be the other way around. Frederick Parker was both 90 seconds before Francesca Parker, but she was always his big sister.
-Nobody knew Freddie like his sister, and nobody ever has since. even in childhood, she could see his mind descending into dark places. The boy with his heart on his sleeve, everything was felt in extremes. You see, when Freddie was seven didn't just get a few words wrong in his spelling test, he had failed his entire family and they would hate him. At four he hadn't just scored his first goal in football, he had won the fucking olympics!. At eleven he hadn't just gotten a detention, he was useless and stupid and everyone in school knew it. There was never a middle ground with Freddie. It was all or nothing, molehills become mountains, sand didn't become castles, but cathedrals. Frankie was the anchor that didn't just keep freddie self against unstable waters, but against his own mind. She could feel, perhaps even sense, the descent. She could halt it.
- As he became a teenager, Freddieâs mind only got louder and darker. A boy riddled with anxiety but unable to find the words to ask for help. He focused on his mum, on his friends at school, on football, on the younger kids on the estate. He thought it would make him better, focusing on the problemes of others, keeping them safe. If he could capture everything he felt and channel it into one emotion, he could make them all happy. He never spoke about himself, not to anyone but Frankie. To everyone else, he was the boy that would make you laugh, the kid with the cheeky grin and an endless supply of shit dad jokes. The boy who would listen and hold your hand when his mind was collapsing in on itself, and offer some pretty sold advice, if you gave him the chance. The boy who overwatered flowers because he didnât know when to stop giving.
- When he was thirteen, Freddie found a way to quiet his mind. It was a slow descent when he started using marijuana, soon joined by acid, ecstasy, mushrooms and cocaine. At fourteen, his family moved to the states in an attempt to fix freddie. Maybe a change of scene would help him. it didn't. addictions doesn't work like that. by the time he was nearing 16, crystal meth was his drug of choice and everything spiralled out of control. He missed his life in England, he missed playing football with his friends. But when he had tried crystal meth, he felt better about himself. All the years of underlying depression, self-doubt and crippling anxiety seemed to melt away. So he just kept doing it.
- While his friends didnât often see the darker side of his addiction, his family did. Anger, upset, frustration. Tears and tears and tears. He wanted to get better, he wanted to make everyone around him happy, but he was making everything worse and he just couldnât stop. He focused again on football and being a good brother, a decent student but would come home and steal from his parents. He would argue with his sister, and cry into their arms as he begged not to go back to rehab.
- Freddie spent six years in the thick of addiction. He lost his teenage years to a cycle of overdoses and rehab centres. 12-step programmes and sponsors he didnât call. It took six years for him to make it a year and a half sober. The most he had ever gone and for once, the future looked bright. A party with his closest friends, a cake to celebrate eighteen months. It was hopeful. Everything was hopeful. He joined the ghost riders at some point between rehab stint three and four. He joined because Frankie had joined, and well, they never did anything by halves.
-at twenty two, after being sober for two years, Freddie relapsed for the first time. Frankie had felt it, somehow, and drove two hours to collect him. Nobody knew, not even their parents. Relapses would happen, they would just work from there. They were established in the ghost riders, they were not going to let this blip ruin that.
-at twenty three, he had gone a year without using again. the relapse felt forgotten, to be buried with the twins. Freddie had started coaching football (or as it was called to those around him now, soccer) to kids down at the YMCA . He even applied to university, being accepted to sports psychology the fall after his twenty fourth.
- And then the world came crashing down. Freddie was with his best friends when the call came in. His dad was on the other line, it was the second time Freddie had ever heard him cry. The first time was when Freddie was fourteen and his dad first dropped him off at rehab. But this cry was different. It was guttural. His mother and Frankie had gotten into a car accident on the way home from a ski trip. They had died on impact. Freddie sat in his friend's living room, staring at the ceiling, his heart ripped out on the floor in front of him. He told them, but in the same sentence he said he was fine, he was okay. He offered to make everyone a cup of tea. He made sure his friends were okay. And at the end of the night, he got on his bike and drove into a tree. A broken leg. A damaged bike. That was all.
- his mothers diary was found in her suitcase. Freddie knows he shouldnât have, but he read it anyway. It dated back years, and he was a heavy feature across the pages.
â if you could take all the words in the language, it wouldnât describe how much I love those children. And if you could gather all those words together, it still wouldnât describe what I feel for them â
âI worry sometimes that this ⊠whatâs happened is my fault. I wanted to raise my beautiful boy to be kind and empathetic. I worry itâs because heâs too kind and empathetic that he turns to drugs to cope. My freddie .. he said the world is really ugly and everybody seems to be okay with it. He says everybody is out to make everybody else seem less human and he doesnât want to be a part of it or witness it. He says thatâs why he does drugs. To make this world easier to process.â
â he will sometimes send you funny emails. He prefers spaghetti over penne. Have you seen my son? Have you seen my beautiful boy? Tell him I miss himâ
- Itâs been three months since his mother and sister's death, and Freddie will still tell you he is fine. He doesnât want to burden anyone else with his mind. He wants to be treated as he always has. He wants to just be Freddie. But heâs not Freddie, and heâs not fine. Heâs not sure he ever will be again. His father does not help, so confused with grief heâs forgotten who Freddie is, living in a period of time before he was born.
get to know me meme: [1] male characters //Â james cook
âYou think you know death, but you donât. Not until youâve seen it, Really seen it. And it gets under your skin, and lives inside you. You also think you know life. You stand on the edge of things and watch it go by, but youâre not living it, not really. Youâre just a tourist. A ghost. And then you see it, really see it. And it gets under your skin and lives inside you, and thereâs no escape. Thereâs nothing to be done, and you know what? Itâs good. Itâs a good thing. And thatâs all Iâve got to say about itâ
âTell me, father, which to ask forgiveness for: what I am, or what Iâm not? Tell me, mother, which should I regret: what I became, or what I didnât?â
