-1Title: Dramamine
Author: Sam
Genre: General/Drama/Angst
Disclaimer: I don't own the OC or any of its characters. I do, however, own Michael, Derek, Josiah and Pat.
Rating: R. Definite R for language and drug use.
Summary: Does Ryan know you're doing coke? Does Ryan know you're selling coke?
Author's Notes: First off, this is going to be a dark story. And second off, I don't condone drug use of any kind. I don't do drugs and I don't like it when people do. But I realize that its something that really happens. And I am using the characters such as Josiah, Michael, Pat, Brian and Derek to show how easy it is to get sucked into something like this. So read and review, but remember that drugs are bad. And that's the end of that.
Author's Notes Again: As I write this, I try to make it believable as possible. I want people to view this kind of environment as something welcoming and realistic. Because as we watched Marissa get mixed up with Volchock, everyone just sat there and asked their televisions how she could get mixed up in something so obviously negative. This kind of stuff doesn't have to necessarily be blatantly negative. And I want to show that through this story.
Last time, I swear: This is a prologue of sorts. Just kind of a background to show what Seth has been up to. I kind of want to jump into the story, but I can't without giving some background. So here it is.
Seth Cohen grabbed his burlap like sack filled with clothes and searched for the keys to the Range Rover. He had to get to Michael's apartment. Fast. Apparently, they had just gotten a substantial amount of weed, and they wanted Seth to be there.
Finally, he found his keys sticking out from under a three week old TV Guide. He vaguely remembered putting them there the night before, but he didn't care at that point. All he knew was that he had fifteen minutes to get across town before the party started without him.
He made his way to the front door, kicking large piles of trash out of the way as he walked. He hadn't taken the time to clean in what seemed months, but in actuality was only a few days. Opened containers of food and alcohol sat in arrays around the small dorm. He locked the door behind him, adjusted his bag and started the brisk walk to the parking garage.
When Seth had started school at Berkeley, he had high hopes of making new friends and starting over. And the fact that Ryan and Marissa were both going to Berkeley made things a bit easier as well. He had been excited to get out and start over with his life. The new era, as he liked to call it. An era without Summer.
Summer had barely given Seth a glance after he had denounced his love for her. She packed, moved to Brown, got a dorm, got a new boyfriend and a new life. He had cried for her more than he had ever cried for anything in his entire life. Even more than when his grandfather died. Or his mother went to a rehabilitation center. Or the first night away from Newport without his mom and dad. Or when Ryan left for Oregon.
Yeah, he was accustomed to crying by this point.
Practically as soon as they had gotten to Berkeley, Ryan and Marissa had rekindled their relationship. It was as if fate wanted them together and only inconsequential things kept them apart. They now had a chance to actually be happy. And as glad Seth was for his brother and his friend, he couldn't stand to be around that kind of happiness when he felt so miserable.
He hadn't lost complete touch with Ryan and Marissa, but he didn't hang out with them nearly as often as he did before. And he saw them once a week, if even that. Since they each had such different majors, he didn't have class with the pair. And that made things a lot harder, too.
Seth hadn't made friends as easily as he thought he was going to. In his head, he had pictured Berkeley as some land of opportunity. He imagined a whole campus of Seths, all wandering around, estranged from society. But actually, what he found was a lot of old Lukes, a couple of Brads, a few Olivers, a ridiculous amount of Marissas, and a couple of Ryans thrown into the mix.
There were no Seths or Summers at Berkeley.
He had considered calling Summer a couple of times, but he always decided against it at the end. And that was before he had met Josiah and Michael.
Josiah and Michael Spencer were a pair of brothers from Berkeley, and they had an apartment off campus. Michael was the younger brother, and he had been the first friend that Seth had made at the campus. In fact, their first conversation hadn't been about drugs or alcohol at all. They had discussed comic books and their shared obsession.
Seth had even thrown in the fact that his ex girlfriend once dressed up like Wonder Woman as his Christmas present a couple of years back. Then Michael had invited Seth back to the apartment to hang out. So Seth followed Michael back to his just off campus apartment which he shared with his brother and two friends.
The apartment was relatively decent sized, though nothing compared to the luxury he experienced back in Newport. Seth had grown used to the fact that not a lot of people were as well off as he. The living room area had everything that they needed; an entertainment center, two couches, a large coffee table piled with books, magazines and cigarettes, bean bags and other chairs, and guitars rested against random walls and chairs.
The thing that Seth noticed more than the size or the furniture, however, was the fact that there was a vast amount of illegal activity and substances floating around from person to person.
"Hey Michael, who's your friend?" a tattooed boy asked from the couch. He had a green glass bong in his right hand and a lighter in the left.
"Oh, hey guys, this is Seth. I met him at the union a little while ago. He loves comic books," Michael grinned. Seth looked around, expecting the other four boys' negative reactions, but he was met with nothing but smiles and excited looks.
"Hi Seth. I'm Michael's brother, Josiah," the boy from the couch reached out his hand to shake Seth's. "Sorry. I'm too lazy to stand up."
Seth smiled and shook Josiah's hand. "Hey."
Michael turned to the other boys. "Ok, that guy in the red shirt passed out is Brian." He motioned to a boy dressed in tight jeans and a tight red t-shirt who was curled on an air mattress in the corner. He then pointed to a boy in the messy kitchen who was taking a pizza out of the oven. "That's Pat."
Pat raised a hand in greeting.
"And Derek is around here somewhere. I'm not sure, though," Michael mumbled to more himself, it seemed, than Seth. "Josiah! You have that bowl loaded yet?"
"Yeah. It's KB this time, too," Josiah said excitedly.
Michael took a seat on the floor near the coffee table in the center of the living room. Seth sat down next to him, his actions nervous and jittery. He knew that he shouldn't be there, but he couldn't exactly tell himself why. These were the nicest people he had met thus far, and he wasn't going to deny himself their company just because they smoked pot.
The truth was, they didn't even look like stoners. Michael was dressed normally, clad in black Dickies and a Hurley t-shirt. Josiah was wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a black t-shirt. All of the guys looked like normal kids, with the exception of Pat and Brian who seemed as if they were wearing girl's jeans. All of their hair seemed to have a similar style; either longer and straight or spiked into a tiny faux hawk. Either way, they didn't look like the traditional pot smoking teenagers from movies.
"You smoke, Seth?" Josiah asked as he passed the bong from himself to Michael. Seth watched Michael wide eyed before he answered.
"Um, well, not exactly. I mean, I have, but not like this," Seth said nervously, running a hand through his hair. Michael handed him the bong.
"Ok, you just breathe in really deep and Michael will do the rest," Michael chuckled, taking hold of the glass container. Seth started to breathe in slowly, a copious amount of smoke going into his lungs. Michael then removed the small bowl and Seth kept breathing in. "Okay, now hold your breath!"
Seth did as he was told until he couldn't hold it any longer, and he started coughing ferociously as the other boys began laughing.
"Oh shit, man!" Pat laughed loudly. "He's going to be all sorts of fucked up in a minute!"
As soon as he stopped coughing, he began to chuckle nervously. He had expected that whenever he started coughing that these guys would immediately view him as the outsider that he was, but he was pleasantly surprised. These guys really were nice people.
"You want a drink?" Michael asked as he stood up. Seth stopped for a moment and smiled inwardly as he realized that his mind was becoming a bit cloudy.
"What do you have?"
"Well," Michael started, looking at the kitchen counter that was over run by dirty dishes and marijuana remnants. "Vodka. Yager. Vodka. Beer. And water."
Seth laughed. "I'll take a beer, I guess."
Michael walked back over with a glass of vodka in one hand and a beer in the other. He handed the can to Seth before taking a sip of his own. "Where's Derek?"
Josiah shrugged, resting his head back on the couch. "He went out a while ago to get some pink dolphins and Klodopins."
"Oh man," Michael sighed, rubbing his face. "I don't want to roll again tonight."
Seth raised an eye brow but decided not to say anything.
"Well, talk to Derek about it. We could save them for Friday or whatever."
Michael shook his head and took another drink. "What I wouldn't give for some tabs right now."
"Loritabs would help us sleep tonight," Josiah agreed.
"Aren't Loritabs painkillers?" Seth asked, taking a sip of his beer. Michael nodded as he downed the rest of his drink.
As Michael and Josiah had gone back to their conversation, Seth remembered about the bottle of Percocet he had in his backpack. He had gotten the prescription whenever he had his wisdom teeth removed a few months back, but he had never thought about abusing his prescription. Therefore, he had a fairly decent amount of pills left.
"I have these," Seth spoke up awkwardly. Josiah, Michael and Pat all stopped their conversation and watched Seth as he pulled the little orange bottle out of the tiny compartment on his backpack. He tossed the bottle to Josiah, whose mouth dropped as soon as he read the label.
"Percocet? These are yours?"
Seth nodded. "Teeth problems. You guys can have them if you want."
"How much?" Michael asked, equally as shocked as Josiah.
"Don't worry about it," Seth waved his hand as if to dismiss it altogether. "Think of it as a thank you for getting me drunk and stoned."
All three of the guys began to laugh at this.
"Seth, you're alright," Josiah smiled. "You need to come around more often. You're cool as hell."
"See? I told you he was awesome," Michael nodded enthusiastically as he opened the pill bottle and took four out. "Ok, there are four of us, sixteen pills. Four each!"
Seth shook his head. "Oh no, not me. I don't do pills."
Michael passed the bottle around and each of them took a handful of the little purple pills. "Have you ever taken Percocet before, Seth?" Seth shook his head. "Well, you know the feeling that you get when you go to the dentist?" Seth nodded. "Imagine that multiplied by ten and all over your body."
Seth furrowed his brow. He imagined drugs making you stupid and slow. Not like these guys at all. They seemed like totally normal guys.
"You wanna try?" Michael asked, holding out four pills.
"Well, I'm really stoned right now," Seth practically choked. "Maybe when I come down a little bit."
"That's a good idea," Michael said suddenly. "Guys, wait till we're not as stoned anymore and the Percocet will work even better."
The guys seemed to nod and agree to this, and Josiah picked up a remote for the stereo in the front of the room. He began to play a CD that Seth hadn't heard in a long time.
"You guys like Death Cab?" Seth asked. The guys looked incredulously at Seth.
"Hell yeah! Death Cab is awesome," Pat nodded firmly. Seth grinned. This really was a group that he could relate with.
A few hours went by and the boys continued to listen to music and idly chat. Seth had decided that he really enjoyed all of these guys. And they seemed to enjoy his company as well. He was thoroughly excited to have found a group of friends that he really fit in with.
One thing that intrigued Seth about these guys was the fact that they weren't looking for girlfriends. Michael and Pat were not interested in girls at that point, and Josiah had just gotten out of a very serious relationship with a girl who broke his heart. Something to which Seth could overwhelmingly relate. He had even discussed Summer a little bit with the guys, and they each offered condolences and their own advice. It was as if Seth had found a haven in this apartment.
Right before they took the Percocet, the front door opened and a shorter kid that seemed about their age walked in and stood in front of the TV. He seemed very serious until everyone acknowledged his presence with a blank stare.
"You guys are fucked up," the kid grinned. Michael nodded and all of the guys started to laugh. "Who is this?"
"Oh, I'm Seth. Seth Cohen," Seth reached out his hand to shake.
"Hey Seth, I'm Derek Stratton," he took Seth's hand, and just like all of the other guys, his smile was happy and genuine. "Guys, look what I got."
Derek held up a baggie which contained a variety of white and pink pills.
"Hells yeah!" Michael exclaimed. "Rolls and Klodopins!"
"We're gonna be trippin' balls tomorrow night!" Derek exclaimed excitedly, putting the baggie into a jar that sat on top of the entertainment center. "You gonna roll with us, Seth?"
Seth looked confused. "I don't know. Rolls?"
"Oh yeah! I forgot you weren't into the whole drug thing," Michael laughed. "Those little pink pills? Those were pink dolphins. About $400 worth of rolls."
"Rolls?" Seth asked.
"Rolls. Dolphins."
Seth continued to stare blankly.
"Ecstasy!" Josiah exclaimed giddily.
Seth's mouth dropped. Ecstasy was a drug that his parents had always warned him about. He had read the statistics on the drug and heard horror stories from magazines about people who died the first time that they tried it. But he had never first hand talked to anyone who had taken the drug before.
"What does it do to you?" Seth tried his hardest to stay calm, but he was freaking out.
"Oh shit man!" Derek clapped his hands together. "It freaks you the fuck out!"
"It makes all of your nerves stand on end!" Michael explained. "It makes you feel like God. Like you can do anything. It makes you love everyone and everything. It's the best drug in the world."
Seth had never heard it explained like that before. "Wow. Um, okay."
"So you want to roll with us?" Josiah asked.
"I don't know. Maybe. I don't have any cash," Seth tried to make an excuse, but Michael shook his head.
"Man, don't worry about it. You help us, we help you. Think of it as on the house," Michael smiled.
"What? He got you guys stuff?" Derek asked
"No, he had some left over Percocet and he gave it to us."
"Wow. No generic stuff, huh?" Derek admonished. "Okay. Cool."
Michael grabbed the little pile of pills that Seth had made on the table. "Take these. They'll fuck you up."
"I thought you weren't supposed to mix alcohol and pills together."
Michael grinned. "You're not supposed to smoke pot either, but look at us."
Seth shrugged nervously as he tossed the pills into his mouth and washed them down with the last of his beer's vodka.
All of the guys cheered as Seth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Now, tell us tomorrow that you didn't enjoy those Percocet, and we won't make you roll," Derek winked.
Everyone laughed at this.
Seth closed his eyes and rested his back against the kitchen counter. Suddenly, the music became intense and his body started to tingle. His mind was muddled and he could barely open his eyes, but it was an incredible feeling. The weed dumbed him down, the alcohol dulled his senses and the Percocet made him feel as if he were flying. The feeling was undeniably awesome, and he couldn't help but ask himself why he hadn't done this before.
Because Seth Cohen finally found somewhere he belonged.
End Prologue. Read and review! )