lissome

[lissome]

of course she didn't. but if that's all the way true, why isn't she surprised? the whole thing makes her stomach turn, and bile lift toward the back of her throat, but it doesn't feel like learning something new. learning about her father — about one eyed jack's, about all of it — feels like remembering.

an old memory that'd merely burrowed its way into the depths of her subconscious. one that had been lingering just out of sight, in the corner of her eye, making her skin prickle whenever he lingered too long outside the door of whatever room she and laura had occupied.

she ought to give herself a little more credit — or a little less. she was a child, too. but it's easy to take the path of least resistance, and she faults herself for what she considers was choosing that path.

is she okay?

she hasn't had the time to slow down long enough to think about that.

"i'm all right." physically. mostly. "— i had to see it." / @inflame

it's just how ben would get to her --- kick her when she's down, so to speak --- which is exactly how laura knows that audrey, so unlike her father, only wants an audience. maybe a bit of a confessor --- and how could she be deny her that, even if she is the subject? for so long, after all, it's all she's wanted for herself: to be unburdened and understood, absolved. she's wondered if this day would come, the past couple of years, but naturally, it's nothing like anything she's imagined.

that's how it goes, though, with audrey. in her head, she always has the upper hand, something clever to say. she doesn't weigh the pros and cons of pretending to fall asleep, and she doesn't want to hide her face under her quilt because in her head, laura is never flustered. in her head, she is always cool and detached and perfectly composed, and she certainly never needs a shower in the worst way. or in any way, at all, ever.

"oh, you didn't." there's a fraught silence in which laura seems to become fascinated by the shape of her own hand, curled in her lap. then she surprises herself: she's honest, too. "i mean. i didn't. for a long time. there's --- there's a lot i still don't know. to tell you the truth. so don't ..." she is going to say don't worry about it or don't beat yourself up about it, but the rest of audrey's words finally find their purchase, and she looks up. her face is flushed: whether from shame, pain, fear, or abject fury is anyone's guess. "what do you mean, you know about one eyed jacks? audrey, what did you do? what --- what happened? are you okay?"

[lissome]

goodnight

[lissome]

"yeah."

but that's why she needs the cigarette.

audrey leans her shoulderblades against the wall of laura's bedroom. she might have gone for the little desk, or even the chair laura's attempted to guide her toward, if it weren't so picturesque; leaning her hip against a benign piece of furniture and taking up space in the room. she does take up space, in her way, but she shrinks, too, in a way that is so terribly unlike herself. careful about what she touches (perhaps making up for the part of herself that more often cares so little).

but when she lights the cigarette, she ducks her head to blow smoke out the window. holds the smoke at waist-height so the trail carries on the wind and doesn't linger, or stick to the carpet or the furniture or the linen.

she chews on the insides of her cheeks. takes another drag. chews some more.

"it's about my father."

she never calls him her dad. she notices this, now, as the word father stretches out all on its own, and carries on the wind alongside the lingering scent of cigarette smoke.

he never was much of one to anyone but laura. the thought makes those hot-cold shivers return.

"— i know about one eyed jacks. i know —" her body doesn't want to operate on its own; she swallows manually, then takes another drag of the cigarette, forgets to blow it out the window, remembers, and waves her arms to guide the smoke toward the outside.

"— i think i always knew."

her left arm is still in a sling, but she's comfortable enough where she is, propped up by nearly every pillow they have. if not for all the bandages, she could be skipping school with a bad sprain --- of course, though, it's only now that audrey would be with her.

"i keep everything." call her sentimental: when she has the energy to exorcise her dad from their albums she'll keep him, too, shut away in his own box. somewhere the light can't reach, without her permission. laura's been thinking about that a lot. "it's only habit." and true: if she could change the room, move things around without risking hurting her mom, it wouldn't look the same. she's never felt especially well-represented.

then again, it all means something to her, too. the relative stagnancy of the space has proven invaluable as an escape. in the light, if the setup is just so, she can almost believe she's a little girl again --- or fool herself into believing she ever was a child at all.

"she might notice. she won't say anything." there's no forethought here, no intentional double-meaning: she just doesn't want to discount sarah's presence more than she already has. she means to say she's not stupid, as if to remind herself, as much as audrey, that her mother is here. that in some ways, she may as well be the house itself.

she can't take her words back, though; they hang in the air, disconsonant, a stuck record. but to draw more attention would only prove she noticed, which she desperately doesn't want, so laura gestures toward the window, the little chair sat underneath.

"it doesn't shut all the way." sit there. "there's something you wanted to tell me. or --- ask me, or something." she wouldn't claim to know what, exactly, but she's perceptive, and maybe they're not friends, not quite, but they know each other. she's got about a million tells. "there's not really an etiquette manual. but i'm pretty sure it can't be worse than this."

[lissome]

more flippancy. this time, she even shrugs her shoulders.

their circumstances are just different. audrey was shown the ugly faces of the people in her life too soon; laura was shown them too late. laura trusts, audrey... well, she does, but the people laura trusts, audrey never has. is she thoughtful, or just cautious?

( she does see the good in people. searches for it, even. but that's for her to ignore, and for laura to point out. )

"uh-huh." half a smile, like they're in on the same joke. watch her pivot and change the subject, diverting attention from herself. "what would we be doing, talking about morality, anyway?"

no more than you. laura takes a step back from the impulse to laugh. this is her best self, she figures --- the one who sees someone's sensitivity and course corrects, tries to shield them --- but she doesn't know if it's her most authentic, even if it may be her most honest, the person she is with @lissome.

"i'm not talking about morality or anything." lord knows they'd both be lost if they started down that road, at least if they had to talk about it. "you're just, like, a thoughtful person. you think things through. you know ---" here, laura frowns, recalling recent events, but she's not deterred --- "you seem like you know what you're doing, when you do it. how you feel about it." (x)

[lissome]

i bet you always consult your heart.

her — what?

audrey doesn't consider herself that way. she feels, certainly, but the moral compass she draws upon is not one which she considers her own. the heart which beats in her chest is inherited, isn't it? who could trust an organ through which benjamin horne's blood flows?

she draws from others — from very special agents, or people like... donna hayward, in all her naive good-naturedness. people like laura palmer, who are good at their cores, but thrust into awful situations. girls from novels, and films, and day time television.

"not really," she says, rather flippantly. "only as much as you."

pot, kettle.

if i'm good, so are you. if you're bad, so am i.

[lissome]

you can't have audrey without laura and you can't have laura without audrey. if you take one out of the picture, the other will just suffer in her place, because in every major turn of fate, it always could be either one of them. the reason audrey understood laura "better than the rest" was not just because, for all intents and purposes, they were raised as part of the same family. it was because it always could have been her, and she knows that, and she feels a way or a hundred about it. the reason audrey is so invested --- more than anybody else --- in finding out what happened to laura is not because of cooper! she'd be like that regardless! it's because in a lot of ways, she's the only one who ever stood a chance at helping her. and she didn't. and she holds herself personally responsible for that lol (ALSO more than anyone else, at least going by what is shown) but it's fine 😌

[lissome]

motherhood.

dialogue prompts from motherhood by sheila heti.

you just don’t want me to have an interesting life.

does it really matter how i’m feeling?

all through my childhood, i felt i’d done something wrong.

what’s the point of writing something no one will ever read?

there is no such thing as an avant-garde life.

sentimentality is a feeling about an idea.

wishes have their dark sides, too.

what do you need to know about a person, to like them?

no child is intrinsically bad.

family is scarce, in our family.

you’re not leaving me alone here, are you?

i bet you always consult your heart.

i don’t think i have a heart to consult.

art is eternity backwards.

you’re the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen.

i like being alone. it’s hard being around other people.

alone, one feels the whole universe and not their personality.

why do people want to change everything, as soon as things are good?

i don’t want indecision to dominate my life more than it already has.

i feel like i’m missing out on life.

i wanted to be free.

if you ever need somebody to be strong for you, i’m here.

living one way is not a criticism of every other way of living.

one person’s life is not a political or general statement about how all life should be.

when did i become so greedy?

you can’t take a misperception and build a life around it.

don’t go looking for more than your share.

the world is less perceptive than we give it credit for.

just because you get one thing, doesn’t mean you get it all.

what’s going on in your life? what’s good and what’s not good?

you might have been born with your mother’s grief and sorrow.

were you able to ask what you needed, as a kid?

i find it’s best i say whatever comes to my mind.

stop playing this game. it’s not a game, it’s your life.

i never need to meet another person again.

i think my soul is either very young, or very old.

i never realized i had been so apart from the world.

are you always this nice to me?

it wasn’t my mother’s fault. it wasn’t my fault, either.

i focused on the right things.

the lonely fill up their lives with books.

if you don’t have a child, at a certain point you become your own child.

time isn’t something to do something with: time does things to you.

if i’ve been weak up until now, that doesn’t mean i’ll never be strong.

it’s okay if you don’t know all the reasons.

[lissome]

i wish i could give you the memory i have of that day.

@inflame

she's been studying the pattern on one of sarah's nice rose teacups for several minutes, running her fingers over the gold leaf pressed into the porcelain, feeling the way some of the glaze juts out, here and there. she wonders if it's machine error, and there are a hundred thousand other cups just like this one, or if someone made this by hand, and that little bump in the stone was made by someone applying just a little too much pressure before the stone had set.

she's been smoking menthols since her last pack ran out. sarah never notices.

audrey shakes her head without glancing up. speaks with her eyes low.

"it's so weird," she drops a perfectly pressed cube of sugar into her tea and watches it starts to disintegrate. she doesn't stir it through. just watches. "we spent our whole lives watching the same things from different angles."

[lissome]

despite the age of laura's collection of artefacts, no dust ever seems to gather in her bedroom for very long. it might be easy to put that down to how well lived in the room is, but even laura doesn't spend enough time in here to disturb the dust on a decade old sock monkey.

if you think about it for more than a second or two — and so few rarely ever seem to — you remember that laura has a mother who has been tending to this place since the moment laura started preschool; trying to be close to a child who had gone from spending every waking moment at her hip, to being in the care of strangers. washing a hand-made toy twice a week is as close as she can get to feeling like she's taking care of laura when she isn't home.

so when audrey lets her eyes wander over a series of belongings she feels she shouldn't know exists — because they're far too private, and you and laura aren't even friends, and i thought you hated laura — she is forced to wonder whether laura, in her current state, had thought not only to tidy her room, but to go through her old things and ensure that when audrey did, inevitably, look upon them with her impossible level of scrutiny, there wouldn't be a speck of dust or dirt to be found.

because she — like her father, like laura's father, like everyone else in this little town — forgets sarah exists, at times. and it isn't that audrey forgets how much sarah palmer cares about her daughter, rather, she had never known her well enough, locked away in this house all those years (by, audrey would add, a man who was hardly ever at home), know any better.

it feels wrong to look before she's given permission. at least laura knows that audrey just can't help it.

"i don't think i have." she definitely hasn't. it's possible she's never set foot inside the house, just waited in the car while laura crossed the threshold on her own. if she thinks about it for more than a second, she's forced to consider whether her father shares her apprehension — and, in her heart, she knows he never has. she doesn't like the idea that he's seen these relics from laura's childhood. knows the colour of her walls, the pattern on laura's bedspread, all the frames of painted roses sarah has picked up from various flea markets. she doesn't want to consider that he might know where all the lightswitches are in laura's room, or which corners are obscured by shadow if you only have one of them switched on.

she could cry. she's felt tears burning the back of her throat ever since somebody — a receptionist passing a message to ben, because no one ever told her directly, because they weren't friends, they aren't friends — told her laura was in the hospital. if her father hadn't been home all night, she wouldn't have had to wonder who put her there.

"i can't believe you kept all this stuff."

and, because she doesn't want to touch anything else: "do you think your mom will notice if i smoke in here?"

audrey / @lissome.

she hasn’t so much as glanced at most of her stuffed animals in years, and the crafting supplies lined neatly on laura’s desk are from sixth grade art class. none of the pictures she has lying around are much more recent. the walls, her paintings, her bedspread — all chosen by her mother, when she was too small to even remember. the space is lived in. it’s warm, inviting. but it’s also a shrine, in its way.

that normally wouldn’t bother her: it’s nothing she’s ever even considered in those terms until now. until audrey was here, all but going through her room with a magnifying glass, now and then stopping to pick up some trinket, feel its weight in her hands. laura barely manages to keep from offering backgrounds for each: not as a gesture of friendship, but rather as someone on trial might. someone desperate not to be associated with her own memories, her own existence.

(her own tiny plastic quarter horse, a much-loved novelty for having cost a quarter.)

her life seems so impossibly small — so, well, tawdry — in audrey’s delicate, meticulously manicured hands. i can explain, she imagines herself saying, knowing full well that she never will. this isn’t me. maybe it never was.

“i’m sure you’ve been up here before,” she says instead, though suddenly laura isn’t sure at all. whatever’s been between them the past eighteen years has rarely been reciprocal, at least in the hornes' direction: even when she’d trespassed, even when she’d done her worst, part of her always knew that none of it mattered. that she’d go home at the end of the day having stolen her fifteen minutes of acknowledgement, and they’d all stop pretending that she existed in any other context. it's too much to consider that audrey might wonder about laura in the same way laura wonders — has always wondered — about her, about what her life is like when she isn't there. "i don't — it's not much," she starts and stops, uncharacteristically somewhat shy from her vantage point on the bed. painfully aware that the other girl will not cut her off, regardless of how long she flounders. "but it's — it was nice of you to come. good. of you." no one else has, laura doesn't add, but they both already know it's true. laura looks down at her hands, folded in her lap, heat rushing to her face. "you can go through my shit if you want. i don't care."

[lissome]

sorry i just remembered that the first of audrey's character traits we're exposed to in the pilot are

her dad makes sure she leaves the house/is driven to school. not to make sure she gets there safely, but so that someone will report her whereabouts directly to him (and schools are like prisons etc etc - they've got wardens. she's smart enough to escape but ben's comfortable enough knowing she probably won't)

audrey is forced to hide her age from ben, either because she's afraid of him, or because he doesn't want her to express traditional womanhood in any meaningful way [which is, again, "audrey is afraid" because he'll have lashed out in the past/forbidden it/"you're not leaving the house wearing xyz"]. you can read into this as ben rejecting audrey's transness/audrey being more comfortable with self-expression outside of her home, or ben - or even sylvia - trying to force her, an 18 year old, to only exhibit "girl-like" rather than "woman-like" physical traits. because. you know. her dad is like that. and. and

(also as a sidenote. i'm realising that audrey does wear heels after the pilot without ben caring/realising, because he's so caught up in his own shit (fear/vigilance) he doesn't have the capacity to monitor audrey like that anymore)

[lissome]

TWIN PEAKS (1990-1991) “May the Giant Be with You” — 2x01

[lissome]

#lissome.

an independent roleplay blog for audrey horne of twin peaks. written by dana, 26, they/them. private, selective, mutuals only. affiliated with @inflame.

a study in ambition, creating an identity distinct from the mould you have to contort yourself to fit inside, gender, doing the right thing, and retribution.

[lissome]

Yeah, I came by [church] because of Laura. What do you mean? I didn’t think you even liked her.  There were things about Laura I didn’t like, but she did help take care of my brother, Johnny. I guess I sort of loved her for that.

[lissome]

TWIN PEAKS | 1.04 — “Rest In Pain” (1990)

[lissome]

Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne // Twin Peaks s01e03 "Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer"