#mwstart

[scarsandscones]

Bailey sat on the floor of the Nutty Sailor, back against the industrial-sized freezer with a twenty-pound bag of M&Ms open beside him. In deference to the health code, he used a small hand scoop to pour the candies into his mouth instead of reaching in fist-first like he wanted to. It was too early to open, and technically his operating hours started once the ship set sail, which left him with an abundance of time. Time he had no reservations about killing with a bottle of the Captain’s best booze.

Hearing a clatter at the front of the store, Bailey ignored the sound in favor of reaching for a jar of maraschino cherries. He was prying off the top when he heard another thump, scowling as he abandoned the cherries on the counter to investigate. “The sign says closed,” Bailey groused, pointing to the door where the sign had definitely been flipped.

[ash-borden]

It was Ash’s first shift on the job and he was already annoyed. The phone had been ringing off the hook since everyone had begun boarding the ship , leaving Ash to assume that someone else hadn’t done their jobs properly. 

“You’re gonna have to wait.” He spoke without looking up as he heard someone approach the desk. “I’ve got seven lines on hold.”

[losthxlo]

It had taken Adam all of three minutes to despair after realizing that he was in fact dead. Murdered, even. And very, very alone. He had mowed through everything in his pantry at the house, leaving only to seek out fried food and booze at Troy. After all, a Syndicate hotspot seemed safer than anywhere else after the things he’d seen. 

He heard someone take the stool at the bar beside him, torn between telling them to find another seat and begging whoever they were to stay with him. In the end he just pushed the half-eaten basket of mozzarella sticks in their direction, reaching for his drink instead. “Knock yourself out, if you want.” He offered grimly, fully intent on ordering the potato skins next. 

[misterfanfuckingtastic]

Ricky sat on the curb in front of his house, working on his third glass of tequila and trying to shake off the horror of the last ten minutes. He’d woken up drenched and spluttering at the center of his pool, where the water had gone stagnant and cold. It hadn't been a pleasant way to come to, the most disturbing of which was the fact that there was a strange, dreadful feeling hanging over him like a pallor. He thought a few rocks of Molly would do the trick, but all he felt was frenetic and scattered.

Looking up in relief when he heard approaching footsteps, Ricky leaned back on his hands with an imploring smile. “You got a light?” he asked, before promptly following up with, “You got a cig?”

[hartchitect]

text @ wws

Private number: happy halloween 🎃 50k 4 the 1st person 2 bring me a rascal and a snickers bar

Private number: dead 👻 or alive preferably alive

Private number: snickers bar unmelted 🔫🔫🔫 non negotiable

[taketheapple]

Victor was elbows-deep in his second pumpkin, scooping out guts and seeds with as much excitement as the kids surrounding him. He’d arrived three hours earlier to help set up, and was simply happy to have the event underway. With as much tragedy that had plagued the town as of late, everyone needed a little time to escape. 

His dog was snoring loudly at his feet, only to roll over and begin warbling when someone approached their table. “Sorry, just a second,” Victor said apologetically, distracted with his stencil before finally looking up. “Hey, nice costume.”

[jeb-ayy-brams-blog]

Jeb threw a ball for Atticus in the dog park, watching as he (and his son) ran after it. The dog scooped it up, running back as Teddy ran after him. There had only been a handful of times that he’d actually seen another dog at Buddy Waters, but considering his kid liked to play along, that was probably a good thing. 

He was so entertained in watching the pair play that he didn’t even hear the gate open, and only when he turned around did he see them, making him jump a little. “Fancy seeing you here, innit?”

[evaxreid]

It was luck on her side, in the form of Derek and Jesse, that Eva managed to get out of the wreckage alive. The woman could have easily died then, having lost consciousness in the few seconds that she stopped breathing, only to be saved in a nick of time. A broken ankle, a deep-set gash on her thigh, and a bruised rib cage were just a few of her sustained wounds, bittersweets fruits that took their places, instead of completely losing her life.

The blonde remained in the hospital under the observant and careful eyes of doctors and nurses, all intent on monitoring her condition. Dosed on painkillers and a cocktail of medicine to speed up her healing, Eva slipped in and out of consciousness. It was her body’s way of wanting to cope up, of wanting to heal itself. 

In her hospital room in the city of Chicago, the mere humming of the air conditioner filled the silence, interjected by the occasional beeps of the monitors attached to her. Every now and then, a nurse would come in to check on her. She, on the other hand, solely knew of the familiarity and needing to remain mostly asleep in her hospital bed, and nothing else.

[deputyxjones-blog]

Just when Clara thought that her past couldn’t be any more present, here she was; physically and emotionally thrust back into a time and place that she had spent the past eight years of her life trying to forget had ever existed. It was almost uncanny how familiar it felt. Even though the city itself had changed dramatically, there were things about Chicago that had remained eerily unchanged; including its ability to produce a feeling of hopeless, helpless desperation in her that had never ended well. Her recent suspension from all gang-related cases certainly didn’t help, especially when the deputy was still staying on the same floor as the rest of the members of a department that she felt increasingly isolated from. Restless and unmotivated, she was rapidly running out of ideas to keep herself busy and her mind preoccupied.

Which was how the brunette found herself sitting by herself on a bench outside the motel, staring down at her badge as she slowly turned it over in her hands, seriously contemplating dropping the damn thing into the storm drain not two metres away and calling it a day. It was only with the smallest of margins that she eventually decided against it, tucking the badge into her pocket and reaching for her pack of cigarettes instead, all the while studiously ignoring the feeling that she was being watched. Or at least, she tried to ignore it.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Clara bit out a little more aggressively than necessary, removing the unlit cigarette from her mouth as she looked up.

[n-slick]

“...and that was the ever so lovely Ginger Snap, everyone! You know where to put those tips and she might give you extra special thanks if you’re very generous. Next on the stage, the naughty, the dangerous, the ever so flexible, Nikita!”

Applause thundered out as the next stripper took the stage and Nicky smiled as he put the mike down. He headed for the bar and almost absently flexed his hands at his sides as he did so. They were sore, though he’d had to get used to the fact that they were always kind of sore now, but if he was starting to feel it so sharply it meant that his painkillers were wearing off. He had the bartender fill a glass with whiskey and shook some pills into his hand as the alcohol glugged out of the bottle. Nicky tossed them into his mouth like they were candy and washed them down with the booze, pleased by the warm burn that chased its way down his throat and chest. He wasn’t supposed to mix the two, of course, the doctors gave all sorts of dire warnings about it, but whatever. If you weren’t living on the edge, etc. Besides, Nicky tried to avoid being completely sober at any time these days. If he wasn’t at least a little numb or high, he didn’t know how to handle himself anymore.

Nikita’s set was going to last a while so he had a little time to slug back some drinks before he actually had to work again, though calling what he did here ‘work’ was kind of laughable. They’d tried giving him scripts at first but he never really stuck to them so he just made up whatever he wanted about the girls that he thought the crowd might like and it seemed to have worked out so far. He hoped he could find someone amusing or at least interesting to talk to while he waited, even better if that person was willing to share a drink with him. Glancing over, he noticed someone at the bar a few paces away and smiled at them. “Not that interested in the show, or are you just more interested in me?” It wasn’t his best line but he was famous (had been? He still didn’t like to think of it in the past tense) so it wasn’t that far off to think someone had recognized him. It still happened quite a bit.

[bash-alvarez]

Some days, you just couldn’t have a quiet drink at your place of work without assholes interrupting every few minutes. It was a nuisance. Granted, Bash probably wasn’t supposed to be drinking on the job at Troy but Wyatt pretty much knew he did and probably didn’t care, so long as Bash could do his job. He usually didn’t get to the point of happy drunk anyway, just a few drinks to pass the time and make the idiots just a little easier to deal with. The bartenders were too scared of him to cut him off, anyway. Tonight, though, he’d barely finished half of his first drink before he’d had to “break up” two fights (i.e. take the offenders outside and kick their asses properly so they knew what a real fight was) and physically toss out some racist punks. It was the kind of night that put Bash in a bad mood, though that was often his state of being anyway. At least there’d been plenty of violence to vent his aggression on. 

Dusting his hands off after throwing yet another scumbag out of the bar, he strode over to his table and his waiting drink...only to find someone sitting there. His expression darkened. “That’s my table. Move or I’ll move you.” He would give the person about ten seconds before he followed through on his threat. 

[scarsandscones]

When Bailey woke up bloody but unharmed, he didn't think much of it. At least, until he noticed the orange prison jumpsuit and the eerily empty dining hall he found himself in. His surroundings were familiar, of course, they had been his home for ten years; but it was a place he thought he had left behind, an assumption he didn’t realize was incorrect until now. 

When he walked back into town-- an anomaly, because the prison he'd been sequestered in had been several miles away-- he found himself hoping to find it abandoned. An eternity spent alone in a wasteland seemed the perfect punishment, one he hoped that Jack had escaped.

Bailey realized he was wrong, again, when he spotted someone through the window of Sweet Cheeks. Brows furrowed, he burst through the door with a harried look about him. “Are we the only ones here?”

[silent-cyrus]

To say Cyrus was terrified of being in Chicago would be an understatement. Never in a million years would he have guessed that he’d be standing on a sidewalk corner in the middle of the Windy City, clutching a piece of paper with a list of groceries on it, desperately trying to figure out which way to go. As soon as they’d arrived, his father had gone off to check out whatever bars or gambling tables he could find, leaving his mother in the motel room with no groceries or anything to use for entertainment. So she’d instructed him, her son with zero experience in a city, to go out and get her things.

It didn’t take him long to get completely turned around. He had no idea where he was going, having no cell phone to look things up on Google Maps, and the noise and general crowdedness of the city had him struggling for breath, on the verge of a panic attack.

This definitely wasn’t how he saw himself getting out of Muddy Waters. And, much to his dismay, he found himself wishing he was back there among the familiar.

Knowing he wasn’t going to get anywhere standing frozen on a street corner, he swallowed hard and turned to the next person that passed him.

“Um, e-excuse me. D-do you know where there’s a grocery store nearby?”

[robocxp-blog]

Eddie had avoided these exact kinds of parties all the way through his youth. At the time, he had somewhat resented his father for keeping him from going, not that anyone would have invited him. But now? He would take staying home and redrafting his history essay for the fifth time over this...anarchy. 

Everywhere he looked it was a newly disgusting scene. Someone in a rented dress losing the deposit along with their lunch, the barely avoidable tsunamis that leapt up every time someone dived into the pool, the endless cries of chug, chug, chug. Whoever said that children are our future must have been quite the nihilist. 

Eddie was so lost in his thoughts that he barely even noticed the person who sidled up next to him, two drinks in hand. Unless they were a hardened alcoholic, Eddie deduced that one of them was meant for him. 

“Oh. No, thank you. I’m fine.”

[salvagingsloan]

Sloan had never been one to talk to strangers, but a couple drinks and enough time alone had a way of loosening her jaw. After the previous week’s incident with her vehicle and anything involving Chess Club before that, she had to admit it was nice to lounge by the pool without thinking about how her life could go wrong in the next two hours. 

The champagne flute by her side had been drained, but she lacked any desire to remove herself from her position. Gauzy chiffon was pulled up to her knees, pushed aside so she could sit at the edge of the pool and submerge her legs to the middle of her shins. It was comfortable enough that she didn’t even consider leaving when her personal space was invaded. Instead, Sloan frowned and regarded the stranger with the one question that had been playing on repeat in the back of her mind, “Pretty fuckin’ convenient that Troy managed to get this place while it was still decorated, huh?” 

[julian-bolanos]

Julian was obstinately trying to take a night off, ignoring Bax’s texts and keeping his tentative offer of help confined to Eddie who had seen him double fisting drinks already. It was working pretty well until the party went to hell, the floor falling out and dumping people and debris into the pool level beneath them. 

Julian wasn’t in the thick of it when it happened but he jumped into action the moment that he realized it. Noting the congestion on the stairs, he found a way through the gaping hole in the floor to drop down beneath as a faster route. 

He caught sight of a man’s body in the pool, caught beneath a beam and his head submerged beneath the dirtied waters. Julian slid in to try and free him but found the beam firmly lodged in place, the press for time causing Julian to abandon it in the interest of delivering air to the man trapped beneath the surface with limited time available to him before he lost consciousness. 

Resurfacing, Julian sucked in air and looked for the nearest able-bodied person. “You,” He called, gesturing to someone who was at least on their feet. “I need you to hold his head and pull him up while I get the beam.” He didn’t wait for a response before heaving a chestful of air and diving back down to deliver it to the man trapped beneath. Appearing again a few moments later, he moved to hand the man’s head and shoulders off to them, praying they’d be able to get him out before it was too late.