loubriccant

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If you could shoot a Mountaineer again, who would you shoot?

Blink. Blink. "I mean, probably wouldn't hurt if Marshall was outta commission in the hospital a few weeks, right? But I hear he's already beat up bad, so I'd wait till he's better ta do anythin'. Win ain't a win if yer enemy is already wounded."

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if you could make anyone try any drug - who would it be, what drug, and why?

“look, i think experimentin' safely could do the stifled persons in this town some good, but mushrooms? shit'll make ya realize trees got personalities and the dirt’s been keepin’ secrets. then when ya come down and suddenly life’s less ‘oh god, why’ and more ‘hell yeah, why not?’ everyone needs a calibration in perspective a' some point"

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have you ever shot anyone before?

"now kid, if i done gone an' unloaded a barrel into anyone, why would i run around tellin' people 'bout it? what i will say 's i got impeccable aim, deduce from tha' what ya will."

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Well, well, well... It's been a little while since we got to have a little chat, huh? We're all just DYIN' (too soon?) to know what's on your minds over here, so - what do you say to pullin' up a chair, and havin' a good little bout of Front Porch Gossip? Some say it heals the soul!

Here's the deal! You're gonna reblog this post to participate - and then you're gonna grace any little nasty question that comes your way with an HONEST answer... or at least as honest as you can stand to be. And don't you forget to send some questions over for me and my lovely Cherie too - you know we can never resist a little gossip.

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Lou took a long drag from her cigarette, the smoke lingering in the air as she exhaled, barely paying attention to Girty's performance. She leaned back, one elbow propped on the table, and flicked her eyes over to her.

“Yeah, ’s all a buncha shit,” Lou agreed, voice flat but steady. She flicked ash into the tray, then passed off the cigarette to Girty. She ran a hand through her hair like she was wiping off something sticky. "People blow so much hot air over it-- talkin' 'bout love 'and 'n roses 'and 'n all that sappy shit. They buy into it like it’s supposed to mean somethin’. But it’s just another day in the grind, dressed up in a cheap suit."

She looked at Girty then, the corner of her mouth twitching like she was about to say something more, but instead, she just shrugged.

“Guess that’s why I don’t bother.”

Her eyes shifted to the side for a second, like she was chasing something in her head, but when they landed back on Girty, they were empty, no secret, no deeper meaning, just a dead look.

“It’s like wearing a mask. People pretend to feel all these things ‘cause they think it’s sposed to be special. But when it all falls apart, no one’s left holding anything real. Not the roses, not the chocolates, not the bullshit.” Lou held her hand out for another drag, watching Girty with a quiet kind of understanding. “So, yeah. Mabel Mae’s my Valentine. That’s about as far as I’m goin’ with it.”

She didn’t need to say more. Girty could take it or leave it. Lou wasn’t in the business of convincing anyone of anything.

"How 'bout you? Got someone to swap candy hearts with this year?"

“Bleh, Lou! Yer —” She lazily clutched her own neck and started shaking, tongue lolling out, eyes rolling back… even throwing in a few gasps for good measure. So, killin’ her. Right. Faux defeated, Girt slumped against the nearest surface, letting herself slowly melt to the ground. A fuzzy lump. All the serious talk had clipped her wings. 

The piss comment did make her snort, though — man, she’d pay to see that. Except, y'know... she wouldn't... considering the state of her pockets. (A few loose coins, some lint and a sad scrap of a paper with an ancient number scribbled on it — sticky with a piece of gum. Yikes. They must’ve not been very skilled).

Then, Lou extended the cigarette like bait, and her whole face lit up. Ding, ding, ding! A peace offering after obliterating her wonderful act. “Least you could do…. fuckin’ — cog.” She waggled a sneaky finger, beckoning her to join her down below while twitchy eyes took in their surroundings from her new vantage point. If she saw any more pink, she'd hurl.

“This is such fuckin’ bullshit'.” As gently as she could manage, she thumped her head against the floor, like maybe she could knock the boredom clean out of her skull. Crack, crack, crack. Brain goes splat. “Dunno anyone who celebrates fuckin’ — Valentine’s Day anyway…” Tenderness made her teeth clench; she didn’t get it. A whole holiday dedicated to grand gestures? Cavity-producing words of affection? Only to then get dumped for the next piece of ass? All this shit, she thought, was tailor-fuckin'-made for people who said stuff like making love.

Girty scoffed, stewing in her bitterness for a moment — finally, some peace and quiet — until a funny image barged in uninvited. She abruptly turned her head (snap!), burning Lou with her stare, visibly amused by the nonsense churning inside her mind. “Now hold on! That why you didn’t wanna play?” Always poking into other people’s business… Always prying for more. Always looking for distractions. Her gaze was intense, like she thought she could unearth the secrets of the universe in the other’s features — in the slope of her nose, the curve of her lip. “Want things to run smoothly for yer secret sweetheart? Y’tryin’ t’bump uglies with someone?” She smacked her lips together, making loud, obnoxious kissing noises, batting her lashes. The picture of maturity. “Should I be jealous that it ain’t me?”

[loubriccant]

misty mountain as things on may's pinterest home page that made her chuckle (001)

bonus:

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Lou didn’t startle, because that would imply she hadn’t sensed Girty’s dumbass creeping up on her like a neon-colored feral possum. What did catch her off guard, however, was the sheer level of commitment Girty had to her one woman show.

She stood there, hands in her pockets, absorbing the performance with the same level of engagement as a guy watching paint dry. Several slow, confused blinks followed. Although, that might've been due the joint she smoked before her volunteer shift...or the quaaludes.

Then, slow as molasses, Lou exhaled, shifting her stance to finally enter the conversation.

“Ah shee-it,” she said, flatly. “Ya got me. I was jus' about ta unionize.”

And if unions were the topic of discussions, how could Lou help herself? “Goddamn, Girt. You boot-lickin’ these days?” It'd so obviously been a bit on Girty's end, but thanks to Lou's nutritious breakfast, she was feeling uninhibited and mouthy as ever. She lit up a cigarette and started, “What’s next? Filling out paperwork for fun? Singin' the praises of the military? Gonna start tellin’ folks to ‘jus' pull yerself up by the bootstraps’ while some jack-off named Chuck denies their unemployment check ‘cause they dotted an ‘i’ wrong?” She shook her head, gaze heavy with mock disappointment, “Didn’t think I’d lose you to bureaucracy, of all things.”

She dropped her hand to point at the other, “You ever think about usin' those theatrics for real good? Maybe go hassle one of 'em boys in blue? Or make the mayor piss his khakis, y'know? Eat the oppressors, Girty. Not me. I’m jus' a real aware cog."

Lou finally extended her cigarette to Girty, "Supervisin' 'n smokin's my interim job right now" She paused."If ya'd like ta join me."

STATUS: open, capping at 0/4. EVENT: st. cupid's fest volunteer squad. TITLE: a showdown between your muse & girty... now kiss.

Unlucky for everyone roped into the whole volunteering shtick (since when had Valentine’s Day become that important, anyway?), the moment Girty was assigned to the grunt-work team, their names might as well have been stamped onto a list of death. Not a quick one either — a slow death, by distraction, by endless (and senseless) chatter. True, agonizing torture.

1) All day, she hadn’t done much of anything (sorry, Mabel — sorry, Rosie).  2) Her lack of doing anything had bitten her in the ass — boredom creeping in, turning her restless.  3) Instead of taking said boredom as a sign to be useful, she'd spent her time scanning the place like some kind of killer robot, desperate to find someone to sink her teeth into… 

And in the midst of all the hopelessness — of all the nausea-inducing hearts and cheesy decorations — a beacon of hope. She could practically hear a choir of angels singing. Halle-fuckin'-lujah!

Girty approached silently (which, for someone as subtle as a pink giraffe, was a lost cause), a stupid grin hanging off her bitten lips, pausing to fully slip into character. Then, she spoke screamed directly into their ear. Her voice came out deep, raspy, “Quit yer slackin’! I ain’t payin’ ya t’sit there ‘n look pretty…” She jabbed a finger in their direction, scratching her butt with her other hand — picturing herself as some old, angry foreman who hadn’t gotten laid in a decade. “Y’tryin’ to start a fight with me? Huh?” She added with a low growl, leaning in until her face was pressed against the side of theirs. A puff of air to mess with their hair. “Y’tryin’ to prove somethin’, hotshot?”

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Lou leaned back, the booth creaking beneath her. Everything about this moment felt so familiar. A worn-out pattern. Liliana’s words, slick with disgust, floated in the air, but Lou had heard them all before, like broken records, same static, different song.

She stared at Liliana for a long beat, like she was looking past her, through her, into something deeper. A smirk twisted at the corner of her lips, but it wasn’t for show. It was a response to the absurdity of it all. If Liliana wanted her to play the part of the conspiratorial addict ruining her lunch, Lou could do that.

“Did I crawl out of some gutter?" Lou echoed, her voice low and slow, like she was unraveling a thought in real-time. “You think any of this means anything? That it matters how I smell, or where I came from? That there’s some big difference between you, me, and the rest of ‘em?”

She let the silence hang heavy, the weight of it pressing down on both of them.

“You got it all wrong, Liliana,” Lou continued, her gaze sharp now, cutting through the space between them. “This whole act, this show you’re putting on, it’s a way to pretend there’s control, and you ain't ever gonna get it in any real way. Yer just as tangled up in this stupid, dying town as the rest of us. And you know what? It’s all just noise. Noise in a world that stopped listening a long time ago. You, me, the guy sweeping the floor? We’re all just desperate for something to make it feel like it matters.”

She leaned in slightly, voice dropping to something closer to a whisper, a challenge, an inevitability. “So yeah, sure, I crawled out of the gutter. But the real question is, how’d you end up here with such an ugly look on yer pretty face?”

Liliana didn’t react at first. Not verbally, at least.

She simply turned her gaze from the window to the other as Lou - the filthy, insufferable Stafford - dropped into the seat across from her like she belonged there. Like this wasn’t an intrusion. Like she hadn’t just tossed a crumpled bill at some poor idiot working minimum wage and strutted over.

For a long, drawn-out second, she just stares. A silent war waged in the stretch of space between them, Lili’s gaze unwavering, a slow, simmering burn that made it abundantly clear she had no patience for this moment. For Lou. The dull hum of the diner seemed to recede, the faint clatter of plates, the low murmur of conversations, fading into nothing but static as Lili held her gaze.

And then, she smiled. A sharp, humorless curve of her lips that didn’t touch the hollows of her eyes. “Did you crawl out of some gutter just to piss me off?” Her voice was smooth, almost pleasant. She let her attention flick downward, lazily raking over the other’s appearance with the kind of disgust one might reserve for a roach skittering too close to their shoe. Then, she reached for her soda, lifting the cup to her lips before speaking again. “God, you smell worse than you look. Do all junkies have an aversion to showers?”

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Lou didn’t plan on staying long at Tastee’s, just stopping in to settle the tab for the water she hadn’t paid for last week. A minor offense that in her mind, was barely a blip in the grand scheme of things. But that’s what this world was built on, little tricks, a few dollars, a pinch here and there-- capitalism, a slow, grinding killer.

She slammed her finger down on the counter, her voice low, almost amused. “A dine and dash fee? For water? Are we really doing this?” When it became clear this was a losing battle, Lou threw the five dollar bill in the employees face, "Take it or leave it." And when she turned to exit she caught glimpse of Liliana Serrano, nasty look on her face. Wrong place, wrong time.

Lou slid into the booth, staring blankly at Liliana for a moment, trying to decipher what caused her expression. If she'd stopped every time someone eyed her, she'd never get anything done, but Lou was still teeming with adrenaline from the confrontation and Liliana was begging for a continuation.

Lou plucked a fry off of her plate and casually ate it, playing dumb as she asked, "Am I botherin' you or somethin'?"

LOCATION : tastee diner. CLOSED STARTER : @loubriccant.

Her fingers traced the edge of her half-eaten burger, the warm, greasy scent of it suddenly cloying in the air. She had been savoring the simplicity of the meal - something rare in a life so often punctuated by forced perfection - but the moment the bell over the front door chimed, her world seemed to shift.

Lili’s gaze snapped to the entrance, a flicker of irritation dancing in her eyes as she saw her: Louisa fucking Stafford. The name alone was enough to sour her mood, but seeing that insufferable face - one that belonged to a person who had no concept of boundaries - was like a knife twisting in her stomach.

For a moment, she sat frozen, her lips pressing tightly together as she felt her appetite vanish. The burger, which had seemed so comforting moments ago, now lay discarded on the plate in front of her, the soft bread soggy from the melted cheese and mustard.

She leaned back in her booth as if the simple motion could somehow erase the tension that had settled over her. Her eyes flicked toward the window, watching the world outside as if it could offer her a distraction, trying to even out her breath to make herself invisible.

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Lou huffed a quiet laugh, pushing off the tree like she hadn’t just been scrutinized like a particularly questionable cut of meat. “Generous of you,” she mused, brushing a stray leaf off her sleeve. “Though I gotta say, that sounded a lot like a ‘not gonna happen.’”

She looked Pity over, like she was measuring something that couldn’t be put into numbers. Lou didn’t expect charity. Didn’t trust it, usually. But she knew an opening when she saw one. And maybe—just maybe—she was interested enough to take it. With everything going on around Misty Mountain, lately, what was one more skill?

“Fine,” she said, casual, like she hadn’t already decided she’d take her up on it. “Next time, I’ll dress for the burial instead of the wake.” Then, with a half-smirk, she started walking.

Before she could get too far, Lou glanced over her shoulder and called back to Serendipity. “Guess we’ll see if you meant any of that, or if this was just one of those things people say to keep the air between ‘em light. I'll be here instead-a church Sunday!”

Pity hummed with raised eyebrows, a subtle acknowledgment that -- yes, she had noticed. She knew very well of the pressure that 'be quiet!' could bring, how you were suddenly hyperaware of every little noise around you -- hyperaware of the sound of your own footsteps, no matter how lightly you treaded (was it an illusion of the senses? was there any sound at all?). Stepping on a twig had never tended to end well for her, but... if she could say nothing else, it taught her to look out for those!

As for the twig Lou stepped on? Well, Pity could say that she was fairly impressed with her up until that moment. She wasn't perfect, but who the hell was? That damn twig, though...

Before she could comment... Lou made a comment that could rival anything she had to say. Furrowing her eyebrows in an attempt to make sense of how that applied to this situation... she wound up with the inability to do anything but shake her head. "We ain't talkin' about music, Lou."

With the... fairly unrelated comment tossed to the side, she had the verdict! "Tell you what, you get some fittin' attire, maybe I'll teach ya t' shoot." Nothing more than that, though! Just an act of charity, her good deed for the month!

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“People love a lot of things,” Lou muttered, rolling a straw wrapper between her pointer finger and her thumb. “Free IPAs, Blondes, Brunettes, War, Sex, Murder, A good catfight. Shame you don’t charge a cover, think ya might find allathat in here.”

She leaned forward, planting her elbows firmly on the bar, like she had all the time in the world for Lulu. Like she belonged there, even if they both knew she didn’t. "Why don't ya pour me a glass then if yer so sure?" Lou challenged, amused, corners of her lips lazily pulling upward. "Then I can tell ya what I think it is."

Then Lulu went and brought that up. And Lou couldn’t help the sharp, humorless laugh that slipped out, “Carrigan deserved it. And what happened 's between him 'n me. I ain't talkin' about it with you." Lou had very little in this life other than her brain and her good word. She'd done enough wrecking it on her own, Knox didn't need to help with that. “You, though? I don’t know, Lulu. wasn't plannin' on it, but you got a habit of runnin’ your mouth. I’d hate to prove you right and bruise that pretty face.”

She dragged her tongue along her teeth, eyes flicking up to meet Lulu’s. The weight of everything unsaid stretched between them, a thread one of them was bound to snap. There had been one thing that stuck out to her like a sore thumb; What was Knox Carrigan doing running to Lulu Banks over lil ole Lou Stafford?

“What I really wanna know,” Lou started, slow, deliberate, smirk slowly rising. “Is why Knox is comin' to you about all that?”

Jesus fucking Christ. She had to get a new job, one where no one knew who she was, or what she did. There were far too many drop-ins since December at her place of work, and Lulu was genuinely afraid she was going to get fired. She'd been working at this particular bar since she was eighteen; it would be nice to be anonymous again.

She wouldn't have given Lou the drink had she seen her come in, though Lulu was particularly happy she'd slid it to the man beside her before she'd registered her new customer. "People love mistakes at a bar. Maybe if you'd had a real job, you woulda learned that." The quick pints she'd accidentally poured, either mistaken or not, were the ones she was best tipped on--it was just a matter of keeping them behind Vesta's back.

"Bet you five bucks I'll pour you straight ice tea, and you won't even taste the difference," she countered, leaning her chin on her perched palms. This was her bar: how dare her ex-friend come in here and act like it was her own. "If you're gonna wreck this place, you have more than just me to go through, y'know."

"Heard you nearly knocked out Carrigan. Here to give it to me, too, Lou?"

[loubriccant]

how can i get into someone's nightmares i have a message to send

[loubriccant]

Lou's eyes immediately widened when a sliver of something caught in her beam of light. Whatever it had been, it was fast, and definitely not her sister. But what did it mean if it had Mabel's voice? Did it have her? Her face? Lou felt uncharacteristically panicked, frustrated. Her eyes traveled to Rosie, cold air burning her lungs as she gulped it down. "Uh...Not really in the mood, Mabel!" She tried to go along with it, but motioned for Rosie to cover her ears without much context. After this, Lou sincerely doubted she was ever getting coffee with Rosie Routledge. "Come on now, where ya at?" She even crunched around random spots in the snow. It really would be ideal if they had the high ground, but seeing as the noise and shadows were being cast from a roof, they had no choice. Still, maybe they could gain the advantage. Without checking to see if Rosie had covered her ears, Lou pulled her gun from her waistband and shot it at one of the shingles on the museum roof.

"Come out 'n play, motherfucker!"

The monster crouched lower, pressing its sinewy body flat against the icy tiles as the beam of the flashlights swept closer. It hissed softly, retreating just enough to stay out of sight, its claws scraping faintly against the roof with every deliberate movement. The sound, sharp and metallic, echoed in the stillness, slicing through the cold night air.

From its vantage point, it peered down at them, the faint glimmers of their flashlights bouncing off the snow below. It could see the tension in their stances, the way Lou's grip tightened around her flashlight, the slight quiver in Rosie's voice as she tried to sound brave. The monster's jagged grin widened.

With a fluid motion, it tilted its head down at an unnatural angle, leaning just far enough forward to let the edge of its face catch the faintest glow of Lou's light - a cruel tease, a flicker of a nightmare before it withdrew again into the shadows.

Then, in the voice of Mabel Mae, the same voice Lou hadn’t heard in years but could never forget, it called out.

“Lou... come play with me.”

[loubriccant]

Lou exhaled a cloud of smoke like it was the only thing keeping her grounded in that moment, and she let the silence stretch between them, heavy with everything they hadn’t said. She hadn’t expected August to come, but he had. That much surprised her, which was difficult to do. Though the edge in his voice was rather unsurprising.

She studied August’s reaction carefully, almost tender. The tension in his eyes? That was familiar. He didn’t trust her, not fully, not anymore. And he probably shouldn’t. She’d been a ghost to him for years now, but here she was, trying to reach back across the wreckage. Somehow, he still hadn’t given up on her. That made Lou feel strange.

"Guess I should’ve expected that," Lou muttered with a dry chuckle. She leaned back, cigarette dangling from her fingers, and let the words tumble out in a way that felt genuine. "I don’t even know where to start, August. But I need you to listen, because-- Shee-it, I think everyone else is done with me..." It was foreign for her to be so real.

She paused, her eyes narrowing as she flicked ash into the diner’s tray. Her gaze flickered to the door, then back to August, a little less steady this time. "I’ve been seeing things. Weird things. Patterns...Ever since I went to Knox...He ain't back me up, but I know what I seen. I know the occult. Flames and sigils 'n all that." Lou passed August her cup of coffee rather than flagging down the waitress. "I swear I seen...shadows that don’t make sense, impossibly tall. People talkin' to me when they ain't there." Lou recalled the museum with Rosie. "And... I'm tryin' to make sense of it. But every time I try to talk about it, people act like I’m the crazy one. Like I should just shut my mouth, like, like, people ain't dyin'." She leaned in slightly, her voice lower now, like she was letting him in on something dangerous. "And maybe it’s not just me. Maybe there's someone else who sees." Lou gave him a long look.

The confessions lingered, the weight of it hanging in the air between them. Lou didn’t look away, her eyes narrowed, waiting for him to process it. It was the first real thing she’d said to him in years and it had nothing to do with apologies. Lou had a one track mind, and this meeting had everything to do with the kind of truth that only August might understand.

Lou prompted him, "Got anything like that ya might wanna tell me about?" She internally pleaded for him not to call her crazy. She could take it from everyone else. But not him, not August.

Admittedly, August hadn't known quite what to think when he'd found the note under his door scrawled in Lou's familiar handwriting. He'd stopped holding out hope that she might reach back out a long time ago, when just about all his attempts at doing so had continued to go more or less ignored and unanswered. He was bad at letting shit go, it was true, but sometimes — sometimes he could only cling on for so long before it just started hurting too much. Sometimes cutting your losses was all there was left. Despite all the work he'd had to put into learning to let Lou go, though, there was never a single world in which he'd have received that note and not done anything it asked him to. It was a few minutes after midnight already by the time August skulked into the diner, and he wasn't too surprised to find Lou had beaten him there. Seeing her posted up in the booth flooded him with a mix of emotions he didn't really have the time to dissect at the moment. He was sure the wariness was written all over his face as he slid into the booth across from her, and it didn't lessen any as she started talking. If anything, the apology only had him more on edge, especially the lack of elaboration that followed. There was a lot Lou could be apologizing for in that moment, he thought, and he'd like to say he didn't need apologies for any of it, but— It'd been hard. It'd been really fucking hard, and she'd been gone, and August didn't know if she even had any way of fully grasping just how lost he'd been these past few years. He didn't know how to get into all that. He didn't know if he even really wanted to get into all that. But what he wasn't expecting was the question that followed, the subject change, and fortunately, it was enough to grab his attention and pull him out of the feelings he'd been starting to spiral down. His brow furrowed a little as he sat up a little straighter. "Yeah. Yeah, 'course I'd listen," he told her, soft but earnest. He didn't know many of the details, but he'd heard enough of the rumors that had been floating around to know it wasn't good. He'd thought about reaching out to her about it, but — well, it hadn't exactly gone that well the last time he'd done so. "Coffee would be great, by the way," he added, glancing at her mug.

[loubriccant]

Since their incidental run in at the grocery store, it'd been real clear she should stay far away from Lulu Banks. Yet, here she was at the Salty Bear during Lulu's shift. She wasn’t here for the ambiance. Wasn’t here for the company, either. But the Salty Bear was warm, and she didn’t like sitting still in her motel room long enough to think. Drink to stop the think! That's what she's always said!

Lou waltzed in the door, sunglasses on, and plopped down in a stool. She leaned forward, elbows on the bar, and let the chaos around her blur into white noise. It was almost comforting to her, in a way. She wasn't even certain Lulu had seen her yet. She snickered when the beer got shuffled off to the unsuspecting bastard beside her.

In case Lulu hadn't noticed her presence, she was sure to speak up--"Real generous of you, Lieutenant, nothing says hospitality like giving away your mistakes." She drew a spiral into the wood of the bar with her fingernail, watching Lulu like she was waiting for something—maybe a snap, maybe a laugh, maybe nothing at all.

"Bet you five bucks that guy doesn’t even like it," she added, nodding toward the poor soul who’d just inherited Lulu’s fuck-up. "But he’ll drink it anyway. People don’t say no to free shit, even when it tastes like regret."

"Jus' want whiskey straight, by the way bartender."

who: open! what: greetings from ur fav bartender <333 where: the salty bear

Friday nights were the worst of the week, as far as Lulu was concerned. People were just getting off work, pissed off about how their weeks had been, wreaking havoc over the fine establishment she knew as her place of employment. A shame, really! Drinks were being spilled left and right, whether intentionally or not, given the state of intoxication the fine patrons of The Salty Bear found themselves.

At the very least, drunk people usually tipped generously.

It was cold, the draft of the door opening had Lulu questioning her choice of uniform: the cropped navy tee with the bar's name on her breast, her jeans with so many holes that she might as well have been wearing shorts. She was one shiver away from spilling herself, her hands shaky as she poured from the tap.

"Shit," she grumbled, realizing as she locked eyes with the older man at the end of the bar that she'd poured him the exact wrong beer. "Here," Lulu offered, sliding it to the person closest to her, "I fucked up, it's your lucky day. I hope you like an IPA, otherwise ... hell, I wouldn't even care if I didn't like it, free beer's free beer."

[loubriccant]

Lou stood there looking up at the Pryor Estate, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her jacket. Abilene was far from a friend, but she'd helped her out with her neighbor like she said she would. She was lookin' around town so she could give her five dollars as a thank you, but had no luck. And with a girl so young bein' pregnant and all...Lou couldn't help but wanna check in with her. When the door flung open she arched a brow at Abilene’s dramatics, the whole wide-eyed, breathless act. Like Lou was some bad omen crawling out of the dark. Maybe she was.

"Yeah, no shit I shouldn't be here," she muttered, shifting her weight onto one foot. "Good thing I don’t make a habit of askin' permission."

She flicked her eyes over Abilene, taking in the stiff posture, the way she closed the door like she was barricading herself from something worse than Lou. She smiled small, sympathetic, "House like that, all pristine, ya must be chokin' on the scent of control... Don't blame ya, it’d make anyone desperate to breathe."

Lou sighed, like her commentary had been nothing. She pulled a cigarette from her pocket, rolling it between her fingers but not lighting it. "Looked around for ya at all yer usual haunts. This the last place I ain't check. Figured if I came 'round and pressed my ear to the walls, I’d hear you scratching Morse code for ‘help.’"

"And look! Right I was..." Lou extended the five dollar bill to Abilene. "Here."

𝐖𝐇𝐎: abilene pryor & open​​​​​

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓:​​ for whatever reason, your muse is on the front steps of abilene's house!

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: the scariest place on earth (the pryor mansion)

Abilene paced the living room, her arms folded tightly across her chest as though she could hold herself together if she squeezed hard enough. The old grandfather clock in the corner ticked steadily, each second only deepening the quiet of her home. The lamp by the window cast a soft golden light, illuminating the worn floral couch and the faint layer of dust on the bookshelf. It all looked the same as always, but to Abilene, the room felt foreign tonight. Unsettled. Wrong.

She had essentially been put on house arrest by her parents, who deemed it unacceptable for her to be out at night and lately, they were starting to peel her back indoors before the sun even set. She felt like she was beginning to experience some sort of cabin fever. Ever since her brother had left, it felt like the house just grew larger and larger - like it was becoming some sort of maze.

She needed out.

Abilene just needed to see a face - speak a word to somebody that didn't end in prayer. It was late. Late enough that her parents would be in bed, so she edged towards the front door, pulling it open slowly - hoping that the faint creaking wouldn't be enough to wake her parents.

When she glanced outside, she almost jumped back when she saw another person at the other side of the door (okay miss Taylor Swift). "Oh," she gasped. "You shouldn't be here," she stated, closing the door behind her.

"What are you doing here, actually?"

[loubriccant]

Lou leaned against the doorframe, blinking slow like she had all the time in the world to process whatever fresh hell was unfolding on her threshold. She looked Marshall up and down, eyes settling on the stack of papers in his hand.

"You proselytizing now?" she drawled, rubbing a thumb over the edge of her cigarette pack before tucking it back in her pocket. "Guessin' it ain’t got shit to do with salvation, though. Unless Archer Farms is offering redemption with benefits."

She plucked the paper from his hand without looking too closely it, rolling it into a tube and tapping it against her palm. "Y'know, I haven't seen you around in a while...You stocked up or what, kid?"

Her head tilted, something shy of a grin tugging at her mouth. "Anyhow, I don’t work for feudal lords. But thanks for thinkin’ o' me."

an open starter

where: marshall is outside ur house

This was fucking stupid. Marshall told his father that after high school he would commit to one (1) job that supported the daily operations of Archer Farms. Up until today, that job had pretty much been limited to managing scheduling and payroll for the farm. It was a relatively easy job considering the size of their staff. In Marshall's eyes it was a great stepping stone to running everything. Job recruiting was not.

Marshall was going door to door, sticking farmhand and other essential Farm job applications on people's doors. He felt like a piss poor Martin Luther. The religious one not the black one. He had gotten into the habit of sliding his papers in screen doors...so imagine his surprise when a front door flung open in the middle of his routine.

He looked up at the home's inhabitant. "Not a word. Any questions you have are answered on the paper. Have the day you deserve." He said, ready to flee.