#c.threads

[containatrocity]

It isn't that he's avoiding his sisters- Really, he swears that it isn't. It's just that it's easier, actually, to pretend there's not the constant, looming reminder of exactly how close his father could be to finding him, if he bothered to give a shit beyond trying to preserve his investments. It was different, with Felix- the tie that bound them was his mother- who, despite everything, had seemed to try her best to spare Silas and Felix the worst of Silas' birthright of being a righteous douche. His run-in with Aya had gone... strangely. He wasn't sure why she hadn't immediately lit into him, thankful, maybe, that he'd become nearly unrecognizable as the spoiled rich kid she wouldn't have hesitated to chew out and attempt to drag home.

But word traveled, in Huntsville, and it wasn't like 'Chiyoda' was a common name in the area- he'd gone by 'Canne' long enough to know that- and the word traveling... certainly hadn't sounded like Aya. It's still surprising, no matter the conclusion he arrived at, to see Aiko Chiyoda anywhere close to Huntsville. It's almost like a backwards dream, the image of his little sister sitting at the bar at the diner in his usual spot. He considers turning around and leaving.

"Hey! Mornin' Silas!" Busted.

"Yeah, uh, Morning." he greets his neighbor, wincing slightly before turning to face Aiko. "I can... Explain?" That's... surprisingly gentle, for the version of Silas she knew growing up- no cutting remark, no insults- He looks... apologetic. "Does dad know you're here?"

@aivalanche

[pxrfctstrngrs]

Where: Greenview Public Library Who: Jill @murphysreruns

"Mr. Inomata. Take your skates off the study tables." CJ sighs, tugging his ice skates and duffle bag from practice off the tabletop beside him as the head librarian walks off.

"Didn't know my shoes were going to hurt everyone's pursuit of knowledge. Fuck." He rolls his eyes before returning his attention to the open books beside him and the half-finished report on his computer screen. Notoriously behind the curve on most of his assignments, CJ had managed, at the very least, to get his English teacher to pity him and give him an extension on a report that had been due in december- but now he was three days out from the due date and only 4 pages in on eight minimum. He'd come here for peace and quiet after hockey practice, but he's finding it hard to focus- especially when the pen to his iPad rolls down the table as his duffle bag settles on the floor. "Fuck." It comes to rest next to someone else's arm, and he calls out softly. "Psst. Pssst! Hey! Abbott. Can you roll that back over here?"

[containatrocity]

"Listen, we ever get outta here, and I'm taking your ass to like, Cabo. Rio. Some kind of stupid tourist destination that's overblown and outplayed just to say you did it, get that rite of passage out of the way and stamped in your passport, dude." Cyan had somewhat adapted to Huntsville, but of course, there were reminders, lingering markers that he'd been a billionare's son before his arrival and sudden captivity- that he'd been well-off on his own merit just the same, in the way that his 'eat the rich' idealism seemed completely anachronistic to- though it's not his fault, he reasons, that stupid people blow thousands on prototypes that want to steal your identity and data and maybe your girlfriend, at this point. (He's been in Huntsville a while, he fears.)

He might as well use that money once he leaves giving his friends something worth talking about- or some footing to start on. He doesn't need it- living comfortably was easy- blowing his dad's money on stupid shit was spite, an act that barely ever put a ding in the dynasty of Chiyoda. "You can't trust me not to pants you. the moment it became funny, you'd be pantsless. that's just how this works, man." He sighs, as Xavier asks how Rusty's holding up. "Uh, still not quite himself, I guess- He really took pride in his marksmanship, and relearning it has been slow going. I've been helping pick up slack at the ranger station over the summer to give him time off with Reggie when I can manage it- sitting around in a watchtower's not the worst, I code more updates to the games on InariOS while I'm up there. And I will take a tower in the woods over changing diapers for at least a few hours a week." He laughs. "He'll get there, I think. It's just, rough- that earthquake fucked up a lot of shit for uh. a lot of people- and it feels like worse has happened since. I think we all just need a break from stuff happening, you know?" He's not thinking about finding Kane's body. Goddammit, now he's thinking about the body. "...suddenly, I'm a lot less hungry."

"long ass time? try my entire life. this place is all i know and probably all i'll ever know but i'm content with it, can't miss or want something i never got to experience." xavier said with a shrug. to someone else it might've sounded sad or something along those lines but for him it was normal, huntsville quite literally was all he knew. "but also in my defense VR was never something i knew about even before shit got fucky, it's a cool concept and it's fun. i think it trips me up mostly cause i can't see my surroundings, how am i to trust you not to pants me huh?" he teased but chuckled and shook his head, "i wouldn't forgive myself if i laid a finger on your kid even as an accident." he may not want kids, at least not atm but kids still held a soft spot for him.

he chuckled again and shoved cyan playfully as he sat down, "how is rusty by the way? since the whole eye thing?"

[containatrocity]

"If I'm there to catch you when you fall- You'll have a friend down in Hell after all..." The last week had been. Weird, to say the least, busy, marked with work- restoring the intranet, checking on injured friends and looking after Russell to lighten Sissy's load- It had been almost an act of desperation, radioing G and Wren to see if they had the time to sit around and play something, anything, to pass the time, to latch onto a little normalcy around the stress of trying to 'live in the after' for what felt like the hundredth time that year. They were down a few members, Cyan and G slumped onto a dirty couch in the Romero garage, feet propped up and guitars across their laps, Wren absently playing a wooden box between her feet for percussion- it was a break from reality.

Reality comes creeping alongside Hunter Hilton, who is also creeping further out of town than Cyan tends to see him. "And if you're there to catch me when I fall- Then maybe Hell ain't so bad-" He lifts a hand, waving slightly to quiet the instruments. "You lost, Hilton?" Comes the question, a raised brow over sunglasses quickly tucked into his hair. "If you're trying to round two Mo, he's not here." Word traveled fast, it seems.

@oxtofmydcpth

[pxrfctstrngrs]

Where: Campus Who: CJ and Kaleb @stormymists

"I don't know, man, I didn't exactly go about trying out for the show with the thought 'oh man it'll sure be awful for ticket sales if it comes out I'm our local scarlet letter!' but short of recasting me- which, I assure you, they can try, but it will make the show worse- there's not much we can do about it. Toss a fucking musical number in the middle featuring the ensemble so nobody has to look at my face, I guess." It's just CJ and a friend from theater clearing out the storage space today by the looks of it, racks of clothes pulled outside and a handful of boxes already stocked with props and costumes on their way out. He pauses, though, and whether it's the sound of footsteps approaching or the realization his companion has been inside this whole time, he turns.

"Oh, Hey Kaleb." He monotones, tossing another shirt into the box beside him and another onto the rack. "What's up?"

[containatrocity]

"If I pretend they threw the festival for me, this is the first birthday party I've ever had where everybody maybe kinda liked me and wasn't around because I like... Have a pool and illicit substances." He admits with a chuckle, that builds into a laugh as Sissy shoves him. "Okay, okay, I'm going, Hot cocoa, slice of pie, pickled something, I got the checklist." He sets a kiss on her forehead. "Love you. Back soon." And then he's off, the trail of his leather coat dragging the ground slightly, smudged visage of The Crow painted over his features already a little messed from his bandmates insisting on touching his face and time spent simply idling with Sissy around the stalls.

It's snacks he's been sent to retrieve when he stumbles into somebody else. "Shit, bro I'm sor-" He realizes, after a moment, that 'Bro' was an apt descriptor, because for all his concerted effort to avoid him- he'd smacked headlong into... Felix. "Oh. Hey, Felix uh." He sighs. "Yep, just as awkward as I was expecting it to be- uh, hey, if you're gonna like... tell me to fuck myself and die or something like most everybody back home wants to can we go somewhere away from people? I'm trying really, really hard to not cause any more scenes ever again if I can help it."

@endlessreruns

[pxrfctstrngrs]

"Shit, did you come back earlier? That's on me. My bad." He really didn't feel too bad about the inconvenience- if anything, it had felt good, to get a little stress off his mind, even if it meant causing a little more for Emmet. "Next time, I'll send a warning text, or something. Sock on the door's gonna get me into shit with the RA, and like, you know nobody really does that, right? it's like, a movie thing." He snorts, finally waving Emmet inside. He's sat on the edge of his bed, taping up his hockey stick, clothes still strewn on the floor- but mercifully, only on his side of the room. "I am wearing underwear again, before you have some kind of panic about that too... Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry." He holds a hand up.

"Did you seriously just say 'doing the do'? I don't do the do dude, I'm a grown ass man, I fuck." He finally seems to finish his task at hand, setting his stick aside. "But seriously. I'll like, try and text, or something. I would hate to scar your delicate sensibilities, man."

who: emmet and cj where: their dorm @pxrfctstrngrs

usually emmet didn't knock on the door of his own dorm room but he'd also wasn't expecting cj to have someone in their room earlier. he took the hint however and left but was bored and now back, peeking through the door to make sure he was alone... and clothed. "oh thank god, you'd put a sock on the door if you were doin the do right? cause i don't want to walk in on all of that."

[sunriseverse]

the waistcoat is finally done!!! it only took like seven months haha. (it’s much a more verdant green in real life than it shows up as in the photo—closer to emerald than the near-blue it looks like.)

[containatrocity]

"She's just eating a lot of weird stuff now, I guess that's normal. The books say that's normal." Cyan flicks ash from the end of his joint, passing it back to G with a nod. "Hey, I'll see you around dude- you and Wren still up for practice next week? Sissy usually doesn't need me on Rusty's days off, so." It's an affirmative from the other man who lifts a hand in a wave and walks off toward town proper that confirms their plans for later, and releases Cyan to sit back down on the open doorway of his van.

He's about to uncork a bottle of mead and set to work wiping rental drives when footsteps coming up the drive catch his attention again. "You forget some shit G? It's probably sitting on the coun- Fuck me." His slight smile drops into a hard scowl, tattooed arms crossing over his chest. "To what do I owe the displeasure of your visit, Hilton?" He'd known he was in town, to be fair. Val had already informed him of at least one sexual encounter Cyan was loathe to think about the details of- He just had hoped he could manage to avoid him longer. "Which face-fucking is this? Have you reached the double digits yet?"

@oxtofmydcpth

[containatrocity]

"Oh. Not like, for a living, or anything." he closes the notebook, sits it aside and settles his pen atop it. "My friends wanted to start a band to give us some shit to do around here that's not like, throwing rocks at the Pizza Bell Hut Taco sign." He laughs. "So I got roped into singing sometimes, and doing a lot of the producing because I used to be a promoter in LA before I came here and uh. Know more about recording than any of the rest of them. I'm trying to work out what lyrics work with what music, they're all kinda... scatterbrained." He shrugs, when she points out she's surprised he knows her name. "I uh. Must have caught it somewhere along the 2 years I've been here, you know? Osmosis, or whatever." He's technologically smart- he's pretty sure he's using the word right, but he'll ask Sissy later, when he lays in bed horrified he did something that made him look dumb earlier in the day, as he always does. "I'm mostly just uh. Fixing technology around town these days, still renting out media from my van. This is for fun." He reasons. "Need something to keep the mind working that isn't the futility of trying to find a screen for a phone made in 2023 in a town trapped in 2011, you know?"

she smiles in response -- perhaps a little tight as she's still on edge -- and slides into the booth opposite of cyan. her fingers grip the mug containing her steaming hot cup of tea, granulated sugar still littering one side of the rim and when she lifts it to her lips to take a sip, the taste reminds her of home. leona breathes out, nodding some. "yeah, that's me. i'm uh, real surprised you know that, actually." she admits, ducking her head to cast a glance at her tea if only to give herself something to look at. she peeks back at cyan after a moment. "uh, just 'cause i mostly keep to myself. it's nice to meet'cha, anyways." she nods towards his notebook. "you a singer or somethin'?"

[sunriseverse]

i’ve finally finished up my own shirt, so here’s the tutorial! (click for quality.) you’ll need about 6ft x 4ft of fabric, preferably 100% cotton because you’ll be wearing it against your skin. here’s a tutorial for handsewing button holes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPoIZ5rKOPM

[containatrocity]

"Well yes, when you put it that way it's rather silly that I have to wear pants in public too, but the fact remains, both of us need to cover our cankles before we go outside, the elements are unkind, I don't need people starting to assume I've lost my mind more than I already have- and nobody wants to see your diaper." He's not sure when he started having lengthy conversations with a literal infant, but it's become part of the day's operations, his sunglasses over his eyes and the canvas bags the Boone family used to get groceries slung over one shoulder with the baby strapped tight to his chest in her carrier.

He's barely thinking, when he catches the door to the Food Market with his foot and one tattooed hand to hold it for the person behind him- at least, until he catches sight of who it is and swears in Japanese under his breath- before clarifying in his second language. "Aya? what the fuck are you doing here?" Someone's been in town looking for him- Realization sets in about exactly who that's been. "Don't tell me Aoi sent you after me."

@ambercast

[sunriseverse]

they have full patterns for men’s waistcoats

[containatrocity]

"And then we glue it down here and-" It is not exactly uncommon to bear witness to Cyan and Gabe trying to spark their singular braincell together to do something they shouldn't. At current, they appear to be affixing traffic cones to the roof and hood of Cyan's van, producing a look not unlike a stegosaurus- which further explains the honestly rather impressive cardboard head taped to the grille. "And then when we finally have to push this bitch to the Boone place, at least we can have fun with it- Gabe, toss me the booze." Cyan nearly spills off the top of the van to catch one of the bottles of moonshine, leaning down to knock it against G's own. "Kanpai!" He takes a long drink, catching himself against a 'spike' before spotting Natalie approaching. "Heeeeey Natalie!" He shouts, jumping down. "What up? Sissy's not around if that's who you're looking for. She's back at our place making the tail. but you can hang if you want, G's about to head out, has plans with Joooooosie. Movie night."

"yeah, we're watching movies."

"Netflix and shake like a nervous dog." He snorts. "But seriously, we're just shooting the shit, and Sissy'll be by in a bit, if you just wanna kick it or something."

@ambercast

[pxrfctstrngrs]

All he wanted was a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich before he had to be at class, really- a short detour for something to eat before he had to get back to being treated like some kind of fucking leper. He was just egotistical enough to notice the way people looking at him had changed. It used to be admiration, or at least something that wasn't fucked up pity or abject loathing- In a way, maybe it's Tatum alone who might understand what he's going through right now- if not on the other side of it. It doesn't make him any more pleased to see her walking in, swearing under his breath and white-knuckling his coffee before speaking up. He's in a corner booth across from the door- a place to watch people without being watched himself. "Wait- Tatum. Hey... Look, we haven't talked since- Well." He doesn't like to acknowledge it.

Chloe's funeral made it real. Jason's didn't- Part of him feels like it's business left unfinished, haunting Greenview like ghosts. He wants to leave again.

"...Just, I've got like, an hour, before class, I'll buy you breakfast?"

where: blackbeard's diner who: cj ( @pxrfctstrngrs )

the last person tatum wanted to see was cj. it took all her might not to turn around and walk out the door she just went through to avoid how painfully horrible this whole experience was now going to be. she was a forgiving person and she was trying, it wasn't all cj's fault after all, but the wounds were still too fresh. for someone she once considered one of her closest friends, all she saw now was a complete stranger.

[sunriseverse]

look at all this other free content she has on her ko-fi!!