❅ SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 1

[nightmods]

SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 1

Each year in this town, the winters seem to get harder and the summers seem to get hotter, and this was no exception. After several months of sweltering afternoons and sweaty nights, fall is finally starting to break the town’s fever, although with the cooler weather comes the death of the horseflies, leaving many of the town’s flat surfaces coated in bug carcasses. The sky is overcast, the air remains humid, and in the distance thunderstorms can be heard almost every hour of the day.

During the day, people go about their usual routines, working primarily at the slaughterhouse or mines during the weekdays, vegetating in front of the television on Saturdays, and sitting straightbacked and paranoid in the pews on Sunday, fearful less of the wrath of God than the ire of the neighbors. Evenings for the average person are filled with drinking at Nog’s or Auntie’s or peering at the TV until bedtime.

This is where our heroes find themselves, waking with a new lifestory that integrates them into this, the shitty little town.

PROMPTS

a)  NOG'S

Nog's bar is the preferred haunt of most of the miners and slaughterhouse workers in this town, who meet to drink their woes away, complain about their supervisors and speculate on the personal lives of the people around them. Despite Mr. Goluboy's constant harassment, Nog has managed to keep his liquor license, and as such is one of the few successful businesses in town on account of all the stress-induced alcoholism. While one won't find fancy cocktails here, if they're just looking for a beer and some scuttlebutt, this is the place.

b)  AUNTIE'S

"Auntie's" is the name of the old-school, 1950's-esque, 24-hour diner in the middle of downtown, with big red pleather booths, checkerboard floors and a jukebox. Typically, the only difference in clientele between Auntie’s and Nog's is that the people at Auntie’s wanted a burger or a stack of pancakes alongside their beer – but unlike Nog's, Auntie’s is only barely hanging on, constantly getting ticketed for waterspots on the silverware and not having enough napkins. Thankfully, one can get a full breakfast meal at Auntie's any time of day for a few dollars.

c)  THE DOCKS

The town is alongside a lake, and once upon a time there was enough fish to sustain a modest fishing economy and a river that allowed for trade by boat with other nearby towns. However, with the mines' pollution, fish are no longer considered safe to eat, and only the water immediately adjacent to the springhead on the Warren Family Farm is safe to swim in. Draining from the mines has lowered the level of the river enough that it's no longer navigable. Residents will still occasionally use the lake for boating recreation, but fees at the marina keep going up (into Goluboy's pocket) and mothers are increasingly worried about letting their children get wet in that water.

d)  THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

The other major employer, owned by Ms. Cygne. Most of the locals who don't work at the mines work at the slaughterhouse, where the work is disgusting, dreary and grueling. Sometimes people get promoted out of the trenches and into admin. Yay.

e)  BIG TOP CIRCUS COFFEE

Dick's Coffeeshop is in the bottom floor of an apartment building, and many locals have no idea how it hasn't been shut down yet, given that the owner is famously generous with his resources in a way that clearly irritates the city council. Dick offers jobs to those who Goluboy and Cygne won't hire at the mines or slaughterhouse and frequently sneaks day-old pastries to the hungry. The coffeeshop is one of the few areas where artists tend to converge, usually at the weekly open mic night; however, whatever one expresses at the coffeeshop is likely to be picked up by the town gossips, mocked relentlessly, distorted and spread around.

f)  THE FARMER'S MARKET

Because Mr. Goluboy's malicious prosecution of small businesses has essentially shut down any legal avenue for a farmer's market, a few of the residents of the town have established a black market for homegrown fruits and vegetables, small-batch soaps and candles, and other small products. Words gets out through a whisper network, and a few times a month everyone in the know meets in a parking lot, opens their trunk, and does some bartering and selling with each other until they get found out. Sheriff Mallard and her deputies have arrested many people at these pop-ups and confiscated their products. By now, these pop-ups have around forty people trading and selling at a time, and the city council has announced that out of concerns for food safety the sentence for being caught vending homegrown produce will be increased to a misdemeanor with jail time.

g)  THE LIBRARY

The library, once well-stocked and indulgently funded, is now kept alive sheerly by the passion of the one paid librarian, Aziraphale, and the volunteers who work there. There is no interlibrary loan program and there have been no new books in years. The library is reduced to loaning damaged copies missing pages, and story hours or public events are difficult to organize due to the complete lack of resources. The city council has also forced Aziraphale to put up a sign against loitering or using the library "for any purposes besides the borrowing of books." An organization of local busybodies drops in frequently to comb through the stacks for "objectionable material," which is then destroyed at Ms. Cygne's behest.

h)  WILDCARD/NEW LOCATION

Feel free to set things around town anywhere you want or make up new locations.

i)  THE SPOOKY WOODS

Outside the town, there are foggy, dense woods, difficult to navigate by foot due to thickets and brambles that come up to a grown man's waist. The city council has done what they can to ban people from going into the woods, and the gruesome animal maulings are a compelling disincentive.

Note: Let the plot mods know when your characters are going into the spooky woods.

OOC DETAILS
❅ OOC Plotting: Here. More locations can be found there. You can also ask the players running the plot questions there.

❅ Event Length: This part of the plot is to establish CR and characters' roles in town. It will last about a week and half before future parts that allow the characters to start digging into the mysteries of the town.

❅ New Characters: If your character is introing at this time, assume they arrived just in time at the location the plot takes place in to be caught up in the magic drawing everyone in. They would have gotten the Man in the Moon's spiel from the welcome page right before being magically sucked in.

❅ Opt-out: Anyone that doesn't want to play in the plot can handwave their character didn't go on the mission that put the characters in the location where they were sucked in. You can thread your characters back at the Pole or send them on another smaller mission with other characters.

Comments

Dan Sagittarius | Open and Individual Top-Levels

[hallelujahjunction]

I. I Just Know Who I’m Not and That’s Alright with Me [OPEN]

Dan isn’t sure how the information about his prison sentence got out among the townsfolk, although he suspects it was one of the deputies who felt it would be a salacious topic of conversation. Whomever it was, they and the officer who impounded his car took Dan’s already difficult situation in this town and made it utterly demoralizing. For the last few weeks, Dan’s been living on the streets, bedding down in alleyways and, when he has enough time to walk back to the woods, sleeping in a tarp hammock in the tree line. He’s lost enough weight that he’s had to punch a new hole in his belt, managing one, maybe two paltry meals a day by begging and dumpster-diving and scavenging and trapping squirrels in the woods. His cough has gotten deeper and heavier even though he’s smoking less, mostly because cigarettes are difficult to shoplift when they’re locked in a case.

As of the last week, his homelessness is impossible to cover up. He’s started to smell bad, and his clothing is battered in ways he can’t fix with his little sewing kit. As he’s been chucked into jail several times for trying to busk or vend caricatures or solicit any kind of work – handyman, janitor, dogwalker, anything – he’s been reduced to outright panhandling, and even that’s been getting him in trouble with the new campaign to clean up the downtown. More and more, it feels like the town is removing all his options to just exist in peace, as if they could make his presence so unwanted and illegal that he would vanish into the air in a puff of smoke.

He misses his car. He would have blown this pop stand if he had wheels, and he’s considered stealing someone’s vehicle, but he knows that everyone here uses their cars or trucks for work, and he doesn’t want to get anyone fired.

Today he’s scrounged a shoebox from the garbage, and he plans to use that as his piggybank. He puts his one wadded-up dollar and a handful of pennies in it to give everyone the hint and finds a sidewalk downtown where he can see if police are coming from either direction.

He approaches anyone who doesn’t outright avoid eye contact, trying to avoid moving too quickly, trying to be smiling and warm so there’s no way his request can be considered menacing. “Spare change?”


II. I’ve Rolled in Dirty Dollars, Stood in the Welfare Line [OPEN]

As it’s raining, Dan’s engaged in the time-honored hobo tradition of nursing black coffee through the day to avoid being accused of loitering at the coffeeshop. He doesn’t think Dick would kick him out, but the sheriff and her lackeys have been sniffing around Dick’s business, and Dan’s sure they’d use any excuse to level a fine at Dick. Dan doesn’t want to be that excuse.

Dick’s let him use the shower, so Dan did his best to scrub every little bit of dirt off him, behind his ears and under his nails and between his toes and everywhere that’s gotten grimy and dusty from weeks of sleeping outside. Unfortunately, he had to go right back into his damp, filthy, tobacco-stale clothing, so the feeling of being purified and washed clean was short-lived. He was able to afford a muffin this morning – he insisted on paying – and he’s been paying for his coffee (which he's been doctoring with the small bottle of whiskey he was able to shoplift), but breakfast was many hours ago and he’s feeling the lightheadedness and tension of hunger again.

When he sees an abandoned table, half-eaten sandwich sitting in wax paper with a toothpick sticking out of it like a flagpole, he watches for a minute or two to see if it’s been temporarily or permanently abandoned. When he figures it’s been long enough that he can assume the sandwich is sitting there to be bused rather than boxed up and taken to go, he swoops in and takes it before it ends up in the garbage. He retreats to his corner and starts to wolf it down, feeling a kick of satisfaction until he sees the owner of the sandwich return to their table and find their food missing.

“Oh! Sorry, I…I took your sandwich. I reckoned you’d abandoned it.” Dan pulls a yikes face. He’d offer to buy a new one if he could, but if he could afford a sandwich, he wouldn’t be vulturing over the tables. “I’m so sorry.”


III. Halfway Home is Where the Heart Is and I’m Halfway Home [For Bunny]

Dan overheard about this farmer’s market by eavesdropping at Big Top, and so he made it a point to get up early and walk towards the lot where it’s taking place, walking quickly but with his gut tightened in an effort to push through his hangover. He has the cardboard sign a volunteer at the library helped him write, an uninspired please give, anything helps, a God bless on the other side to appeal to the more religious townsfolk’s sympathies.

The farmer’s market fills him with a sort of pride for people; he’s touched by this effort to flourish underneath the tyranny of Mr. Goluboy and Ms. Cygne’s weaponized business codes. With a pain in his chest, Dan thinks that this is the sort of event his parents would have wanted to participate in, if they’d only been a little less isolative. A wish pops up into his head that he could bring some of the squash he and his family grew on their farm to contribute; the wish is cruel, because there hasn’t been squash on that land in two and a half decades, and instead of produce, Dan has nothing but his open hand to offer.

After asking for change for a while, he approaches the Warren Family Farms cart, figuring that he should start with the vendor best known for his generosity and permissiveness. He stops by, counting out coins from his palm. He looks up and sees Aster, whom he has never spoken to, but who has the most lovely green eyes and strong arms, dirt from working the farm up to his forearms. Dan feels another pang as he remembers the feeling of digging up vegetables and planting seeds, and how that type of self-sufficiency felt so much less undignified than the way he's living now.

“Good morning,” he says, dismaying that he’s only managed to rustle up forty-five cents. “You organized this, right?”


IV. Nice Neighbors, Bad Cough [For Stacia]

After being chased off from the farmer’s market, Dan starts the walk back to where he’s been sleeping in the woods, up off the ground in a hammock made of a tarp and cord, exposed to the elements that have degraded his clothing to the point where it’s obvious he doesn’t have anything to change into. Dan repairs his own clothing with his father’s attention to detail, but there’s only so far he can mask the water damage, worn-thin patches and especially the discoloration of mud and spills and worse from his drunken nights.

He got a basket of produce from Aster, and he’s trying to let that buoy his spirits over being accused again of something he didn’t do, something he struggles to explain because he feels like he becomes stupid and dumb when he tries to talk about Ellie, and then being told in no uncertain terms to make himself scarce. He’s trying instead to think of how nice it’ll be to cook this sweet potato over his campfire, of having some herbs to flavor the burdock soup he’s been using to fill his stomach, of eating the jar of elderberry jam and licking it off his fingers.

He pauses when he sees a deputy car starting to roll up the hill, and he immediately about-faces and starts to walk back to the market. He runs straight into a small teenage girl, and makes the decision to talk to her even though he knows she’s going to end up being told to be more careful and he’ll add to his reputation as a predatory lech.

He has to raise the alarm. “You just came from the farmer’s market, right?”


V. Bless This Mess, Can I Bum a Light? [For Miguel]

Out by the docks, the only place Dan seems to be able to vend his art unbothered by the sheriff, he’s packing up his sketchbook, cardboard sign and markers into a weathered duffel bag that contains the majority of what he owns. After six hours on the dock, selling caricatures for ten dollars a pop, fifteen for a couple, he’s made twenty dollars total, and he doesn’t feel good about that, as he suspects the buyers cared less about getting some custom art than they cared about getting Dan to leave them alone. That’s not enough to get enough alcohol to get him to sleep tonight.

The autumn has brought on a nightly chill, so Dan wraps his arms around himself as he walks, hoping he can hitchhike home but knowing that there probably isn’t anyone in town willing to give him a ride. He’s sure he wouldn’t be particularly pleasant company either; he’s too worn down to feel chatty and he hasn’t been able to shower or launder his clothes in several days now. He tries to pick up the pace so he can get back to downtown, where the vent behind the kitchen at Auntie’s provides some warmth, before it gets too cold. After a few days of sleeping there, his clothing has taken on a faint odor of French fry grease along with everything else.

He's just reached the point where the marina connects to the main road when he sees a MineCorp truck with its hazards on pulled over by the side. He walks over, peering into the driver’s window from a distance and feeling relieved that the driver’s a large adult man; if they were a woman or a teenager, he’d worry about making them feel threatened.

He gently raps his knuckles on the driver’s window. “You alright?”


VI. A Long Life Ahead to Live with Yourself, So Think About It [For Logan]

“Show me your hands,” the deputy says, making Dan hold his arms out through the jail cell bars. Dan’s hands are riddled with scabs and open cuts, but they hold steady, and the deputy decides that there’s no concern at the moment that Dan’ll go into withdrawal. “Okay, get back to your cot. We’ll check on you in a few hours. If you’re here tomorrow night again, I swear to God…”

Still muttering, the deputy walks out of the ward. Dan huffs a sigh and lays down on the thin mattress of his cot, staring at the ceiling and mourning the last bit of tipsiness starting to leave his system. He figures if he lies very still, if his heart rate is slow and his blood obediently, slowly trudging through his veins, he’ll metabolize the last few shots he had less quickly and keep that easy, blurry feeling in his body just a little while longer.

He hates being left alone in the tank. There’s nothing to do, no one to talk to most of the time, none of the distractions of survival that fill up Dan’s days. That’s the only silver lining Dan can find to his situation in this shithole town; being homeless is hard work, and instead of thinking about where Ellie went or where his siblings might be, he’s thinking about where to get his next meal, which pedestrians might throw him a dollar, where he can launder his clothes, where to get his next fix of cigarettes and alcohol, how to move his belongings to somewhere warmer, where he can bathe, all these things that would be simple with a roof over his head. The tribulations of living keep him from being able to get stuck in those dark whirlpools in his mind.

But not in the drunk tank. It’s just him and his rapidly fading buzz. He thinks of the alcohol in his body like a lover on a departing ship, moving inexorably and slowly out of sight, as he waves from the shore.

“You got company, Sagittarius,” the deputy says, leading the next drunk into the tank, as Dan sits up with curiosity and dim excitement to see who it is.


VII. You choose!

III

[bringinghopewithme]

Aster was speaking to the grandmother who sells apple tarts made with his apples out of the back of her Subaru, and that was a good, smiling conversation, but when he hears Dan’s voice and his head snaps to look at Dan, his smile goes away as if it had never been there.

The grandmother, too, tells her grandchildren to get her playing cards out of the glove compartment and quit running around, and as the kids complain about it, Aster lowers his voice.

“No. Get out of here.”

He reaches into the bed of the next-door pickup, grabs a burlap sack, and all but hurls it at Dan.

“There are kids here, so you aren’t going to be,” he says, pointedly, quietly, so no one can hear this as a fuss, so none of the kids can be upset by it.

Inside the burlap sack is a loaf of bread from one of the other local vendors. There are two jars of jam, butter from someone’s cows, a dozen eggs from Aster’s garden, already hardboiled. Sweet potatoes too, and carrots, a change of clothes and a bar of the soap that Aster uses at the outdoor shower behind his greenhouse. A pointed message, given Dan’s aroma. And, in cash, two hundred dollars.

Dan could be forgiven for taking this as a kindness until Aster asks, “Is that enough to get you out of town?”

I. Used to Be a Lover, a Queen and a Drifter

[composinghistory]

Julian had gotten to know Dan before the rumors had gotten bad. He asked about them one day, and got the saddest fucking answer he'd could've imagined. Considering the shit these people say about him, and each other, he takes it with a grain of salt. Dan's been nothing but good to him-- better than good, even.

When Dan comes up to Julian he's carrying his guitar case, like always, and looks slightly out of breath.

"Give me a moment," he huffs out. "I just ran several blocks to get out of our dear Ms. Mallard's earshot."

Julian had been busking on a street corner, as he does near every day, when he heard the sounds of 'friendly' townies greeting their beloved Sheriff. He knows better than to stick around, especially when she almost certainly heard him playing. He didn't have time to do more than grab his shit and run.

I.

[bostonhowler]

Brigid doesn't hold anyone's past against them. He hadn't wronged her personally, nor anyone she knew, so she's going to let him be at face value.

"I'm sorry, no." But she digs into her lunch box and offers him a sandwich, an apple and a muffin that she has left over. She always carries extra, in case people need food at the mine. Today had been a day where no one went hungry, but she's glad she has the extra.

"Here. This'll help." She says, softly.

[ninjavampire]

One side of a muffled phone conversation comes through the crack of the window:

"- Claro que si. Voy a mandar el grabación cuando regreso al garaje. Solo era otro loco tropezando por la calle. Yo se. Uno de estos días, Dany, lo juro -"

'*Of course I did. I'm going to send over the recording when I get back to the garage. It was just another nutjob stumbling around the street. Yeah, I know. One of these days, Dany, I swear... !'

Miguel pauses, spotting Dan out of the corner of his eye. He says something to the other man on the speaker of his smartphone and hangs up. The window lowers a little more, giving Dan a proper view of his face. The truck stood high up off the ground, sitting on broad tires meant to haul heavy machinery and grind up off-road gravel and dirt. It was coated in dust from the mountain - the paint-scratches across the MineCorp logo were barely visible amid the rest of it.

Miguel's expression is colder than usual, and there was a speck or two of dried blood on his face. He had either gotten into a fight or had an unfortunate run in with whatever machinery was involved for work.

"Are you looking for something?" the English comes out equally fluent and already suspicious of him.

VI

[worstverine]

Logan isn't entirely out of it. He's wriggling a little in the deputy's arms.

"Wish you wouldn't make such a habit of this, Howlett."

"And I wish you'd go fuck yourself," he slurs.

"I guess if wishes were horses you'd still have your ranch, huh?" the deputy says scathingly. He tosses Logan into the cell and Logan collapses on top of the bench opposite Dan, face smushed against it.

"Anyway, you're keeping good company tonight." That's all the deputy says before locking up and walking away.

Logan squints, face still smushed against the bench, and his eyes struggle to move up and focus on Dan.

"The fuck'd'he mean by that?"

[credit_not_blame]

Anna knows she looks young, but she looks still-a-teenager young, not hello-child-predator young. She draws herself up to her full (unimpressive) height and gives the man her most withering glare.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," she says coldly, as though she's not got a number of delicious things stashed in her canvas tote bag underneath a layer of cheap paper products. Then she drops into a low hiss to add, "you have one chance to back away before I start screaming."

Actually, screaming at the unfortunately-local perv would be a good way to distract the deputy and give everyone at the farmer's market a chance to skedaddle...

II

[irulian]

This is what Skye gets for taking a work call on a Saturday, a man in dirty clothing has eaten her sandwich. She looks over at Dan as he apologizes, her expression revealing a moment of annoyance that she visibly pushes past, forcing herself not to snap at him. There won't be any satisfaction in directing her anger at someone who's acting out of desperation, and she can easily see the look her dad would give her, if she indulged in the emotion.

"It's fine. I didn't expect to be gone so long." The implication being that if she had, she would've made an effort to indicate the sandwich hadn't been abandoned. "But please tell me you didn't touch my coffee."

The cup was half empty when she left, and it still looks half-empty, but she needs to be sure.

II. I’ve Rolled in Dirty Dollars, Stood in the Welfare Line

[wannabeastman]

Well, that's disappointing. Louis had been enjoying that sandwich. He doesn't eat out much; he's trying to save up the money to get out of this town and back to his sister, but he'd been craving something that wasn't cooked on a hot plate.

Still, this guy's scrounging for other people's leftovers. Clearly he needs it more than Louis wanted it. Louis rummages through his pocket and comes up with a few crumpled bills and some change.

"You probably need this more than I do too, then," he says, holding it out to the shorter man. "Sorry, I don't have much cash on me today."

It's less than eight bucks, but it's less-than-eight-bucks that might get this guy something else in his stomach today.

Aster Warren | Open and Individual Top-Levels

[bringinghopewithme]

I – Not late for the Farmer’s Market [OPEN]

The farmer’s market is going well tonight in the parking lot of the condemned Texaco that shut down two years ago. Aster’s sourced one massive floodlight that illuminates the circle of parked vehicles, cars backed up with their trunks open, trucks with their beds full of wares, but the visibility could be better from the single industrial glare he found in the garage and figured out how to plug into the electric generator.

As usual, someone else drove for him, the teenage son of the Warren farm’s nearest neighbors, and Aster’s too busy patrolling the edge of the market and wandering up and down the road keeping an eye and ear out for snitches to sell his own wares. Thus the same kid’s going to take home a lot more than minimum wage for manning his open truckbed tonight, but the kid is really distracted by the girl at the jam car across the lot that he has a crush on, and Aster’s truckbed full of veggies and fruits are easy to pilfer without paying even the pittance he’s asking for them.

II – In the Jailhouse Now [closed to Dan]

Last night’s market didn’t go so well. Probably because Aster didn’t spot the plainclothes deputy in time, because he was too busy struggling with the generator again. He has never had a head for machines, and that generator fully has a mind of its own.

Anyway, the deputy had already called Sheriff Mallard by the time he heard the sourdough gal protesting as the deputy confiscated her wares, and by the time he’d wrestled the deputy to the ground and gotten all the jars free for Sourdough Gal to pick up, the sirens were already in the air and the other sellers were slamming their trunks and peeling out.

Then the deputy tazed him. A few times. He still feels like every hair on his body is still sticking up on end.

Once he noticed who was in the neighboring cell, he tried to ignore Dan for the remainder of this 24 hour lockup, but he’s too fired up to sleep, has already done all the t’ai chi that this cell gives him room for, plus a bunch of pushups after his heart rate still hadn’t gone down. Now he’s slouched against the wall, bored and mad and bored enough to talk to anyone. Even someone with a reputation as deplorable as Dan’s.

But he sure isn’t going to be the one to start the conversation.

The deputy he has an assault charge now on behalf of walks in, changing shift with another. “Black eye looks good onya,” Aster calls from the cell.

“Put your shirt back on or I’ll tase you again,” says the deputy. Aster, grumbling and sweaty, puts his shirt back on.

III – Folded In This Scrap of Paper is a Land I Grew In [OPEN]

The Warren farms seem brighter somehow than the rest of town.

Even the fields that grow well don’t seem to hold the light the way this land does. How could Aster be jealous of it, then, and report anybody who wanders on it? When he spends so much time wandering it himself, the orchards and the fields where there’s always food at hand, the spring where water is clean enough to drink from the ground, the woods that aren’t tainted by the aura of something menacing.

Autumn will strip the greenery out of his property like it strips everywhere else, and Aster quietly worries what the people who steal from his fields will do in winter. He worries this as he walks the runner beans climbing from their beds of squash around the towering stalks of corn. Winter’s going to come, and no matter who finds a way to sabotage his propane supply, he has enough wood in the cellar for himself. He has candles and terra cotta to make little space heaters and wool blankets piled over a tent in the basement to make the smallest space to heat, and enough batteries to power his carbon monoxide and fire alarms until spring again, but the kids he knows wander here to escape their foster homes, and the adults who come here because a sweet potato is more filling when it’s free, don’t have his resources. He can keep himself alive. He’s done it this long. He knows that it’s an imperative.

He suspects someone will be trying to stop him from accomplishing it. The way he suspects someone succeeded in stopping everyone he ought to have to come home to.

Right now, though, in the runner beans, beneath the apple orchards, in the hilly woods, he is worried about everyone aside from himself, and all the ways he cannot protect them.

II

[hallelujahjunction]

When they popped Aster in, Dan stopped pacing like a caged animal; he knows that constant movement out of the corner of someone’s eye can be agitating, so he laid down on the cot with his blanket, leafing through the Bible that the deputy gave him to look and see if any previous jailbird populated any pages with doodles. He flips through the pages too quickly to be reading them, but he slows down when Aster takes off his shirt and exercises, to try and camouflage that he’s actually watching his near-cellie.

Dan doesn’t know why he’s in here tonight. He’s been flashed so many times lately that it’s hard to keep track; it seems like every time a deputy sees him, they find some reason to throw him in the back of the squad car, bring him here, take his belongings and lecture him about how much money they’re spending locking him up over and over. He thinks maybe it was an open container tonight, or maybe they just decided to enforce the curfew early, but either way, they cuffed him, took him here, stripped him down, and took the laces out of his shoes.

He tries to be optimistic about it. He tries to think about how he at least isn’t sleeping in the rain tonight, even though the jail’s drafty enough that he has to pull the thin, scratchy blanket tight around him. He doesn’t know how Aster finds the body heat to be shirtless.

“They just don’t want you to have no fun,” he says, venturing a comment, wondering if it’ll be met as an invitation to chit-chat and pass the time or if Aster will shut him down like he did the last time they met

I – Not late for the Farmer’s Market

[credit_not_blame]

Aster's patrol locates a local girl, her farmer's market purchases stashed under a thing of toilet paper from the local grocery store. Anna Newman starts back from him in surprise, then sets her jaw and digs in her heels in defiance. She's on her own patrol, though nobody asked it of her. She doesn't know Aster Warren very well, but she appreciates the opportunity to get the good stuff all in one place; and making sure nobody interrupts the rest of the townsfolk is merely being a good neighbor.

...Which means that she should probably let him know that she's already checked this area for deputies and other busy-bodies. She huffs in annoyance.

"Pretty typical foot traffic this way," she says, adjusting her grip on the straps of her canvas tote resting on her shoulder. "Haven't seen anyone known to wear a badge. Looks like word hasn't circulated that far yet."

Brigid Finn | Open and closed prompts

[bostonhowler]

I. Wageslaves unite [closed to Miguel]

"Good morning!" She chirps as she bumps her hip against the door on her way into the mine office. Brigid always has a happy smile on her face, despite her situation. She loves having a job and is grateful that she can work here, and not in the slaughterhouse. Her tender sensibilities wouldn't allow for it. She sets a dark chocolate muffin down on Miguel's desk and grins. "Try it. I added a little bit of a kick of chili this time, like you suggested."

Despite losing her father in a mining accident and her mother in a car accident, Brigid has always been upbeat. When she's down everyone knows it because she doesn't cook, she doesn't bake, she just holes up with her books and rereads them again, hiding from the world.

Stuck in this little town, she's had big dreams, and bigger thoughts. She wants out, but there's a certain charm to this little town, and there are worse things.

She slides into her seat, ready to start the day.

II. The book house [open]

Brigid walks among the shelves of books, her fingers trailing over the spines absently. She wants something new to read. She's read all their fairy tales, here. She's read the spooky tales, and the few horror books. She's read the socially acceptable legends and biographies that are allowed on the shelves. She's read... well, not all the books, but a very big chunk of them.

She wants something new to read. She wanders through the stacks, looking at all the books - her friends, almost - and trying to decide what she's in the mood to read. Not watching where she's going, she bumps into someone's back. "Oh! I'm sorry! Are you alright?"

III. Date night [closed to Jackie]

Brigid holds onto Jackie's arm as they walk down the deserted main street toward Auntie's. It's really the only place to go when going on a date. She leans her head against Jackie's shoulder.

Work was... exhausting this week, and she just wants an evening away from her dinky little apartment. Sure, they'll probably end up back at her place to watch a movie until he has to go home.

"How was your week?" She asks, sliding into a booth.

IV. Anything you want!

[ Open prompt. Hit me up if you want something special! ]

[ninjavampire]

He's not needed on-site today, so Miguel is at a computer reviewing design documents and other such things that covered his monitors in CAD software and a growing list of unread emails.

When the food finds itself at his desk, it takes him a moment to blink and look up. It looks like he had another restless weekend, because his eyes bore the weight of a few late nights already.

"Oh, you did... Thank you."

He's gotten enough gifts like this to stop telling Brigid she shouldn't have. So he aquiesces and tries a bite, enjoying the flavors and looking impressed at the mix of bitter, spicy, and a touch of sweet.

"You nailed it on the first try. Where did you get the ingredients? Trying to find something quality is like a scavenger hunt around here."

II. The book house

[wannabeastman]

Normally it's hard to miss Louis Townsend, known Weird Guy From Out Of Town, given that he's over six feet tall and broad of build, but he'd been crouched down looking at the books on a lower shelf. He shrinks in on himself when she starts talking to him, even though she's apologizing.

"I'm fine," he says, quickly standing up and taking a step back, the hand not holding books against his chest half-raised as if to ward her back. "Sorry, I didn't see you."

He tries not to interact with most people around here. Even he can tell they don't like him very much. He's not sure why they don't like him, but he never is anyway.

Miguel | prompts as they come along!!

[ninjavampire]

MINE 8 (For Boba)

[ninjavampire]

Deep within the hills, a winding dirt road leads to the entrance of MINE 8, the first new dig site in a decade. The mouth of the mine is atypically modern, with lines of piping and strips of cables snaking inside. It is wide enough to accommodate a truck, and the outside is framed by a dirt construction site with crates, chutes, NO TRESSPASSING signs, and other evidence of the activity within.

After what feels like an exceptionally long foray into the earth, the tunnel constricts once it hits ore. The ceiling becomes low and claustrophobic, supported by a seemingly endless array of hydraulic chocks, chains, and a conveyer belt. At the end of the carved coal face is a bulky, incomplete shearing machine of a new design.

At Shields 68-72 of a late weekday afternoon, Miguel finds an alarm blinking on his console at the head of the coal longwall. His test run of the new automatic system had been going well, with the roof shields holding steady and the conveyer belts showing no issues. The shear arm sensors appeared to be functional, getting good reads of the wall that would be chewed up by drill bits once they were installed later.

Well, he'll consider it a success of the system that it had shut itself off once it detected an obstruction as designed. But now he had to see what tripped it. Kitted up with dust mask and helmet, Miguel walks down the longwall illuminated by harsh halogen lights. He scans the sharp cast shadows for a fallen piece of ceiling or small animal that might have wandered inside and tripped the safeties.

HONK HONK (Logan)

[ninjavampire]

While this shitty little town was too small for the traffic jams, Miguel still found his drive made annoying by a ready supply of drunks wandering the road or jaywalkers really testing the integrity of his brakes. He'd come to adjust by padding out his commute whenever he had to pass through town, with traffic signage seeming to be optional to nonexistent around here.

Vehicle troubles come to a head when he turns a curve on his way north into towards the hills and finds himself with too little runway between several tons of steel and some moron standing around on the asphalt! The tires shriek with the slam of the brake pedal, one microsecond away from twisting the steering wheel to hit a tree instead of this guy!

Mercifully, the vehicle comes to a stop (too close for comfort). But he's pissed, and now the air smells like burnt rubber and fucked up tires. Buddy, you're getting the long honk. And then maybe two more for good measure!

"¡Oye pendejo! - You left your brain at home or what?!"

( *HEY MORON >:( )

field science (for Suvi!)

[ninjavampire]

The pale light of dawn peeks through the autumn tree canopy as the truck comes to a stop at the end of the dirt work road. They were at the rolling peak of the mountain. Miguel gets out of the drivers side, flicking off the headlamps and climbing down from the high side-step onto sticks and leaf litter.

It was brisk enough this early in the morning to see their breaths. A duet of great horned owls and a milieu of chirping crickets fill the soundscape of the misty forest, with more birds to follow in the coming hour. He came prepared with the appropriate cold weather clothes, a flashlight and some other field gear in the truckbed for them to take some measurements. Some sinking and cracking on the surface is to be expected with projects boring deep into the mountain. So, the occasional 5:00 AM morning surveys to at least give the illusion of MineCorp caring about its impact on the area.

"The rest of the team should be here in about half an hour, but we can get a head start." he says to Skye, slipping on a bulky looking hiking pack to take with them.

"Ready?"

[thelittlestbub]

I. Coffeeshop [open]

"I got a flat white Americano!" She calls out, putting the coffee on the counter. She wipes the counter down with a clean rag, tossing the rag into the the laundry bucket.

Hearing the door open and the soft jingle of the bell, June doesn't turn around. "Be right there!" She says, wiping down the coffee machine. Turning with a grin, her twin pigtails bobbing, she bounces over. "Hi! What can I get you?"

II. Nog's [open]

"Beer's up!" June calls, putting the case down with a grunt. Look. She's exhausted from a long day at the coffeeshop, and now she's going to spend a good chunk of her night here.

Talking with the customers, she pours drinks, collects money and generally makes herself helpful everywhere. But as midnight approaches, she starts cutting certain people off (you know who you are!). "Nope, that's it, dude. You're done." She says, refusing to serve another drink to the man in front of her.

She sighs, shaking her head. "Be right with you!" She calls, hearing her name.

III. The Cemetary [closed to Logan]

She knew she'd find him here. She adjusts the bag on her shoulder and walks over, slowly and carefully. She knows that sneaking up on him is a bad idea. She remembers.

But she can't, in memory of his wife who'd taken a shaken kid and treated her with kindness and his daughter who'd been a wonderful friend, leave him here.

"Mr. Howlett?" She says, softly, scuffing her feet through the grass. "You gotta eat." She sighs, seeing the empty whiskey bottle and kickin it softly. "And drink something nonalcoholic."

June crouches next to him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

I.

[hallelujahjunction]

"Morning, June. How you been?" Dan scans the coffeeshop when he enters it, but as there aren't any deputies, he figures it's safe to come in here and post up to get out of the rain. He's soaked, and he isn't sure how he's going to get his clothing dry any time soon; he's got some rashes formed from sleeping in wet clothing too many days in a row, and a few days after he finally managed to sun-dry them, he's sopping again. He scuffs and tries to scrape mud off his feet on the stair outside the coffeeshop.

"I had a good day selling art by the docks before it started pouring," he says. He pulls a twenty out of his pocket - he doesn't carry a wallet anymore, because what's the point? It's just one more thing to get lost or confiscated. "Can I trade it for a sandwich and a cookie and one of them bottled lemonades for the road?"

He's planning on lurking here all day, trying to feel optimistic about a day where he can fill his stomach and have a little extra left over for Nog's.

[worstverine]

He swats her hand away. Of course he does. He always shies away from being touched. Like he'd be caustic on contact.

He always tries to keep his distance. Like he's radioactive waste. What's the whole thing with radiation again? He thinks back to his training in the army. He'd done some kind of basic rad training course: It was time, distance, and shielding, right?

(Too bad he'd been able to learn about radiation but they sure as fuck didn't teach them about the shit they were breathing in while piling garbage into the burn pits - or about how enemy ordinance might go off. Big "oops" on their part.)

But time, distance, shielding. He minimizes the time, keeps his distance, and tries to put shields up.

He just - he can't bring himself to actually hurt the kid. The swat is weak. She'll know it, she's seen him woodworking, and he'd sometimes thrown a ball around with Marie and her friends, when she'd joined the Softball League.

"I told you, kid," he slurs out, "I don't need you here motherin' me. There are better things to do with your time."

It's the most he's said to anyone for days and it's obvious from the way the words creak out, like his gravelly voice is falling into more and more disuse.

He picks up the bottle of beer he'd thrown to the side.

"'Sides. Liquid bread. I ate today."

Beer has calories! So she can go away now.

anthony crowley | open (cw: alcohol abuse)

[demonicmiracle]

⋟ i. day to day

[Over the past few years, Crowley has found some small comfort in a steady routine. It doesn't feel right, the routine, but nothing has felt right for as long as he can remember, and at least this doesn't result in him losing entire days to a few bottles of whiskey. If he feels a bit like the prison warden of his own life, that's not a thought he wants to dissect any time soon.

In all but the coldest months, his morning starts at 6:30am with a jog through the town, because as much as he loathes exercise, it serves the same function as the routine itself, giving him something to do with his time that isn't sleeping or drinking. It helps a little beyond just that; there's the endorphins that come with it, and he finds that his brain is quieter when he's moving.

After a shower and change of clothes, on weekdays he stops at the coffeeshop to buy an ungodly amount of espresso and linger over whatever pastry looked the most interesting that day. He has no reason to loiter beyond the desire to delay the inevitable just a tiny bit longer, and the desire is strong enough that he might actually engage in conversation with anyone else in the vicinity.

Work itself is the worst part of the day, but it's the best paying job he can get without the right education to work at the mine, so he manages it, day in-day out, hoping that one day he'll earn enough to get out of this hellhole.

It's a rare thing for him to return home immediately after work, it never feels right, as if he needs time to shake off the awfulness of the office lest it stick in his carpet or take up residence in his walls. More often than not, it results in a drink or two at Nog's Bar, where Crowley allows himself a single hour in the establishment. That's where the routine comes in. One hours, a couple drinks, and if he's feeling in a decent mood or particularly horrible mood, a casual conversation with another patron of the bar.

And then he goes home. Probably.

Wherever he goes, it means that Anthony Crowley isn't seen much after 7:30pm, at least on the weekdays.]

⋟ ii. farmer's market

[The routine helps with some things.

It doesn't help with others, and the thing that is a constant gnawing at Crowley's sanity is the boredom. The repetition. The lack of options. Before, a lifetime ago, it was never boring. Back then, he had thought that boring would be a blessing, that a quiet town in the middle of nowhere could be peaceful. It's clear now that he was an idiot, although it's never enough to make him think about going back, at least not back there.

The farmer's market is something different in a sea of monotony and he can't resist that pull, even if he knows he isn't entirely welcome. While not a lackey of Cygne, like the sheriff and her deputies, he's still part of the system that has the town so beaten down and he understands why he's eyed with suspicion.

Understand it, sure, but he still chafes at the perceived unfairness of it. They all have jobs to do, mouths to feed, debts to pay. His work isn't any worse than the men slaughtering pigs day in and out.

So while he tries to be relaxed and inconspicuous when browsing the market, eventually someone gives him the sideways look that ends up being the straw to break the camel's back.]

What? Is my money not as good as everyone else's?

⋟ iii. wildcard

[[ooc: plotting comment here for info and/or planning. Feel free to toss a wildcard at me if you have ideas, Crowley can be found pretty much anywhere in town.]

i. drinking "alone"

[composinghistory]

[A body slides onto the stool next to Crowley. He digs through his pockets and counts out a few bills and a coins to place on the bar. He doesn't place an order, but June does come around to sweep up the money and drop off a glass.

Julian takes a drink, then sighs. After a moment, he sighs again-- loudly. Dramatically. Perhaps in a manner that would cause someone to turn and look to see what's wrong with the poor soul occupying the neighboring seat.]

i.

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan's on the hunt for another drink and a conversation. He earned enough money selling caricatures today to get drinks at Nog's instead of shoplifting vodka from the grocery store, so he decided to treat himself. He finds it ironic that now that he least has the financial capacity to treat himself, he thinks he needs it the most. Getting through every day as the town's least-beloved, rumpled, battered nuisance feels like a Herculean effort that should have a cash prize at the end, and instead, every once in a while he manages to buy his own whiskey at the bar before he gets hassled into leaving.

He hasn't been hassled yet. There are some guys from the slaughterhouse eyeballing him, and he's very intentionally avoiding their eye contact and looking for someone, anyone, whom he can rope into a conversation long enough for the guys to lose interest. Dan never starts fights, but the guys who work at the mines and slaughterhouse always have bad moods they need to take out on someone, and the homeless alleged sex offender is an ideal target.

He sees Crowley and he decides that that's his target, but only because he doesn't have many better options. There's nothing that a well-dressed professional like Crowley's going to want with Dan. He's sure Crowley will humor him for as little time as he can get away with, but with the guys at their booth glaring at Dan, he decides to try and take shelter's in Crowley's company quickly.]

Hey, if I tell you a joke, you mind spotting me two dollars? That's what I need for more Jack. [Dan sits down next to Crowley at the bar, intending to stay.]