basswood

“¡Mierda!“

Who the hell? … Mehta. Of course.

“You almost gave me a heart attack, jovencito.” Dante sighs, collecting himself before mustering the courtesy to give Sam a half hearted ‘bro-nod’ of sorts. “…though I’m sure it’s mutual. I guess this is where I say you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

The Dante Sandoval that Sam once knew, magnanimous yet mischievous, nearly rears his head — if only for a moment. If Sam had been drinking, it would be amusing to see if he could make him believe he was seeing a ghost. That he was being haunted. It was tempting, but the more mature, weary Dante vetoed the idea almost the moment it occurred to him. Chances were Sam wasn’t even that drunk, and he would have just looked like a jackass.

Well, a bigger one.

Everything that comes from Dante’s mouth sounds far away. Hell, at the level that he can’t pay attention to the other’s words, Sam tries to remember if he’d remembered to take his meds that morning. He had, but if that was the case, why was he so unable to stop the train of thought that made circles around his head? 

Did Mar fucking lie to me? No. God, no. He’d seen the police report. He’d read the obituary. Right? Blackrock never forgot one of their own, especially not when they passed on. 

I’m fucking your wife. I. Am. Fucking. Your. Wife. Is she still your wife? How long have you been walking around? How long have you been breathing? What kind of a sick joke---

“You think?” He can’t help but say after he pulled himself together enough to catch the question. He takes a step back. “Dante--- What the fuck.” It’s not a question, but it is. It’s the only way his mouth can manage to process what’s happening. 

She sniffs. Dimly registers the way he pushes his glasses up; gently rubs her thumb against the side of his hand in response.<7small>

“I don’t know,” she says, and she wishes her voice wasn’t so quiet. “… I could stick around more.” She’s spent years perfecting her vanishing act – watch closely! she’ll disappear right before your eyes! – but not all of her magician’s repertoire has to do with Sam. It’s just easier, leaving town for months at a time. She can breathe, let her shoulders down. Avoid drowning in the mire of old memories dredged up by living in another small town, no matter how many miles removed she is from the rest of them. But–

“… I’ll stick around, much as I can,” she says, still quiet. “For you.” She should be happy. And she is, somewhere inside her chest, but she feels it, nevertheless. Fear. That he might change his mind. Or that it won’t be enough. Or that it will fall apart.

(Or that something worse might happen. He’s only 31, she tries to tell herself, but the thought won’t leave her. There are worse things than breaking up or growing apart.)

She steps closer. Holds his hand, still; ears only barely registering the sound of the TV playing, because the rest of her is focused on him. “––Tell me what you want.” She reaches for his other arm with her free hand, fingers curling into the yellow fabric. “When the snow melts.”

Then what? He wants to ask— wants to rip open that old wound that had scarred over one too many times for his comfort, if only to see what would come out after all these years. 

     I.. I could stick around more. 

 Then what?

    ... I'll stick around, much as I can…For you. 

Then what? Then what? Then what?

This was what he wanted, wasn't it? He wanted it badly enough to bombard her in her own home and slap his insecurities right there on the floor of her foyer like a carcass dragged in by a cat: a morbid gift for her; proof of his love wrapped in such ugliness. 

But what the fuck made him deserving of it? Because he knew how to bring her to a panting, quivering mess in the dark of motel rooms? Why now, when she is so willingly throwing herself and the potential of her love at him, is he reducing himself to an anxious mess?

And then the starling realization hits him like stepping into direct sunlight. My god… She has been feeling the same way.  

    --Tell me what you want. When the snow melts.

What he wants is her, completely, and because there is no way that he can possibly use words at a moment like this (he has never been very good with them anyways), he chooses to pull himself from her grip so that his hands can find her jaw, thumbs pressing into the softness of her cheeks as he tastes the apple on her lips. 

Within the cover of the Blackrock Motel—a controlled environment that was much like their agreement: a facade of familiarity just comfortable enough to make one feel a sense of comfort without ever becoming too personal—intimacy was easily thrown aside for something more transactional. Pleasure never became intimate before either of them could change their position.

Sara laughs– she should’ve known– and slides her pack and lighter across the table to Sam. 

“That’s pretty much the gist of it,” she replies, reaching over and snapping the lid of her laptop shut. “One day the school board will let me choose better books,” she says, a little wistfully, leaning back into the chair, “but until then…” she shrugs, then takes a drag from her cigarette. Until then, we’ll smoke.

A comfortable silence befalls them as Sam lights his cigarette and Sara smokes hers. It’s the kind that can only come after decades of friendship, the two of them knowing far more about one another than any person should. Sara’s comforted by the thought, and smiles quietly to herself. Sam is her brother, far more than her actual sibling.

“Should I ask about work?” Sara says a few minutes later. Off in the distance, an owl hoots. It isn’t a plea for details– he likely wouldn’t give them, anyway– but rather an invitation to ask how Sam is doing. He’s good at his job, Sara’s known him long enough to know this, but he’s drawn a short straw here. People– kids– keep disappearing; Sara thinks she knows why, but she fears Sam wouldn’t believe her if she tried to explain. 

She adjusts her position in her chair and flicks the ash off her cigarette. She watches it fall onto the wood.

“Or,” she continues, glancing at Sam from the corner of her eye, “should we talk about the Dante-shaped elephant in the room?”

The metal legs of a folding chair scrape against the balcony as he pulls it closer to sit near Sara.

“God,” he sighs. “Are those my only choices?” He’d rather die than give more thought to the sudden reemergence of Dante Sandoval than he already has, but he’s thankful that the once-dead man wasn’t just a sick hallucination, but a very real problem that has come about at the most inconvenient of times.

“Okay, but what the fuck was THAT about? He was dead, right? Like, dead dead?” He can hear his voice getting louder but there’s little he can do to stop it. “How is he just now walking back into town?”

If anyone would find out the answer, Sam knew it would be him, being as close to Mar as he is. However, he’s not ready to have that conversation just yet. Not after he was just getting over the guy with the manbun in the same evening that the Sandoval in Mar Sandoval decided to return from the dead.

He looks to Sara—still the one person to keep him grounded after all these years—as if she’d have the answer for him.  “Seeing him... I feel like I’m going insane.” He takes a drag.

DATE: December 7th, idk enough time that hutch is tipsy LOCATION: Wherever u are baybee AVAILABILITY: closed for @basswccd

The opening lines of I Wanna Dance with Somebody hit him like a punch in the gut. The pair on stage have slowed down the song considerably, and it is certainly more folksy in tone, but it’s the same damn song. It’s their song. After all this time, Hutch still can’t let that silly fact go. It feels harder to breathe, and he wonders how much of it is the pain that is wrapping its way through his chest and how much of it is the booze that heats him from the inside. Rather subconsciously, he has drifted from Sara’s side. The attractive man on stage falling into the chorus, as his partner backs him up with softer ‘oh’s. If he closed his eyes, he could almost be in Sam’s kitchen again.

But he can’t close his eyes, not when they’ve trained in on the man in question. Without much thought, his feet are shuffling forward towards the corner Sam is standing. He feels like an idiot. He can almost feel Sara’s gaze boring into the back of his neck. But he can’t not. Not when it’s this song, and he’s had more than a couple of drinks.

“Hey,” he’s in front of his friend more quickly than he thought he would be. And faced with the man’s face, Hutch isn’t sure what exactly he’s doing or where he wants this to go. “Nice song choice, huh?”

Soggy pieces of what used to be the label on his beer bottle decorate the barn floor around his shoes. Undressing bottles is a nervous habit of his that could be traced back to the days of being cross-faded in Mandy Peterson’s basement, not knowing what to do with his hands. No matter how hard he’s tried he can’t kick the satisfaction of peeling, but he isn’t too worried about that tonight. Instead, his mind had been elsewhere—namely the corner of the barn where Mar had been speaking to a man with a bun. A fucking manbun. Really? 

Sam is beyond the point of considering skipping his next haircut when a familiar face steps into frame. Even through his frustration, the sight of Hutch brings forth a smile. 

“Hello,” he says right back. The smile falters at the question, though, and he turns his attention to the band to listen closer. He’d been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t realized what was playing in the background, but once he did, muscle memory makes him laugh. “Oh shit.” 

“Is that—?” He starts, turning back to Hutch, gesturing with the bare bottle to the singing duo despite knowing damn well what that is. Sam stops, listening for a few moments as their song is taken from a thumping pop hit to something much slower, more romantic. He swallows hard. 

theo rolled over to face sam. she rested her cheek in her hand casually as the room continued to spin despite her having stopped moving. believe it or not, theo wasn’t a frequent drinker, but sam had managed to be there for fair few more drunken theo specials than most people. honestly, it was just more comfortable to see him there.

“you don’t have to ask to sit around here with me, you know.” she chuckled. “I’m obviously in no position to turn away company.” nor would she if she were in such a position, but that didn’t need to be said. “or detectives who are offering to help me find lost items.”

“why are you still here? when did you get here? why haven’t I seen you all day?”

Her clear mirth caused him to laugh, too. Leave it to Theo—even in a drunken state—to point out how silly he was to ask such a thing. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, “I know, but I figured it would be nice to ask.” 

“I got here a little late, I think.” He scratched at the beard along his jaw. “I didn’t know what time this all started, but it definitely had started by the time I came around,” he laughed. “I was with Mar earlier,” he said, his voice quieting at the mention of the significant other. “Other than that, I’ve been, y'know, around.”

“But what about you, hm? Was this—” he gestured vaguely at her in all of her inebriated glory, “—your own doing, or did you have some help?” 

We Can’t Stop - Miley Cyrus 

the weight of what she’d been drinking all night sat on her like a weighty blanket over her shoulders. theo felt like she was slogging through water. her clothes were still slightly damp from sweat from her earlier dancing and the music still held most of her attention. theo leaned her neck back against the metal of the folding chair and bobbed her head, humming along happily to the song that was playing through the medium quality stereo set up in the barn. 

“hey sammy.” she grinned as he head came into sight. theo had looked for him earlier in the night, but finally decided that he hadn’t come at all. apparently she’d been mistaken. “I have had drink.” she agreed and pushed herself up to a more upright position. “I didn’t want to drive home because I lost my keys. why are you still here?”

"Yes, I see.” He fights the urge to laugh as she describes her state, briefly. Sam pulls up a chair to sit close by, and leans an elbow on the back of the chair her feet occupied. 

While he wishes it was the “drink” that had her deciding not to drive, (Dora would be proud, regardless) he will settle for lost keys being the reason she’s not behind a wheel. Speaking of which, he should probably help find those...

“I don’t have anywhere better to be at the moment.” The statement doesn’t sound half as sad as it feels, considering he’s been wondering where certain people he’d seen earlier in the night have run off to. The steady haze of booze keeps him from feeling too down, however. “You want me to keep you company until you find your keys or sober up?”

The tip of his finger nudged her hand, and she felt it again – the flood of nerves, chasing his touch. He’d given an inch, and she wanted a mile. Could feel the moonshine well up inside, like a slow-motion collision course: want and consequence.

But I’m here, the answer whispered. And if you just tell me, I won’t go anywhere.

Her hand found his, palm against palm, Mar biting her lower lip as she studied their entwined fingers. “But I’m here,” she echoed, finally looking up at him. –– ‘n I like the moonshine.” Her smile was still a little sad at the edges; her hope battling nausea as she tried to tell herself this could still happen. Them.

“I wanna try. With you. I mean that. If…” She exhaled. Licked her lips again, her gaze straying from his eyes to the countertop. “I know I’ve got baggage. I know, ‘n if– if you don’t want that, then I get it. But I…” She swallowed hard. Tried to fight the way it felt like she was choking on her words. She didn’t want his pity. She just wanted him.

Glassy eyes strayed up, yet again, looking at him head-on. Her limbs felt loose, moonshine working its miracle, but she was anchored to him, fingers linked with his. She almost couldn’t bear it.

“I want more than just fuckin’ you in some skeevy motel, Sam.” Want me. “–– It’s okay if you don’t want that. Or–– it’s not okay, but I’ll deal, you don’t have to worry about that. I, uh. Just. Could we– do you– ?”

Oh shit, she was serious.

He watches her fingers wrap around his like the southern kudzu he read about long ago—-wild and nimble, grabbing onto whatever it wanted. He twines around her, too. Tries his best to listen through the fog. 

He cannot hear the way her heart tries to call out to him, but he can hear the shakiness of her voice, the way it teeters towards the edge of cracking. Were it not for her hand—-a tether holding him to the ground— the sound of her voice grounds him to something he can’t quite recognize. Something real. 

For fucks sake…. It is all he can do to nod along as he makes sense of the half-sentences and false starts coming from her lips. He wants to gather the words as they fall and place them in a jar for safekeeping like smooth seaglass, or some other such beautiful thing he had not yet been acquainted with in his small world, like the idea of her sticking around. Of anyone. 

“Mar—” Shit. The name is a roadblock. Keep talking, please. Let me stay in this moment until I’m sure I’ve had it burned to memory. 

“We could.” 

It hurts, because how could it not? Something so pure, he knows, does not last long in a place like Blackrock. (Somewhere a clock ticks like a countdown timer) Things like this do not last long for him. 

A free hand which shakes from the sudden rush of anxiety is promptly  hidden in the front pocket of his yellow hoodie after he pushes up his glasses (which had not fallen again). He is thankful that his other hand is wrapped in hers. The moonshine does little to keep him from catching a chill in his bones that shakes his soul from the feet up, despite the winter temperature being kept outside. 

when: december 14, evening where: the apartment open to: @basswccd​

Sara is smoking on the balcony when Sam gets home. Despite the cold of December, she’s sitting on one of their mismatched lawn chairs, her feet propped up onto the wooden railing. Her laptop sits on the table to her left, a student essay on The Great Gatsby opened but momentarily forgotten; the screen threatens to go black at any moment. Sara ignores it in favor of the cigarette, staring absentmindedly out into the alley that their balcony faces.

What a view, Sara thinks sarcastically to herself.

Still, she stares out into the night almost serenely, lifting her head only when she hears Sam open the door and step out to join her. She doesn’t put the cigarette out; Sam is one of the few who knows of her secret, and what’s better, is guilty of it, too. No room for judgment.

“Hey,” Sara smiles in greeting, taking her legs off the railing and planting her feet back on the deck. “I got sick of reading about why Gatsby should be a role model,” she explains, waving her cigarette through the air as she speaks. She nods toward it, then looks back at Sam. 

“Want one?”

“Sara?” his voice comes from within the apartment as he closes and locks the door to the apartment behind him. The down coat he wears is shrugged off, it’s abandoned on a chair as the draft creeping through the living room ushers him to the balcony where he finds her. He returns the smile. 

Aside from watering the few plants he struggles to keep alive in the spring and summer, it isn’t often he went out on the balcony. The dull view had much to do with that. Avoiding it means that it’s easier to pretend their apartment is situated somewhere more exciting when the blinds are closed. 

Sam cuts her a look, wordlessly saying of course I do.

“I never read the book.” It was one of many assigned readings he once avoided. Maybe he shouldn’t have. “Saw the movie, though. He was kind of a dick.” 

While awaiting the aid of Blackrock Library’s best archivist, Sam’s feet make him wander the tall shelves of books, eyes scanning the spines for nothing in particular while he tries to avoid the guilt that comes from not being able to remember the last time he’d read anything that wasn’t from the screen of a screen. It’s merely coincidence when he makes a turn at the intersection of Philosophy and Social Sciences and finds himself smack dab between the two shelves that make up the Self-Help section. Really, just a coincidence, which is also why he looks over his shoulder every few minutes he’s there to make sure no one else was coming near. 

It’s curiosity that has him trailing a finger along the shelf past such titles as Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and How to Win Friends and Influence People, before stopping to pick up a tragically untouched copy of The 5 Love Languages: Men’s Edition (what's the difference between the Women’s Edition and this one?) to look inside. 

Sam holds it just long enough to read two paragraphs about Acts of Service before the book is slammed back on the shelf the moment he hears someone come near. 

“Kenny! Hello, uhh. Hi. Listen, I need your help finding something.”

“What hurt more?” he asks over the sound of the bartender replacing bottles behind the bar. Whatever unspoken agreement to sit in silence that is the usual between barflies is broken the moment he speaks up, but he doesn’t much care at this point. “---The scars or the tattoos?” 

No matter how genuine the genuine the question (which was prompted by the lines of taught pink skin that crept out from the sleeve of his shirt and distorted the images on the other’s skin), it sounds a bit silly coming from a liquor-numbed mouth.

He’d have to pardon old Sam. Normally, he doesn’t let himself get this far to the bottom of a bottle while at the Last Drop, but cold weather and the promise of a cold bed keeps him seeking something warm. 

“Sorry,” he holds up a hand once hearing himself. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. I just don’t know much about tattoos, is all.” 

Sam stumbles into the barn, smiling through the haze of multiple rounds of whiskey’s and shaking off the cold. (One of these days he’d quit smoking, if only to cut down on his little trips outside.) Having lost track of, well, just about everyone, he was content with being a free agent, floating about the space and sitting in corners as the party wound down and the crowd gradually thinned.

He supposed he should have been on his way out, too, but be hasn’t yet ready to leave and return to the same apartment, same room, where he spent most of his nights.

The music duo must have packed their things and left early for the night, as he notes the stereo across the space playing Wagon Wheel. Sam makes his way over to a group of tables in the corner, brows lifting the moment he spots a pair of legs laid out across multiple folding chair. When he cranes his neck to see the rest of them, Sam smiles at the sight of Theo.

“You’re still here?” he says, moving closer to push a perspiring bottle of beer across the table, away from her. “How much have you had to drink?”

Every winter, without fail, Sam Mehta vows to quit smoking upon remembering how much it sucks to have to walk outside into the cold to do so. 

He’s alternating hands: one holds the cigarette while the free hand warms itself in a pocket of his parka before the other gets cold. The music coming from inside the bar is just loud enough to cover the sound of his whispered curses at the frost which bites his fingertips and nose. 

One of these days he’ll quit. 

The bar door swings open, letting out the music as well as a familiar face, which Sam nods to in acknowledgment as it walks by. He thinks nothing of it---it’s Blackrock, everyone is a familiar face---until he doesn’t. 

Wait. Were his fingers not frozen into curls around the cigarette, he would have dropped it in the slush below him as he tried (really fuckin’ tried) to remember if the Sandovals had twins. 

“DANTE?” Sam shouts at the other’s back. 

Sam hopes to whatever spiteful God is watching that the other won’t turn around. 

DATE: dec 8th, 2019 TIME: 9:24 pm LOCATION: buckshot bar & grill STATUS: open

“We’re closed,” Nia deadpans, not caring enough to check and see who exactly she’d been speaking to, earning herself a dirty look from her manager, as they’d been nowhere closed. Nia merely shrugged in response. It had been a busy night, which only meant good things if you were a server or hostess, neither of which Nia possessed the charisma for. The one night she filled in resulted in a near altercation with a customer, but what was she supposed to do? Magically make the onions they’d been out of manifest out of her ass? The influx of customers had begun to slow, and Nia had taken to lazily wiping and rewiping down tables to keep busy. “Well, make yourself at home, I suppose,” Nia says with a sigh, eyes flickering up momentarily to finally discover who’d entered the bar. She blinks for a few moments, before returning to her absentminded table wiping. She’d actually welcomed the company of someone else in that moment— not that she’d ever admit to it. “You’re not thinking about ordering a five-course meal or anything, are you?”

“Seriously?” The glow of his phone’s lock screen as he checked the time illuminated the tip of his nose as he looked down to check the time. “Shit.” 

Despite the late hour, it seemed he had her blessing. He figured taking a seat at the bar would be less hassle than taking up an entire table---less for her to wipe down, at the least. Thankfully, it wasn’t too quiet for a Sunday night, and music was still playing from behind the bar as she did her work. Sam had half a mind to turn around and leave her to her work, but more than the coffee he had on his mind, he just needed a place to sit for a moment that wasn’t his car or his apartment. 

“No, no.” He waved off the idea. “I won’t put you through all that trouble.” It wasn’t late enough for him to be hungry with the way that work still shook his nerves and twisted his stomach, anyhow. He’d need to wait a few more hours to muster up an appetite again.  

“You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee still, would you?”