unravel.

               LIPS CURL UP SOFTLY , elizabeth’s bag dropping off of her shoulder with a soft thud before she moves to sit next to it , relaxing into her space some more . ‘ you’re smart , i like that . ’ she mused quietly , pulling the smoke away from her lips as she relaxed into her routine . ‘ but you never have to worry about that with me , i speak my mind , which some kids don’t like . ’ she mused gently , leaning back a little and looking over at him casually .

              ‘ WELL , BRENDAN RIGHT ? FEEL FREE TO COME HERE MORE OFTEN . ’ she gives a playful smile , hand gently scratching at her wrists . ‘ but the biggest thing to remember about derry is that nobody gives a shit about what you do . it’s a blessing and a curse . ’

there's something - a little tilt of his head, like he's skeptical. ❝ on occasion, ❞ he corrects. ❝ been told the contrary plenty of times too. ❞ he's either a genius or thick as what all, and it all depends on the day and who he's talking to. brendan pauses. with certain people, he might take a more skeptical look at that. but elizabeth tozier - a name he took note of - doesn't seem to be doing much of anything to gain his skepticism. ❝ well, alright. i appreciate that. ❞

mun v. muse.

i got too lazy to switch some of these options but mine is the more accurate one by far lmao

               SHE LET OUT A SHORT SCOFF , nodding at his words while she lit the cigarette and let out a small puff of smoke . she shrugged off the bomber jacket , regretting the black t-shirt she wore underneath it on a hot summers day . she’s quiet as he talks , always respectful , no matter what the situation . hell she was even nice to the boys who’d tried to kick the shit out of her moments before , letting them speak before she spoke up .

              ‘ AND OF ALL PLACES YOU COME TO THE BARRENS ? ’ she questions , standing up with a small wobble in her legs . she had to go slow or she’d collapse because her head was so close to spinning . ‘ only thing that’s down there is … ’ she quieted herself , looking away from the hill that started form behind her . ‘ s’nothing fun down there . just shit and piss , sewer system yknow ? ’ she quietly prayed that he’d move on .

despite the fact that he was alone prior to all this, brendan makes no real effort to move away. contrary to popular belief, he isn't particularly anti-social. he's just picky about who he talks to. ❝ sometimes asking directly just shocks people into being square with you, ❞ he admits. ❝ either they get offended or they blurt out whatever you want to tell them, or at least that's how it usually goes for me. ❞ this pleasant reaction isn't something he's used to, in short, and it's something he prefers.

he wants to understand the situation, but he’s finding it difficult to do so when the other is being unbelievably stubborn about the whole matter.   ❝   you’re seriously going to laugh at a time like this? come on man, i’m just trying to help you! i know it isn’t safe, that’s why we should leave and go to the police.   ❞    names given or not, he feels like a broken record now. sighing he offers out a hand, but then points instead of keeping it open. 

   ❝   what hurts the most? can you walk? i can help you out, you just … you need to not be so damn stubborn, alright?   ❞   it isn’t like he owes him this,  (  or really anything since they don’t know one another  )  not to mention, light could easily just walk away if he wanted, but he isn’t doing that. there’s good in him, and there is a large piece of him that wants justice brought to brendan. after all, it isn’t fair to him and it would be rude to just walk away.

❝ yeah, i can laugh at it, ❞ brendan says. from someone else it might sound more pretentious, but for him, it just sounds genuine. and it is. when something happens enough times, it loses the danger, in the same way tragedy can become comedy if it sits and rots for long enough. ❝ i'm just used to it. nothing out of the ordinary for me. so no bulls. ❞ he sucks in a breath and tries to listen. no rattle, and he can still breathe with only a little bit of pain from his ribs. it's workable. that's how he looks at it - workable or not.

he blinks. the question of what hurts the most seems to bring him to a halt.

    SUNLIGHT REACHES HER EYES, and she steps into the better SHADOWED portion of the building’s wall.  no hands on the hips, no snarky demeanor, not even the SLIGHTEST disgust at her talking to someone who RAM & KURT would have seen as BENEATH HER.   no, heather chandler was all  momentous in the consequential look upon her face.

    ‘   good.  ’   she agrees, leaning a sole hand against the STUBBLY concrete to balance out what she INTENDS to explain.  how could she start this off ?  she pondered;  maybe with the ACTUAL TRUTH—and see how brendan reacts.  she smooths the curls away from her ear before she then speaks.  ‘    i think someone is planning on killing me.   ’   she speaks boldly, in a hushed tone, her fingers dip into her pocket for the white piece of paper. A WARNING.

    ‘    i know you’re NEW HERE. but you’re pretty good at being OBSERVANT. you’re on the outside of the POPULAR CLIQUE, and i could use someone who isn’t afraid to keep an eye out, maybe an ear too.   ’   she wanted to add that she was AFRAID...but she couldn’t….   ‘   that’s what i need you to do.  i can repay you, whatever you want.  i just need to know who it is, so i can DEAL WITH THEM, accordingly.  ’

the switch in her demeanor is significant. obvious. there's something going on here. it may or may not be more serious than the average high school drama that seems to infect westerburg. part of him is still almost convinced this is some kind of play against him, or something that's about to be turned around on him. if he was any more convinced, he might walk away. but there's just enough here to keep him interested.

for now. he could dust out whenever he feels like it. plenty of asphalt to cover.

heather's words, though, destroy any chance of him just walking away. ❝ then you want me to op for you. and keep an eye out for... some hatchetman who you think has got it out for you. ❞ he eyes the paper for a moment, looking for something false that he can see. but there's nothing there. just something that he might even call genuine, as loathe as he is to assign that word to someone like heather chandler. ❝ and you think the bulls won't believe you. or that they'll brush you off. ❞

reading between the lines here. there's only one reason that someone with as much money as heather chandler wouldn't go to the police, and that's if she didn't thinks he would be believed.

❛❛    ’ 𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡❜𝗧 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗗 𝗔 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗔𝗠𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗘. ’    ❜❜   it was sam spade who replied   ;   not simply humphrey bogart, but it had been the man himself who spoke   —   even seeming to audibly step forward from the place richie now stood. it wasn’t long, though, before his shoulders fell and his hands buried their shape in the depths of denim pockets.   ❛❛    you did what you could, right?    ❜❜   that was what people were made to say in situations like these   :   the sort that came up empty, fruitless. and yet, the question trailed off with a hopefulness that richie could not quite put his finger on. it was almost familiar, a sense of

(   belief   )

adolescent hope he had not experienced in several years now. let it go, kid, he told himself. make like paul mccartney and just let it be. but was it really so simple an act to see through? to abandon? survey says   —

there's a flicker of a smile, a quirk at the corner of brendan's mouth. it doesn't quite reach a laugh, but rarely do things make brendan actually laugh. he's stoic like that, and things are usually too bad to trigger a laugh. it's like getting his own tendencies thrown back at him, which is maybe half of the point. a different time, a different place, a natural extension of who he is. the two of them both have their hands buried in their pockets, almost mirroring each other. ❝ about as much as i could, yeah. ❞

a hand moves from his pocket and rubs at the back of his neck. there wasn't that much violence this time around, with this whole case - just the fact that sometimes things don't work out, and sometimes you can't solve things in the way that you like.

wind gap’s wrong. he can’t describe all the ways in which it is wrong, but it’s something, some quality unique to this place - the persistent stickiness in the air, the unavoidable feeling of being watched. maybe it’s what the town is built on - slaughter. everyone knows everyone else’s business, and that’s why the first thing brendan does is keep his goddamned mouth shut. as far as these people are concerned, he’s barely a person. no past, no present, just some kid who exists on the edge of town. nothing to look into. no depth, no context, all empty.

brendan’s been trying his best to learn the dynamics of the town. he’s picked up on some things, but he’s behind the eight-ball to begin with. there’s years upon years of history here, families and rivalries that he doesn’t know about.

like amma crellin. daughter of adora crellin, a few years younger than him. the crellins are practically why wind gap still exists, and he shouldn’t provoke that. but she keeps trying to prod.

reminds him of laura, just a little. someone in control, and innocuous, and also dangerous. he wants to just keep walking, to head down the street until she loses interest.

she’s only prodding to try and get under his skin. he doubts the interest is real.

despite himself, brendan chuckles a little.

it isn’t mean or even doubtful. if anything, it sounds like he agrees with the sentiment. he isn’t even exempt from that. all the trouble with the brick wouldn’t have happened if the pin and tug weren’t two dogs at each other’s throats, just looking for a reason to bite down, and maybe if he hadn’t pushed emily away, and so on, and so forth. laura, as much as he loathes her, just took advantage of a situation that already existed.

he’s stolen - well, “stolen” - two beers from his own fridge, the bottle opener used and left on the kitchen counter for him to put away l ater. his mother has long since given up on keeping track of what is or isn’t in the fridge. the two of them just pass by each other in the space, so it’s not like she’ll notice, and set up on the back porch. derry’s quiet at this time of night. san clemente always had some traffic, even in late hours - distant cars, a backfire, the rattle of something in the distance. out here it’s dead silence and a little too much honesty.

he passes her the beer and watches the shadowy shape of the back fence for a moment. leaves rustling. nothing else moving. so honesty, then.