They Call Me Caffymunch

Link to Masterlist here Series Summary: 5 years after the massacre in New Mexico, David Collins has settled in Ironlake, LA. A steady job, a place to live, and a sense of normalcy. That is, until you blow into town after inheriting a bungalow from your recently deceased grandmother. A woman in need, harbouring a dark secret of your own. With no one else to turn to, you let David in. Chapter Summary: You make the journey back to Ironlake, the ghosts of the past hot on your heels. Word Count: ~3.5k Tags/T.W's: references to alcoholism. Abusive parent. Descriptions of smoking. Dark humor.

Chapter 1: Fever

The rain falls in a dense curtain, pattering to the dark, drenched pavement below, glowing near-iridescent in the beam of your headlights. The tires eat up the miles, rumbling with protest around the slick bends, the air hazy above the hood as the engine fights to keep up with your lead-foot on the accelerator. The endless treelined roads blur past, a wall of willow and sycamore, blending one green parish into the next. Dilapidated signs, leaning fenceposts, and pock-marked tin trailer settlements dot your journey, flash in your mind’s eye, hazy images that will surely saturate your dreams tonight.

You blink past your exhaustion, bringing a flimsy cup of lukewarm gas station coffee to your lips. The sip is met with a wince, a bitterness biting past your tongue and cheeks, coating your throat with the tannin tar of it. On the radio, a country singer croons. A lonesome tune, full of longing to return home, the monkeys paw wish for the open road – how he can never truly go back. Without looking, you press the dial with your index, silencing the cowboy for good. Leaning back in your well-worn upholstered seat, you let out a sigh that has been lodged behind your teeth for the last twenty-odd miles. Flexing your fingers on the scuffed leather steering wheel, you increase the speed of your wiper blades. They slash across the windshield, the onslaught not letting up an inch, cascading over the roof of the sedan in a rhythmic, comforting roar.

Looped around the rearview, a rosary swings.

The ground morphs slowly, gradually, as you blow past Abbeville, following the winding curve of the Vermilion River – her familiar shores and muddy water peeking through the knotted boughs of the long leaf pine and bald cypress. The Bayou calls to you, a distant, over-exposed memory of youthful summers spent in the swamp; the sticky, oppressive heat clinging to your lungs, dampening the nape of your neck. The lazily spinning fan blades on the ceiling of your grandmother’s bungalow, blowing hot air around the sun-dappled living room. How you’d lay on your back, the only respite to be found on the cool, swept hardwood, your long legs crossed at the ankle. Already too quiet, too reserved, for a child your age.

There’s no place like home.

You push the thought aside, a shiver working down your spine as a pane-shaking grumble of thunder erupts from the dark sky above you. Pitching forward unconsciously, you heighten your focus on the road ahead. You’ll follow the gentle slope and curl of the river until you reach Ironlake, indicated by a vibrant wood-burned, hand-painted sign staked into the sodden ground. Located in the heart of Cajun country, the unincorporated community is home to a few thousand residents. The median age is … retired. By your own estimation. More grey hairs than baby hairs. It’s a sleepy spot. Far from the nearest mall or modern amenity. The townspeople are largely self-sufficient, preferring their own company and that of the alligator crawling, wildlife populated forests and marshes to anything else.

You recall the yipping of coyotes that would keep you awake as a child. The screech of a rabbit, frighteningly toddler-like, as it was ripped to pieces. The long, restless nights you’d spend tucked into the narrow twin bed that never really belonged to you. Waiting to see if your father would make it home – if he’d ever come back for you. Half-relieved, half-dreading when his broken, flickering headlights would swing up the gravel drive. His heavy boots on the wood steps. The creak and flinch of the busted screen-door. Your grandmother shushing him, begging him not to wake you.

Dom, you’re drunk. Leave the girl be.

Gritting your teeth, your sneakered foot tests the accelerator, presses it a little harder, the engine shuddering with the effort of keeping up with your demands. If you push your luck, you’ll end up on the side of the road in the torrential rain, black smoke belching from the various tubes and twisted bits of metal that comprise the clockwork innards of your vehicle. Despite your penchant for junkyard scrap that barely meets the legal definition of operable, you wouldn’t know the first thing about diagnosing a mechanical failure. You’d be stranded. Easing off the gas pedal, you drum your fingers nervously.

Nostalgia hangs thick in the interior of the car, choking you with its silent, noxious presence. The rocks and clumps of wildflowers in the ditches have started to feel recognizable. Old friends, welcoming you back. Unmoving, keeping sentry, forever awaiting your return. The feeling that time has stood still here, that the scenery has remained untouched by the ravages of the passing years, is impossible to ignore.

Swallowing, your eyes slide past the road sign on the shoulder. Chipped blue paint. Adorned with depictions of purple coneflower and goldenrod alongside serene, lapping lakes, proudly proclaiming its jubilance at your arrival.

WELCOME TO IRONLAKE.

You pull down a long, rutted road on the outskirts of town, following your muscle memory, too tired to question your own mind as it guides the steering wheel around the potholes in the dirt. Wet leaves slap at the sides of your car, prying, hungry hands, catching a feel as you drive past. Up ahead, a dark, but entirely unforgettable structure looms in the night, standing squat and sturdy in a crescent-shaped, man-made clearing. Faded green clapboard, a tar roof in desperate need of repair, the moss claiming the corners and crevices, the gutters piled high with storm debris, the porch-railing rotted and practically falling away. Involuntarily, you click your tongue. A sorry state, you think.

Rolling to a stop in front of the bungalow, you crank the gearshift into park and cut the engine. Outside, the wind continues to howl. Shouldering your duffle bag and sucking in a steadying breath, you push against the door and exit as gracefully as you can. Immediately, your hair is buffeted into your eyes, blinding you. It sticks to the thin layer of gloss still clinging to your lips. Moving quickly, you mount the rickety steps, a hand trailing lightly against the rail for purchase, the other fumbling in your pocket for the key.

Letting yourself in, shutting out the wind and the rain behind you, you’re immediately greeted with the stale aroma of neglect. Damp soil, indicative of mold, and the telltale, astringent stench of mildew. You let your bag fall to the floor by your feet. Gingerly, you reach for the switch. The bug-filled globe of the ceiling light flickers warmly overhead. Power company hasn’t cut this place off yet, you think gratefully. In the few feet it took to get to the door, you’ve drenched yourself to the bone. Water drips from your leather jacket, pattering to the cracked, faded linoleum below.

The kitchen is clean. Orderly. Your grandmother’s ceramic roosters and floral-printed cookware still stored lovingly in their respective cubbies. The sink empty, the dishes put away. A tea towel draped over the stove handle. Everything is in its place, exactly as she left it – save for the thick layer of dust. She wouldn’t have stood for that.

You breathe in the emptiness for a moment.

Inexplicably, tears bank on your waterline.

You didn’t make it to the funeral. Cody couldn’t get the time off work – or so he told you. You mourned her passing in private, a handful of black-eyed Susans cast gently into the brook – letting the water carry them away, a swirling cradle of remembrance. You put it out of your mind. You had to. There was so much that demanded your time. Your attention. Pressing matters that stole even the briefest moments of introspection from you. No moments of weakness could be afforded.

Now, standing in her strikingly devoid kitchen, you feel the weight of that unfelt, unshed grief pressing down on your chest. A sightless elephant’s foot over your heart, flattening your lungs, crumpling you inward. Her home remains patient. Waiting. She left it like she would be returning – and it, longing for the woman that painstakingly cared for it. You notice the patch of faded grain on the nearest cabinet. The baking cupboard, you recognize. Her palm, wearing down the wood. Leaving her mark.

I shouldn’t have come here.

Your gaze flicks over to the sage-colored analog clock. It’s close to midnight. You chalk your misery up to road-weariness. Your head longs for a pillow, your mind the sweet amnesty of slumber. Wandering slowly through the house, you keep your eyes averted from the framed portraits on the walls. You simply cannot withstand any more reminiscing. Down the paneled hall, several bedrooms, their doors left ajar. Two have splintered holes through them. The kind only a fist produces. Your fingers trace over the damage as you pass. The frail voice of a woman who knows she’s outmatched whispers through your head.

You’ll pay for your sins, Dom. I swear it.

Your thumb lingers on a cracked bit of wood. You’ve gotten the threads of your sweater hooked on that very piece a time or two. Always, you jerked your shoulders violently, yanking yourself free. Too impatient to unravel yourself.

Leaving his mark, you muse, before moving on.

Palming open your grandmother’s bedroom door, you regard the carefully made-up queen-size bed, patched quilt tugged tight and corners sharp. You hesitate in the threshold. Avon beauty products sit on the vanity, glass bottles glittering softly in the low light. Her housecoat hangs on the hook by the closet. Slippers, neatly paired, waiting at the nightstand. Your lower lip trembles.

Turning away, you press the heel of your hand to your forehead. Your breath is shaky. Coming too quick. A painful lump in your throat makes swallowing without difficulty an impossibility.

“Fuck,” you whisper, sniffing, and head to your old room.

Shedding your jacket roughly, you toss it over the chest at the foot of the small, wrought-iron bedframe. Threadbare lace curtains are drawn over the window. Crossing, you yank them open. You want the sun on your face when you wake. Nature’s alarm clock. The pale pink wallpaper is discoloured and peeling in places. You spy a cobweb clinging to the trim. Your hand-painted white furniture, tenaciously pilfered from yard sales and thrift stores, fills the cramped room, unchanged since you were twelve. Two posters, held straight by bent tacks and faded by the light, hang above the writing desk. John Carpenter’s Halloween and James Cameron’s The Terminator. Odd choices for a little girl, but yours, nonetheless.

Unlacing your Chucks, you let them thud to the floor, fingers immediately reaching to massage your insoles. Your back twinges as you stoop. Blindly, you flip back the covers. In the morning, you’ll need to wash the linens. For tonight, however, you’ll rest on slightly smelly sheets. A minor travesty, but you’ll survive. You adjust the blanket, reaching over to snap off the stained-glass lamp. It clicks pleasantly, plunging the room into adequate darkness. Outside, the rain slashes against the siding. Another boom of thunder makes you flinch, eyes squeezing shut. You nuzzle the pillow against your cheek. Faintly, to the point you must be imagining it, the scent of Coppertone sunscreen lingers in the fabric.

Within minutes, you slip into a deep sleep.

“No, no, no!” you cry, true exasperation saturating your tone. You slide a bucket from the closet under the steady stream of water pouring through the crack in the ceiling. Behind you, another spout appears, pattering loudly against the living room floor, making itself known. “Shit, shit,” you curse, bare feet thumping against the hardwood, heading back into the kitchen to search for a suitable bowl to catch the drip. The storm had let up, but not dissipated completely, reduced to a moderate drizzle. The lawn soaks it up. The roof, however, disagrees with the downpour.

You worry your lower lip, sawing it between your teeth, bruising the flesh and rubbing it raw. You try not to dwell on the leaks, more focused on staunching the flow than finding the root of the ailment. You slide a cheap plastic popcorn bowl into the corner, eyeing the dark, angry splotch in the drywall. It blooms, layered damaged, indicating the issue is bone deep. For a moment, you consider the risk of the ceiling caving in. For an additional second, you consider if you’d really care. Buried under several feet of plaster and debris, head severed from the ability of conscious thought via a snapped neck, you imagine you wouldn’t mind at all.

Sighing, you rummage through the console table for the phone book. You pull out the heavy Yellow Pages from the drawer and crack it open next to the landline. You flip to the Post-it note bookmark Lenora left. Indicating the miniscule section belonging to Ironlake. You skim the local businesses. None had the inkling to part with the coin it cost to purchase a coloured add. You don’t blame them. Not one bit. Finger trailing, you tilt your head. To your luck – or detriment – there is only one construction business. A real jack of all trades outfit, based on the list of services they boast.

Ledoux’s Contracting Ltd.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you pluck the phone from its cradle, punching the digits in carefully. On the second ring, a man answers.

A black pickup meanders up the drive, the name of the company emblazoned across the side. You step out onto the covered porch to greet them, wrapping your arms around your chest. A burly man, with shoulder-length chestnut hair tucked under a work-worn cap, slides out from the driver’s side. His companion lingers in the cab, a silhouette behind the glass.

“Loic Ledoux,” the big fellow introduces, extending a hairy, calloused paw towards you. Gingerly, you shake it. His fingers wrap around yours weakly, clearly going easy on you. For reasons you cannot full articulate, it annoys you. You offer your name. Explain you’ve inherited the place from your grandmother, and that it was indeed you that had called.

“Let’s take a look at that leak, shall we?” he suggests, already gesturing towards the door. You lead him inside, watching his neck crane towards the ceiling, worn flannel stretching across his barrel chest. The buttons strain. “I noticed the water this morning,” you tell him meekly, gesturing towards your makeshift spill collection. “The damage in the ceiling is aged, though. Probably needed to be looked at a long time ago,” you offer with hesitation, not trying to step on the toes of a professional. To your pleasure, he nods in agreeance.

Outside, you hear the groaning protest of a rusted tailgate coming down. The clatter and scrape of tools being sifted through, an aluminum ladder being hoisted.

Mr. Ledoux hums, stepping closer, thick fingers prodding the swollen drywall. Giving it a thorough inspection. “Certainly damage in the roof, miss. The water is coming in from somewhere,” he surmises. Softly, a purely self-indulgent smirk pulls on your lips. How you missed that accent. Wata. Somewheya. It rolls over the vowels, as sticky and sweet as blackstrap molasses, and pulls them deep into the throat. Makes it something warm and full-bodied. “We’ll get a look up there,” he nods reassuringly. “But I can say for certain that roof needs to be re-tarred and papered. Lenora hasn’t had that done in …” he trails off, a hand going to the brim of his cap, as if tugging on it will knock the answer loose. “Three decades at least,” he guesses.

You squint at the man. He doesn’t look a day over forty. Unless he was laying shingles instead of attending primary school – you struggle to understand how he could possibly know that. As if reading your thoughts, the man nudges the drywall with his knuckle. It dimples. “Your nanna mentioned it needed to be done the last time we was down here. That roofs been giving her trouble for the past few autumns”. His dark brown eyes flick to the mantle. To your gap-toothed school portrait, framed in gold. “My sympathies on your loss, miss,” he adds. Perfunctory. You thank him. Wring your hands. You don’t know where to look.

Mr. Ledoux shifts, uncomfortable, before getting back to the task at hand. You try your best to listen as he explains the intricacies of water damage, your eyes beginning to glaze over, much to your own chagrin. The more he talks, the more expensive it starts to sound – a pit widening in your gut. Your savings are pitiful. All you have to your name is this house, a shitbox car, and a sock stuffed full of crumpled bills. Somehow, you don’t think you have the resources to dig yourself out of this one.

He asks you about an entrance to the attic, seeming to sense your desperate need to exit the conversation – for your own sanity. You point him in the direction of the ceiling hatch down the hallway. He takes his leave, fishing a small flashlight from the chest pocket of his overshirt as he goes.

You take a breath. Comb your fingers through your hair. Continue to gnaw the ragged bit of flesh on the inside of your cheek bloody. Your pack of Camels are in your handbag, still safely slung across the back of the kitchen chair. Peeking down the hall, ensuring Mr. Ledoux is occupied, you slink away for a quick nicotine break. Cigarettes in hand, you cross to the compact window above the sink, yanking it open with some effort. Hoisting yourself up onto the lip of the counter, you spark your black gas station Bic, touching the flame to the end of the cigarette. Stuffing the lighter into your pocket, you exhale a plume of smoke through the screen.

“Those things’ll kill you,” a voice comments, honeyed and amused – and scaring the living daylights out of you. “Jesus,” you snap, fingers trembling around the filter as you look towards the stranger standing in the doorway. Shadowed slightly by the overhang and the dark screen, he fills out the threshold, broad shoulders leading down to a narrow waist, wrapped in a simple navy Dickies jacket. “I’m sorry ma’am,” he apologizes immediately, “I didn’t mean to frighten you”.

“You just startled me,” you correct, shaking your head slightly. “Come in”.

He nods graciously, pulling open the screen door.

Long legs, clad in sturdy denim Levi’s, carry him across the linoleum. Wasting no time before exchanging pleasantries, he extends his palm. Long fingers. Trimmed nails. Heavily calloused. A simple silver watch peeks out from beneath his sleeve. “David Collins,” he introduces. “I work with Mr. Ledoux”.

He meets your eye as you shake his hand. You fall into his gaze, held motionless by the intensity of it. Powder blue, impossibly deep, flowering shades of cobalt and cyan ringing dark, dilating pupils. His sandy-blonde hair is thick, lustrous, naturally highlighted by the sun. It curls around his ears, a shag that looks as though it is frequently raked out of the way by impatient hands. His angular jaw and square chin are carpeted in a sensible five o’clock shadow, several shades darker than his head. David grins, his grip strong and sure, revealing a straight – yet charmingly imperfect – smile. A touch too breathlessly for your liking, you tell him your name.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he tells you earnestly, letting go of you a moment later. Your flesh feels several degrees colder after he departs. You look away, flicking your ash into the sink. “Likewise,” you offer, a polite half-smirk pulling on your lips.

David hesitates, lingering by the counter. He glances around the kitchen. “My condolences,” he murmurs, gaze roving over your perched form. Sincerity wraps around the platitude in a way that makes your chest ache and your teeth clench. “I knew Mrs. Fontenot. She was a very nice woman”.

“She was,” you agree, scarcely about a whisper. You bring the cigarette to your lips. He watches you, shapely mouth pulling downward, a heavy, poignant pause hanging in the air like there’s more to say. You don’t know if you have the strength hear it. Thankfully, the stranger seems to sense this. He turns towards the living room, poised to leave.

“Do you know where Mr. Ledoux ran off to?”.

You exhale out the window, pausing to consider David’s accent, drawling and buttery-smooth, before jutting your chin in the direction of the hallway. “In the attic,” you clarify. He shoots you another grateful smile – laying it on thick. Southern boy charm, you muse, blindly stubbing the cherry end of the cigarette out in the sink once his back is to you. To your surprise, he looks over his shoulder at the last second, catching your staring in the act. A flash in his baby blues, a flickering emotion you can’t be sure you caught, elusive and fleeting before it’s tucked away entirely. He rounds the corner, unfaltering, before disappearing from sight.

Glancing down at your fingers, blinking rapidly, you loosen your unconscious, white-knuckled grasp on the countertop.  

Lolth vs. Eilistraee