cryptic & machiavellian

✦ OLIVIA COOKE, CIS FEMALE, SHE/HER ✦ EDITH TELLER the TWENTY-SEVEN year old has been in Hidehill for HER WHOLE LIFE and was a STRANGER to Ronnie Nilsson, the most recent shadow of Hidehill. Whispers on the streets are that the STRIPPER AT THE PLAYPEN who lives in HADLEY PARK are said to be FOCUSED and BOSSY but I guess we’ll find out for ourselves. { DELL, 32, CST, SHE/HER. }

tw for cancer, parental death

“Oh, come on. You’re telling me you’ve never slipped out on a bill before? All your dates couldn’t of been that perfect— shit happens.”

“Is that your subtle way of calling this a date?”

“That shit is called none of my business.” Said with emphasis on business. “I’m buying shots, I’m too black to be out here when the cops come. You down?”

Brows raised, Edie nods in agreement and decisively steps away from the drama to follow her. 

“What kind of idiot would turn down free shots? Of course I’m in.”

He came to stand shoulder to shoulder with her, lookin at the spectacle in front of the pair of them. “Nah, probably not, but it looks fun.” Hand held out to her. “Come on, you only live once and we can afford bail.”

“Who is this ‘we’ that you speak of?” Edie questions, looking at him directly before promptly pushing his hand away in denial. 

“Because I’m sure as hell not doing extra lap dances to pay for bail for pulling some dumb shit. You’re on your own there, buster.”

x

“It’s not that bad” Achara spoke with a smile and a shrug before continuing “I think it’s completely legal, like he was driving and I was just you know.. getting busy with my mouth but I don’t think it’s illegal” she smiled at Edie. “I thought everyone had done no it but I guess not.. it was kinda fun anyway. Makes me miss LA sometimes.”

__

“Nah, you see I read this book when I was ten -- American Gods? Neil Gaiman, great book. Great book, mediorce show. Anyway, lady in that book was going down on a guy while he was driving and they ended up in a car accident and she died with a dick in her mouth. Not how I wanna go out,” Edie explains with a wrinkle of her nose, shuddering at the idea. 

“I made it down into LA proper once and it wasn’t really for me -- creeped me out. I went to school up in Berkley though and it was way more my vibe. Also not as fucking hot.”

“𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐑𝐀𝐓 me out, Teller?” Wren asked, holding out the blunt to the other woman as a form of payment, an offering. “Tennessee has bullshit policies on weed anyway.”

__

“I can just think of about eighteen more subtle ways to do it. An actual blunt is so 2005,” Edie sighs, but then accepts the blunt and takes a drag. 

“But appreciated nonetheless, where did you get this?”

“not at all.” nicola nods as she watches the car from a distance shake as its windows gets foggy. “but let’s give them a minute to realize there’s people walking by.”

__

“Don’t get me wrong, I like a little ride in the drivers seat as much as the next girl, if you catch my drift,” Edie said, tilting her head to the side as she watched the car. 

“But Jesus, not on mainstreet, ya know?”

–

Her words offer him little comfort, he’s not concerned with what some guys are and aren’t into. There’s little doubt in his mind that three years stripping at Playpen meant she was some folks preference, their go to girl. It was a statistical anomaly if she wasn’t and for once, it made Noah wish he was bad at math. 

He has about as much right to feel some type of way about that as he did sympathy for the way his own life was turning out, yet he still managed to find a way to feel pretty fucking sorry for himself. That was harder to do when he was sober, when there was nothing to haze the edges of the truth which was plain and simply despite his efforts to complicate it – it was his own decisions that led him there. 

( To Hadley Park, back to Hidehill, free falling backwards instead of moving forwards. ) 

“Don’t want to get in the fucking car.” He tells her, embodying more petulance in that moment than his own three-year old did when she didn’t get her own way. He wants to take a stand just for the sake of taking a stand, like if he stood in the parking lot all night just because she didn’t want him to then maybe he would have something to show for the evening. 

A couple of more whiskeys inside Playpen and he might have actually validated his own logic – or lack thereof – in that scenario, but even with whiskey warming his blood he still has some awareness that he’s being a dick just for the sake of it. 

That didn’t exactly jive with the vow he kept making himself every morning that today would be the day he did better. Most days, he’s forgotten that by noon. 

He abandons his post then, climbing into the passenger’s seat of her Bronco and closing the door behind him. Despite the amount of times he’s been in that very seat, the booze makes it’s presence in his system known with how it took him two tries to actually click the seatbelt into place. 

“Motherfucker.” 

He hadn’t meant to say that aloud, and he blinks when he realises he had vocalised it rather than just thought it, but he doesn’t elaborate further on it. That was the norm for them, half-truths and things left unsaid. 

“Y’know where I’m at.” He can’t bring himself to say the words Hadley Park, not to her, not when she had known his life in California intimately enough to comprehend the contrast of what a shitshow it was now. 

__

Edie's eyebrows quirk immediately upwards at his tone, head cocking to the side subtley as if she's silently daring him to keep pushing it. He'd always been the unstoppable force to her immovable object. 

 (The irresistible force paradox -- he'd taught her that. It kept feeling more familiar the older she got.) 

 "Doesn't really matter what you want, Noah," she tells him with a heavy sigh, her voice matter-of-fact and weight shifting from one foot the the other as she remains with the door open, staring him down. 

 If it went on like this, they'd end up just stubbornly rooted to their spots until sunrise or until he sobered up -- whichever came first. God help anyone who tried to fight it once Edith Teller got it in her head to take care of them. 

 She watches him, gracious in her victory, as he bends his form into the passenger side of the Bronco. Once the door closes behind him she finally rounds the back of the vehicle and places herself in the drivers seat. For a moment she just sits there with the only sound in the cab being their breathing, lost in her head for a second of how fucking surreal all of this was. 

 Then she turns the key in the ignition, the radio starting the low hum of the oldies station. 

 "Yeah," she answers, knowing the exact feeling of not wanting to elaborate on why and how you've ended up in the trailer park of the town you promised yourself you'd never be stuck in again. 

 "You hungry? We could swing through Jollibee on the way back and get a burger. I haven't eaten since the start of my shift."

maeve: too chicken shit to try it

maeve: you home? i could bring it over it you wanna be brave enough to see if it's edible 😂

edie: sure bring it over

…

Javier crosses his arms over his chest as he chuckles lowly. “You do know it’s only seven am and when people come in that early something really fucked up happen to their car.” He lifts his eyes up towards her but the second she begins to tell him what happened to her car, the amusement leaves his features. 

“He did what?” He clears his throat. “Who the fuck was it, E?” He asks, moving to walk past her to get to her car. “Yeah, I’ll fix it.” He mutters. “But I want a name so I can kick his fucking ass.”

“Or maybe people come in that early because they are natural early risers and like to get shit done early in the day when no one else is awake yet,” Edie objects, lifting her sunglasses and perching them on top of her head. 

An annoying trait that she had gained from her father -- if the sun was up, likely so was Edie.

“Calm down Rambo, I’ve not had enough coffee or alcohol to deal with this level of testosterone,” she informs him, standing up straighter to toss him the keys to her Bronco as he passed and following him to point out the damage.

“You think I’m asking for names when I’m giving lap dances? You don’t know him, he’s just some tucker from Memphis who shows up occasionally and apparently I just did my job too well last night and he thought it was something real. They’re a dime a dozen -- this asshole was just smart enough to track down which car was mine. So, what’s the estimate?”  

maeve: it def looks like a 'tried' dish

maeve: idk how i burnt a pie but here we are

-

“Just wanted to make sure you got your car alright.” Noah tells her, gesturing in the general direction of where he had assumed she was parked. She knew as well as he did it their hometown wasn’t the pinnacle of safe, and somewhere in his whiskey addled mind he thought he was doing some good in watching over her. He couldn’t possibly fuck that up too. 

( Wrong. ) 

“No, I didn’t watch you fucking dance, Edie,” He tells her, not fully able to meet her eye when he did so. He’s seen her in a state of undress more times than he could even hope to count, but that had always been in a situation where it was just the two of them. It felt leery in a way that he didn’t like, to occupy a seat and watch her entertain the masses. He understands why she does it, but that didn’t mean he had figured out how to stomach it. 

“I came to get out of my fucking mind on whiskey, if you must know.” Noah admits, finding it within himself to be honest for once – whiskey truths, a surefire sign he had succeeded in his task – but it had always been just a little easier to be when it was Edie he was talking to. “Which is about all I’m good for these days, didn’t even click this was your spot until I heard the stage name.” 

Scarlet Heart. He can’t say for certain if it fits her stage aesthetic or her stage presence, but there was an aptness to it for him through virtue of knowing her as well as he did. It had been in those fleeting moments where she held his face in her hands and his heart along with it that he found himself seeing less of the red that permeated everything he did, like by presence alone she could banish a burden he had thought inescapable for him. 

It felt like peace in a way he knew he didn’t deserve then, even less so now. 

__

His excuse for lingering near the back door gives her pause, her mouth wrinkling to the side for a moment as she chews on her bottom lip. She hadn’t told him about the Bronco being keyed a couple nights previous -- he obviously had bigger things going on that the moment. However, she had brought it into the shop so maybe he had heard about it -- either way, the gesture wasn’t lost on her.

And while she is usually the first to assure that she can take care of herself, she gets the feeling that he needs it more than she does.

“Thanks for looking out, I appreciate it,” she tells him, “Saves me having to tip security to walk me out.”

She continues walking, hearing his steps behind her as she begins making her way towards the far end of the parking long. 

“Some guys are into it, you know,” Edie informs him -- almost elaborating to say that some guys liked that their girlfriends were strippers. But she wasn’t his girlfriend -- sometimes it absolutely felt like she had been, but she wasn’t -- so she leaves it at that and swallows it down.

Arriving at her car, she drops down her tailgate to toss her duffle into the back, turning back to face Noah as she latches it back up.

Edie can’t remember a point of her life where she didn’t know Noah in one way or another. She knows him like the back of her hand, even through the moments where she’s tried to convince herself not to. It’s probably what’s always kept her coming back...

But she’s never seen him this broken -- like if he would stand still long enough she’d be able to see it ripping at the seams of him.

“Well, Playpen and Pynk Potion, you’d be forgiven for the confusion,” she admits, walking around to her passenger side door and unlocking it before swinging it open and gesturing towards the interior.

“And as for the whiskey I’d say you have the mission accomplished. Get in the car.”

maeve: you're not allowed to laugh

maeve: i tried baking something for sunday dinner