relinquish ;

Celeste couldn’t recall seeing this woman around town before, nor seeing her beat-up car in, well, any of the few places she frequented around town. This didn’t mean much, of course; she was relatively new to town, but figured she was starting to get into the swing of things. “You one of the locals, then? We’ve only been open about 6 months or so,” she said with a gentle smile.

“And what seems to be the problem, hon?”

Mercy nods. Makes sense. She can’t very well ditch Blackrock and expect it to stay the same. She cranes her head around what she can see of the shop, taking it in. Cleaner than the one she use to roll through in high school – maybe more well loved, dare she say it. It settles at least some of her nerves. And then back to Celeste – Mercy thinks, is her name. Hopes, cause that’s what’s banging around in her head. 

Mercy talks, and Sara’s initial shock at seeing her begins to subside– at least enough for her to be able to form a coherent thought, to offer something more than a seemingly innocuous question for Mercy to dodge. ( Unless her mother had fallen ill in the past week or so, Sara knows she’s fine. News of the Vascone’s luncheon for the missing children had spread quickly, even to those, like Sara, who hadn’t managed to score an invite. )

She frowns, despite the knowledge. Mercy was always blasé about life in a way Sara couldn’t understand. She’d found it endearing at the time, when she was in her twenties and Mercy was a rebellious and exciting addition to her life, but now it just makes her feel sad.

“That’s terrible,” Sara offers. She perpetuates the lie because going along with it is easier than calling Mercy out, and at any rate, she doesn’t think she has the right to do so. She relinquished it when she let Mercy leave Blackrock without her. ( That was the last time they spoke: Sara told Mercy she couldn’t go to Seattle with her, not when Raine needed her here in Blackrock. She remembers how defeated Mercy looked. She remembers how sure of herself she felt, how positive she was that she’d made the right choice. And now Raine won’t even look at her. )

Sara releases her grip on the grocery cart, her knuckles white from the effort. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding onto it so tightly. She doesn’t know what to say, but while Mercy is looking everywhere but Sara’s face, Sara can’t stop staring at her.

“It’s…” She trails off. Good to see you is both an understatement and a lie. “Been a while,” she lands on. It’s such an incredibly stupid and obvious thing to say that she almost laughs aloud. She bites the inside of her cheek instead, her gaze fixed. She craves a cigarette.

“I thought about you a lot,” Sara continues after another long, painful pause. She doesn’t know why she feels compelled to share this sliver of truth, but it feels good, like a weight off her chest. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

Mercy knows, of course, that Sara knows she’s lying. It’s the way these things go – Mercy hurting herself like this; pressing her dull little fingernails into bruises of her own making. But Sara is polite, and gentle, and above all kind, and so she doesn’t acknowledge that every last syllable that came out of Mercy’s mouth is a goddamned lie. Mercy wants to hate her for it, and finds that she can’t. 

“Yeah –” Mercy adjusts the bag on her shoulder. This is where it gets uncomfortable, where something old and ugly beats in her heart and she can’t quite swallow it down without flinching. She knows Sara’s eyes are on her, swears she won’t meet them, but does any way. The guilt must be obvious. She can only hope the regret is better hidden. 

Fucking activists. Easy to report on, pick soundbites from – Jesus Christ do they love to talk about themselves – less so to interact with on a personal level. Mercy gets it. She read about the dead wolf a month ago and knows first-hand Blackrock’s intimate if slightly overzealous love of firearms. It was, at some level, inevitable that PETA would stake a claim on the square – or whatever banner this one has flapping at his back. It doesn’t mean Mercy has to be happy about it. 

“Hey, asshole – yes, you. What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s funny –” Mercy starts, swinging the car keys around her index finger, back pressed against the passenger door of her mom’s beat up old hatchback. She surveys what she can see of the auto shop – cars parked or hiked up on hydraulics; tools and chatter; a whole busybody world Mercy lives tangential to, never interacts with until cases like this, when her Mom’s engine goes tits-up on the main road, and frankly, fucks the rest of her day. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in here before. Are you guys new?”

date: november 19th location: ugly mug cafe closed to @mvrciless​

The coffee at Ugly Mug, in a sense, is questionable. It’s not that he’s a coffee snob, but compared to the cafes he used to frequent in Seattle, this place is – well – unique. He tries not to complain about Blackrock too much, because he’s stuck here and he won’t be able to leave until his case is closed, but it’s difficult. 

And he’ll be the first to admit it – he misses Seattle. So much that he’s apparently started hallucinating and seeing some familiar faces around town. 

Except – he squints his eyes – the hallucination seems to be moving and moving towards him. A moment later, he realizes he’s not imagining her at all: Mercy Vascone, standing as tall and proud as ever.

“Oh, you have got to be shitting me.” 

Jesus, it smells like high school. Mercy shoulders the door open with poorly-concealed distaste. Like most of Blackrock, time has not been kind to the Ugly Mug Café, and the wound it rips open is cauterized like steam from the espresso machine. It’s horrendously easy to fall into old habits, like this – order the same drink and sit at the far corner at the same empty table; tap her foot with the same beat as the bell over the door and read the same notes slipped under the glass table top. 

She doesn’t get that far. She doesn’t even make it as far as the till before she sees him – stock straight as ever, looking like something ripped out of a Twilight Zone episode. This week’s titled, GHOSTS FROM THE FUTURE. 

“Detective Banks.” She recovers well enough to give him a two-fingered mock salute. “With all due respect, what the fuck are you doing in my hometown?”

open to: @mvrciless when: a sunday afternoon

Sara volunteered to do the grocery run this week, as a selfish excuse to think about something trivial for an hour or so, if not simply to give Sam a break. God knows he deserves it, and she doesn’t much mind the task, anyway. She got up early, made a list ( pizza Pringles for Sam, dill pickle chips for Clover ) and pulled up to the supermarket just in time for the clerk to flip the Closed sign to Open. She likes going early; it leaves less room for her to run into people she doesn’t want to talk to.

It’s almost a success.

She’s rolling her cart full of groceries back to her car when she passes by Mercy Vascone, entering the store as Sara leaves. She has to do a double-take, but it’s definitely her. A little older, perhaps a little wearier, but unmistakably her.

“…Mercy?” If Sara sounds incredulous, it’s only because she is. The last time they spoke, Sara was still in her twenties and Mercy was smoking a cigarette and telling her she’d rather die than grow old in Blackrock, and now here she is. At the fucking grocery store. 

…Have her and Clover been texting? 

Sara stares at her, open-mouthed, for a beat too long. She isn’t sure if she should hug her or keep her distance, so she opts for the safer option and stays right where she is. The feeling of total bewilderment has yet to subside.

“I– what are you doing here?”

This was exactly what Mercy didn’t want; why she came into Blackrock quietly, stayed out of public spaces, and cancelled her mother’s potluck. Why she hadn’t wanted to come in the first place – to Montana, to town, and especially to the fucking grocery store. It was, on some level, inevitable. No one ever keeps their wires uncrossed in Blackrock, even when you run your fingers through them every day. 

It’s all so fucking poetic. Momma’s out of milk and the usually friendly neighbor is too busy. Mercy agrees, because it’s better than another Sunday in the house, with only her own head and Momma’s for company.  

Just for a second, Mercy lets herself pretend she doesn’t see Sara. And then reality sets in. 

“Um – yeah.” Mercy looks everywhere except directly at her: the ground, the open sliding doors, Sara’s full grocery cart. She only realizes a beat later that she’s answering a question Sara never actually asked. 

“Picking up groceries?” Her brow quirks up, and the edge of a joke curves upwards with the corner of her mouth. Maybe next she’ll say, thought that’s what these things were for. But she doesn’t. Instead she lies. “My mom’s not doing too well, and the neighbors can’t really take care of her anymore, so – ” a shrug, “– I’m just here to make sure the house doesn’t start smelling if she kicks it.”

"My dog? Sure I’ll give her a big fat smooch again.”

“Look, man – we all make choices. I made mine and she made hers. I don’t pretend to understand it but so long as she can sleep at night – doesn’t seem like my problem.”

"The bitch in question.”