#redterrors

all he did was mention the fucking curfew, considering they’re getting close to that time of night where no one should be out on deadwood’s streets. it’s supposed to be a polite warning, that’s all. if anything, it’s his job as sheriff. and sure, maybe he’s not exactly happy about the manor up in the woods, and the fact that he had to show up a few times for accidental deaths on those working on it. maybe he thinks that there must’ve been some occupational hazard rules broken to let that happen. maybe he’s also tired of the department getting calls from stupid kids stammering about hearing horrible screams from this house.

the dispatchers have genuinely started telling those callers that just because it’s up in the hills, and just because it’s isolated, doesn’t mean it’s haunted. go home. sober up, or get some sleep, or eat some food and actually take a break. after the first few calls, garrett figured that reputation was the problem more than anything. but then there’s something like that, something so smooth and smug that it genuinely makes him grit his teeth. saying things like that encourages the calls about the black manor.

jesus christ, seriously, garrett almost snaps, because the last thing he needed tonight was some admittedly weird backtalk. he’s tired. it’s been a long tiring week, and it’s going to be worse as the days go on. maybe it’s the author thing. he’s never met an actual author before, especially one that’s bestselling. maybe there’s just something ominous about living like that. deadwood’s current crisis does read like the plotline of some bestselling thriller, a small town with some murders and a desperate police force.

that means he’s either the useless police chief or the protagonist. both are equally bad for different reasons. he isn’t the protagonist of anything, and he never has been, and he would prefer to actually do something about the state of the town. moreover, the idea of some guy up in a manor in the woods, not even really that close to the town, using the town for material makes him bristle. very small town of him, he knows, but the emotion is his regardless.

“yeah,” he says, grim and exhausted, “i’m sure. and that’s why the curfew matters, okay? i really don’t want to have to drive all the way up to your manor to issue a ticket, so please just... get home on time.” please. he’s asking, as politely as possible. “i don’t want the hassle. you don’t. so let’s keep this simple.” nothing’s simple, and he would love for just one thing to go right this week. 

people get sad when they’re drunk.  sure there are other options, flirty drunk, angry drunk, friendly drunk or like noah’s college roommate, hostess drunk, who starts asking like a housewife in the middle of a christmas party for next to no reason beyond alcohol.  but sad drunk, that’s the great equalizer.  everyone’s been there at least one point by themselves, at least one point with others.  wasn’t a few months ago that noah ended up there with no company but her ferret, her bed, and her translations to read over.  

some of the pages were tear stained by the end of that night.  fucking pathetic, she still flushes pink when she thinks about it for too long.

it’s made her stomach itch to see it in others though.  maybe it’s a newborn or misplaced empathy, but being alone when you’re lost in your own tragedy is.  well.  tragic.  and he seems there, mumbling such terrible things into his drink in a voice so low that it rumbles through her very bones as she slides a seat closer.  keeps one between them, her own drinks mostly untouched and cradled in her hands.  

     “i’m sorry you feel that way,” noah offers out, feeling as awkward as she knows she must sound.  “life... it’s hard.  but if you want someone to talk to, i’m happy to lend an ear.  strangers and all that.”

( for @draqqn )

that’s not something people just say.  maybe as a joke, a teenager girl at prom who’s so sure that she’s going to be queen that she goes around bragging about it, teasing her friends with her confidence.  but they’re adults here.  surrounded by the light of dusk turning into darkness and neon halos from all the signs surrounding the building that noah has only briefly been inside of.  she wanted fresh air.  she wanted -- she got the perfume of this bouncer in her senses, thick and heady and dizzying as she leans against the building.  a smile full of teeth.  conversation that noah isn’t even sure she was part of, and now this.

it feels like a threat as much as something nostalgic, and noah’s more scared by the latter than whatever the former was suppose to imply.  she swallows past the weight growing in her throat.  tries to clear it away.

     “you uhm.  you’ve worn a crown often?”  noah asks, hating the tremble in her voice.

     “that’s tragic.”

he can only be sincere to her, it’s part of a curse that has grown since that odd first meeting.  in return for the small truths that zahra gives him in snippets like lines from epic poems, ones so long forgotten that he will never find the rest, alec gives her his own truth.  speaks it into the air where there is no removing it and lets her judge what he has said for herself, decide each word like justice weighing them on her scales.  it’s what she deserves.  there’s a damage in her after all, wordless tragedy that speaks of a warning as much of a request.

beware, the damage in her says, i will destroy you with my teeth.

please, a smaller voice whispers, be true to me and i will feel welcome.

or so the mind of an artist imagines.  this is one thing that alec has not told her, words that he has not felt coaxed to speak in some relief that he cannot let go of.  zahra speaks this to him without words, yes, but he doesn’t think it’s something she wants to say.  the first maybe.  with her job it would suit her at least, she wants to scream that she is dangerous with a glance of her eyes and nod of her skull.  for most it is effective.  even for him some evenings, when the falling of the sun rises something inside of her that brings him to pause.  

now he pauses again.  for different reasons than fear, or so he tells enough of himself that he believes it.  maybe for consideration.  trying to fathom what those words mean, not in the sake of how they are said so much as how they aren’t.  a puzzle to be put together.  zahra speaks in riddles enough that she couldn’t deny even her tone can be a thing to piece together; would likely tell alec that it’s the fun of it.  she likes watching him puzzle in silence, use his cooking as an excuse to think longer than he often would.  

it’s a beautiful part of her, alec would tell her that the second that she asked.  like the rest of her, even her words are beautiful.  he would make art from them if he had the time, piece something together to show her the collage of picasso like imagery she creates with only her throat, tongue and teeth.  maybe a cityscape.  each letter is a building, or a street, or a vehicle upon them.  some for the skies in lighter shades and others curved as clouds.  she would tease him for it, but alec doesn’t doubt she would take it.

made for her, after all.  what greater joy is there than knowing you inspired something in another living being?  

     “i don’t know what you’ve seen in your life, but i know you’ve seen plenty to fill your years and then some.”  alec tells her after a moment, turning the heat down beneath one of his pans and moving to the other.  he stirs what’s within.  glances towards zahra and lingers there, eyes to eyes in a shameless moment of contact.  “and i hope you know that you’re safe from it here.  to let it go if you want, or to forget it, or even hold it a little lighter.  i’m not asking you to give it to me, just to feel like this is another home.  that’s what i want for you, as cheesy as it must sound.”

she says things like this sometimes, when they’re alone together.  they seem to mean nothing to her.  just musings from her mind, spilling free from her mouth because it is relaxed; because she is relaxed, positioned on whatever piece of furniture or floor or window that she’s deemed appropriate for posing in just about any clothes that she’s chosen to wear.  

zahra, he has learned quickly, is nothing short of an enigma.  both youthful and terribly ancient in a dueling sort of dichotomy that alec struggles to wrap his head around at the best of times.  it’s undeniably part of what drew him to her.  art isn’t about the body after all, it’s what the body contains and is made to carry from place to place.  a play is tedious without the right actors -- or so a teacher told him once. a small piece of advice he’s clung to from those years and uses whenever he has the moment.  but no one has fully exemplified such a thing as zahra does, and in truth alec isn’t sure how he can explain that to anyone.

after all, it’s a mystery to himself.

today she’s being made out of watercolors and oils.  it’s a combination not unlike herself, nonsensical yet functioning with the right artist.  that explains them in a way, doesn’t it?  nonsensical person with a nonsensical artist, the collaboration of years.  alec can’t help that it feels that way sometimes.  

not unlike how she can’t help saying such things, he imagines, for she never seems to realize how they sound until seeing his face.  

today: pensive.  almost withdrawn until alec soothes himself, lets his mouth upturn as he peers at zahra over his canvas.  

     “you’ve had more experience with that than i have, there’s little doubt in me there.”  it’s something philomene consumed without intent, a moment of life alec had not truly missed until she was old enough for him to realize it was missing.  has zahra had many partners, he wonders, unbidden and turning his face pink.  does she realize what he means?  “but it’s also a skill, and one i know you contain.  after all, why else would you be here?”

he means it teasing, hopes she’ll take it so.  with another glide of the brush in his hand dark colors spill across canvas and almost dried layers.  zahra’s skin coming together into something detailed, something so beautiful that alec feels briefly free from the golden thing’s hold on his creations.  even as it stirs within him, twists as it always does when he speaks with this guest.  a jealousy, alec thinks, and a worthy one.  zahra is a companion.  maybe even a friend.

what is a golden thing to something like that?

     “so then, are you stealing my joy with each painting i make of you?”