SUCH TOMMYROT.

          “What happened t’yers?” He tries to muster up real venom but the momentum peters out before he even finishes speaking and Walter simply cradles his sore and discolored jaw in his hand. After forty plus years of “what happened to your face?”, things are getting a little old and trivial for his attention. “Can I help you?”

REPOST AND FILL IN WITH DETAILS ABOUT YOUR MUSE AS IF THEY WERE A CHARACTER IN A DATING SIM.

NAME: Dane Ike Jekyll THEIR PROFESSION: used to hunt supernatural creatures, in the process of legally prosecuting the organization who brainwashed him, private detective for supernatural individuals (very sparingly) WHERE THEY CAN BE FOUND: in. his. house. only there. nowhere else. outside is scary. FAVOURITE FOOD TYPE: if it takes less than three minutes to cook in the microwave or comes in a take out box, it’s his favorite FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK: beer and lots of it, overproof liquor FAVOURITE TRAIT u wot WHERE THEY WOULD GO ON A DATE: dive bars, since people tend to mind their business, H O M E, an unfrequented park. if people aren’t there, it’s a safe bet IDEAL GIFT: anything he can wear or drink from is sure to be a smash hit, something you might give your dad WHEN WILL THEY DRINK ALCOHOL: any time. usually before work. and after. and sometimes during. HOW MANY DATES UNTIL THEY GO TO BED: 10? 15? a lot. however long it takes to earn his trust.

Starter for @tomyrot

     It’s not often that Toro (the current name he’s been saddled with– a little uncreative, sure, but he won’t complain) sees someone so casually hanging around by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Usually if somebody’s out this far, they either got dropped off (not so willingly) or they’re very, very lost. But here Baby is, looking as relaxed as if they were having a picnic– wait, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

     Now, Toro may not be able to eat, but he doesn’t mind sticking around to chat. He’s intrigued, now, wondering why this stranger is hanging around all the way out here. Do they know sign, he wonders? It might be worth a shot. If not, he’ll just pull out his notepad and communicate that way. So, he waves, sits down cross-legged, and signs off a quick <<Do you know sign?>>

With the rising sun at Job’s back, his figure casts a long, narrow shadow over the meager heap of trash that used to be his beloved motorcycle as he lingers at the shed door. Though he knows the eerie feeling in his gut is, possibly, nothing more than his still-upset stomach trying to regain its footing - something tells him this is a bad idea. His mother’s voice still haunts him; Gene’s blurry face, as though Job were viewing him though foggy glass; the bitter bang of metal as he cried and yelled and hit his fists for anyone at all to hear and let him out.

Glancing over his shoulder, he briefly watches as Monty climbs up the stairs and, instead of relief, feels a wave of alienation wash over him, only barely managing to swallow the whine that creeps up his throat as he shuts the door behind him and crashes down on his ass, tears flooding his eyes.

Job can’t know just how long he sits in the cool darkness of the shed and weeps, but it feels like a long while. Try as he might, and try he does - each time the tears subside somewhat and he looks up to see the hot red cherry of Faith’s hood glint at him from the heap, all Job can do is bury his face back in his knees and try to will himself to vanish.

Eventually, the sun now well over the horizon, Job pushes himself up on two wobbly feet, his eyes kept to the ground; the plastic bag, filled with whatever little belongings he has left, dangling heedlessly from his hand, jittery with a three-day hunger yet too queasy to eat. He heads around back and slowly washes his pale carcass in the cold water, grateful for even the smallest relief of cleanliness, and no longer having to share the same space with the wreckage of his life. With a change of clothes at Monty’s advice, wet hair sticking to his scalp, Job finally begins his wary ascent to the watchtower.

Soon, the forest lays spread at his feet; the pines, which seemed infinitely tall only a few moments earlier, now like small plastic models far below - a child’s toy scattered across the floor. Were this any other day, he would pause to look, take the cold, fresh air in - but exhausted and distraught, Job makes no stops other than the one he makes at the door upon his arrival, stubbornly avoiding Monty’s gaze still.

“Thanks. I um, took a shower, but I couldn’t, uh…” lips twisting in a jagged little line, he sniffs, “do you need the space or, uh, can I take a look in there another time?”

tomyrot:

         The back of Monteith’s neck itches. He releases his grip on the steering wheel to scratch at it, nodding in affirmation. “Well, it ain’t a watchtower anymore. It was decommissioned in 1999, long before I got to it.”          Curling over the steering wheel to peer out the windshield, Monteith cranes his neck to look up with Job as if he’s never seen the place before. After bolting from the mortuary, to Hank’s dismay, Monteith had hiked for hours through the parkland surrounding the town before finding the watchtower. It had been a decaying monster, creaking loudly and swaying in the wind, its busted windows looking eerily like missing teeth. Though half the staircase had rotted and fallen away, Monteith decided he’d rather die a quick and painless death from a two-hundred-and-ninety foot drop than suffer the blistering cold any longer. He’d made it into the relative warmth of four non-insulated walls and never left.          It had taken surprisingly little time to find a job in town without any personal identification and Monteith began pouring his meager monthly wealth and more into repairing the tower. Just under two months into the project, a ranger by the name of Dresden found him out; somebody had spotted him re-shingling the roof. Dresden was a gracious man and listened to Monteith’s story with an open mind and, by the end of it, they parted ways only with Dresden’s warning that he couldn’t guarantee another ranger’s acceptance to a squatter on protected land. Six years have passed and Monteith has yet to meet a ranger he couldn’t persuade.          “Real long story. I renovated it myself, even built that shed.” Monteith points to the white shed again and clears his throat. “Ahem. Runnin’ water, too, if ya need to, uh— wipe…off, wash yer clothes, brush yer teeth ‘r whatever.” 

Job gets it. He can feel the hard crust of vomits still clotted in his hair, taste the sour acid in his mouth, and knows he must still reek of sick. Far worse things have busied his distraught mind until now but, finally, with the crying having somewhat subsided and some distance put between himself and that cold, dark cell – he realizes that he must have stunk up Monty’s entire truck and that, regardless - he would probably at least begin to feel somewhat better if he weren’t wallowing in his own dried-up puke.

“Yeah. I will, thanks.” Nodding briefly, Job looks to his own hands lying idly in his lap, the dirt still beneath his nails. He tries, but finds that he’s unable to meet Monty’s gaze - looking, instead, to the white shed behind Monty’s shoulder, and even that only for a short moment before he’s withdrawn into himself once more. “Thanks for, um,” for what? It isn’t the man’s fault, Job is all too aware – but even then, thanking the man who ran him over to death feels just a little bit… well, off. “Thanks,” echoing in lack of better words, nose scrunched as he sniffs and wipes it, Job then finally slips out of the cabin, leaving the door open behind him as to let it air of his stench.

Job, entirely lost to a fog of agony and self-pity, remains entirely oblivious to the road. He tries to watch it at first, nature big and open all around them, knowing he ought to seek out that which he knows makes him happy; but soon enough, even with Monty’s careful driving - he can’t help but picture a lightning flash of chrome and red slip directly under the truck’s wheels. He pictures the sound of crashing metal and crackling bones and cringes, shrinking even smaller in his seat as he curls up around his bag and squeezes his watery eyes tightly shut.

Only when the engine stills again does Job open them again, blinking at the forest all around them. Whatever he had been expecting, exactly, remains unclear - though it certainly wasn’t this. Cheek pressed to the window so that he may glance up the tall, tall wooden frame supporting the ranger station, he nods slowly as he finally turns his attention to Monty, as though not yet ready to process the information he’s been given. “You live in a watchtower?”

All Job manages doing for a while is simply nod at Monty’s words, his forehead bumping against his knees, and then fall right back into the silence and stillness of the parking lot. This way, with his eyes shut, the cicadas turn into nothing but a wall of white noise. They allow Job to distance himself from his terrible visions of both the living and dead, the horror of waking up cold and alone, unable to move or escape. Those’re just things that happen to ya, his aunt Patty would say. They don’t define who you are.

He doesn’t want to rely on Monty or, in this moment, anyone - but finds that, having to, what with his trembling limbs and total-loss motorcycle - he’d rather it be Monty. His approach to Job stands in stark contrast to Hank’s and Job, despite his grief, is in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth.

After a long few minutes, he finally gathers just enough courage to take a deep breath and sit back up; pink, wet eyes blinking rapidly against the morning sun. The tall pines all around make him feel small and infantile and Job hurries to collect his belongings and join Monty in the cabin of his truck, curled up in his seat around his clear little bag of things as though his life depends on it. “Okay,” he tells the man behind the wheel and sniffs his nose and nods his head.

Starter for @tomyrot

     “Oh. I’m very sorry, I hadn’t realized…” She feels a little bad for bringing the whole ‘home’ thing up now. At least she has a place to go back to– or, at least, she thinks so. The planet didn’t seem like it was on the edge of catastrophe when she left, so that’s probably a pretty safe assumption to make. (At the same time, maybe it’s worse to know home’s still there but she’s not.) 

     Still, he seems to be doing pretty decently for himself despite all that. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so guilty– after all, it’s not as if she had any way of knowing. “So, what have you been doing since you came here? I’ve gotten a job… an apartment… the expected things.”

If he wishes for it hard enough, maybe he’ll disappear. It’s never worked before, but that has never stopped Job from keeping on trying either.

It doesn’t, of course - but, for a while, Job can pretend as though it has. The monotonic chirp of the cicadas fills his ears and in the darkness of his closed eyelids, he can pretend as though none of this is really happening. It doesn’t last long, but it does give him just enough distance from the bottomless pit of pain burning in his innards to actually consider Monty’s question.

He does want to get the fuck out of here. Whether or not he wants to do that with the man under whom’s truck he’d slipped is an entirely different question, but Job isn’t exactly in a position to be picky and, anyway - the promise of retrieving more of his belongings is one he can’t refuse. So he nods and takes a deep breath and finally pulls away from his knees if only so that Monty could gauge his answer, wiping his red, wet face over the back of his hand like a clumsy child coming down from a tantrum, and swallows a few deep breaths in an attempt to soothe the shaking of his shoulders and the hiccup of his voice.

“Yeah,” he breathes with a shiver and sniffs his nose, suddenly all too aware of the melodramatic performance he’s just given these two men, and finds himself unable to meet Monty’s gaze. “Yeah, please get me outta h-here.”

         Jean-Marie is mad enough to bark, her upper body tight with tension and exasperation, a thin sheen of sweat highlighting her forehead. As if she doesn’t have enough loose ends to tie up after office hours, here’s just one more man to ruin her night and her mother’s handmade towels. She holds a hand to her forehead and thanks God her son isn’t visiting this weekend so he might not witness this kind of careless behavior.          “I can clean a carpet but I can’t make my mama spin another towel, can I, god rest her soul?” She makes a gesture, like a wrangler slapping the ass of a stubborn cow. “Now, git. In the kitchen, go on.”

This is what he gets for denying God’s will. This is what he gets for only ever wanting to lead a life of peace; for not wanting to abide by God’s plan of kill or be killed; for wanting to lead a normal, anonymous life filled only with love and kindness. Job has been trying to avoid this realization for a long time now, only to find that he simply cannot ignore it anymore: he is not, and never has been, in God’s favor. God hates and has condemned him to a life of misery.

Rejected by yet another parent. Job crumbles down to the pavement, his face in his knees, a fistful of black hair, still damp, in each hand, tightly grasped. “Job,” he whines into his knees without thought. The man he refuses to look at as he stands before him is, as always, nothing but an unsuspecting sap who’s been dragged into the steaming heap of impossible horseshit which is Job’s life - something he undoubtedly does not deserve. Still, despite going against his very nature, Job seems unable to acknowledge anything beyond his own immediate pain. “Th-this,” he hiccups, hating the stutter in his voice, “please – please just –” and, realizing that there’s nothing that he wants to say, merely shakes his head and falls silent.