*✞ ·˚. sins .˚· ✞*

MAKE YOUR MUSE.

@boothillstarters​

He’d just wanted snacks. That was it. With tentative plans to head back out onto the open road tomorrow morning, Shepherd had thought that a trip to the Amen Grocery Market to restock his mini-cooler would’ve been easily accomplished. But, instead, he found himself frozen halfway down an aisle and eavesdropping. Well, he was ‘eavesdropping’ in the least incriminating sense of the word, because the pair of obnoxious teenagers a few feet away were having the loudest conversation possible – which very well could’ve been done on purpose. How else would locals get their kicks than by scarring the out-of-towners with artfully crafted urban legends? If that had been their intent, then mission accomplished, because, fuck, did Shep hate ghost stories.

“– That’s not true, is it?” His words were hushed and conspiratorial as he turned towards the nearest person to ask, eyes still tracking the retreating backs of the teenagers as they laughed their way towards the checkout. Holding a bag of Doritos in one hand and Cheetos in the other, Shep seemed a little more than ridiculous to be debating the validity of secondhand gossip, but his thoughts had already drifted to how difficult he’d found it to sleep these last few nights. How he could swear all he heard was static when he stood in the shower. He shook his head, frowning just slightly. “About… that shrieker thing? Amen Shrieker?” Shepherd pressed, hoping to find a voice of reason. “You haven’t heard anything about that, right? It’s ridiculous.”

Boot Hill was a place of endless urban legends, of eyes bright and gleaming from the bushes as a child walks home under the overhead tungsten glow that begins to dim. And howls that creep closer at night, through the bedroom window and tap against the glass until the morning sun begins to breath on the horizon. They’d be so strewn from lips, and idle gossip, that they’d become a living thing of their own.

Alice would tell Noah endless tales of creatures with gnarly teeth, sharpened to a point and dripping crimson glistening in car headlights. A things with too many legs scuttling across the road, or the cries in the distant that beckon those who dare strain their ears to listen.  Now she’s nothing more than one of those tales herself, of the blonde who waits by the side of the road with a gleam in her eyes. The blonde you bump into in the street, only to turn back and see an empty road behind you.  Perhaps though that was just him she was haunting.

“Has no one told you yet?” It wasn’t every day Boot Hill was struck by the jarring sight of someone new, someone who stood out against the decaying frames of age old buildings and melted tar roads that still held the presence of tire marks from the last era.  “You have to be careful in Boot Hill. If you listen closely enough to those coyote calls, you might hear your name. When that happens, it’s too late. The shrieker’s already marked her victim.”

Blue’s eyes lift to grace the ceiling with a gaze it probably doesn’t often receive. It’s black and she’s always disliked it, feeling like it makes the room even smaller, constraining it in darkness but then again, it is a bowling alley. It’s supposed to thrive at night, white lighting up blue and music keeping customers cheery. 

She’s thinking, considering his words as her lips part. As her thoughts shift, she pressed her lips together in a hesitant frown. Still, it’s nothing but sweet and innocent. She’s never suspicious, she wears every expression so openly and that’s a habit she can’t quite quit. “Well, I don’t know.” 

For someone who looks so conflicted, she then launches into her inner monologue, despite the fact that a) she didn’t really know Noah all that well and b) she wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear it. “I have another job, cleaning… but she’s not texting back so I guess I’m gonna have to get in my car and drive home but that just sounds so boring. I feel like an old lady, retiring to her knitting, but I also don’t wanna…” She pauses. Blue is definitely not going to talk about her mother. Blinking like someone’s reset her, she addresses him properly. “Why?”

There was a beauty to intensity. Alice would teach him that. In his stares that suffocated, like claws sunk into the flesh that protects your neck. Bloodied knuckles that washed you with the stains of his sins. His sharp smile made for war- threatening to devour you if you stepped too close. She’d say there was a grotesque longing that accompanied it. Heavenly it would paint him.

Divine. 

She’d be the first person drawn to this intensity in him, the way his fists curled and breath quaked at thoughts too quick in his own head. She’d be the first to tell him he could be something beautiful.

Noah tunes out the ramblings of the girl, his attention beginning to drift to the clattering of pins behind. An ever present storm brewing, the thunder rumbling in the chamber of linoleum flooring, one seen nothing but spilt sodas and bubble gum. It echoes through his mind, drowning out the other girl’s persistent words. Instead he wonders how suited for a place like this she is. But he can’t quite tell. Until, like the spark of lighting, why. An accusation almost, one that sings joy to Noah’s ears as he darts his bright hues back to her. The warning sign of a smile curling back to his lips.

neve has seen the young man around before. pegging him in his early twenties, she imagines him as a kid she would babysit or the age of a sibling she always dreamed of and never had. he even reminds her of the kids she grew up with–reckless, a little mean, selfish. she’d been like that too. she’d gone through adolescence thinking the world owed her for giving her such a rough hand. that chip on her shoulder had returned in college to some degree, worsened still when her father grew ill and died. it had taken years to level out the space where the chip had been. it was luck more than hard work that she attributed the good things in her life to. she had worked hard, sure, but there were a thousand forks in the road where she could’ve ended up worse or dead. 

so in a weird, fucked up way, this toe headed alley cat reminds her of herself of some kid she would have run with in her teens when she was out late drinking under bridges or crashing parties to steal vicodin to make enough money to pay rent so her dad could find his identity again after her stepmom gambled away everything. she was angry too and she wondered what dark tragedy he was hiding underneath all that anger. was it compounded even more than hers? or was he just some rich bastard who didn’t want to play nice with his parents and sold coke to his prep school friends before ending up here like so many others.

“she’s not your friend? but you brought her in, right?” maybe he did and he’s just too drunk to give a shit or he’s afraid he’ll be held responsible. “look, i’m not the police. i don’t care what you guys were doing. i just wanted to update you.” she bristles at his request, not even fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “you know we don’t and no one’s keeping you here against your will either.” she shrugs, even toned despite her annoyance. it’s obviously a hospital no matter how fucking drunk he is–well, though–to be fair, she’d seen a patient so drunk she tried to tip the paramedic who brought her in and then gave neve a bottle of vodka. maybe he really didn’t know. “c’mon, i’m off now, let’s get you some greasy breakfast and a coffee.” it’s easier than point blank kicking him out, even if he’s kind of a shithead. and still, there’s that part of her that’s reminded of so many friends long gone and fucked up. she’s been up for sixteen hours now, sure, but she needs to flip her schedule anyway and a girl needs breakfast. “you can be obstinate on the way and everything.”

To think the world would owe anything was such a puerile concept, one dreamt up by children that believed the stars and the moon aligned for them. The ones what would trust in the lord’s plan, for they’d believe someone out there truly cared. They’d believe that in this universe, there was a single thing that served them. 

He’d learn it the hard way, like so many before him would. Under battered breaths, hands wring together as nails dig into the flesh. He’d pray. Knees burnt from the carpet beneath them, stinging. He’d know his father to stand at the door. Embodiment of the lord himself. For only something that cruel could learn from the holy heavens. A smile so divine to the town, would twist in a way Noah would lean to mimic in the mirror. Beneath brutality and shattered glass.

He’d think now he spends his days sickly and in bed perhaps the boy would learn to break the grasp that ties him to the monster in the mirror. But if that was the case- he would have left with Alice a long time ago.

“It doesn’t mean we weren’t friendly.” A smile grotesque paints across his face, as his eyes dance with the amusement to his own words. “If you want, we can retrace those steps.” The words leave his mouth, vulgar- yet Noah Bennett recalls flashes, perhaps moments or a memory or a nightmare. Which he’s unsure of. And the girl Neve speaks of, he doesn’t recall her. Not by name or physique.  Perhaps he was seeing ghosts again.

His eyes feel heavy where they look, but he somehow manages to keep them on the woman before him. His head dense, as were his movements as he adjusts in his seat. “Is this our first date?”  He thinks he can recall the car spinning, or pulling over to a stop. Something in the outskirts. Heart pounding against the dust kicked up in the headlights, and an inky blackness that washed over the desert at night. “We can take my car if you want to visit the back seat after?”

there are people in boot hill that just don’t like maccleans. there are people in this town that, for some reason, maybe earned or maybe they’ve just bought into the hype, do not like those that carry the name of macclean. generally, sonny has gotten used to it. he knows who hates the name, who ignores it, who likes him in spite of it, because of it. then, there’s someone like noah bennett. an annoying little gnat of a man, noah’s voice grates on his ears and sonny has to suppress the need to disrespectfully ash his cigarette in his direction. noah doesn’t like maccleans, or at the very least, he doesn’t like isla, teasing her, calling her eileen. hurting isla, that’s a crime punishable by death in the macclean family, and so sonny sees noah only as a criminal. a criminal that, if behind bars, taunts the guards simply because he knows they can’t get to him, not without jeopardizing themselves. it’s disgusting and noah always seems to be hanging around, lurking about with a slick little grin, like he feeds off of irritation. sonny, unfortunately, is all too willing to feed him. that’s the problem with small towns, you can never escape the ones you hate, you can never escape the ones you love.

a scoff, hoarse and smoke-laced. “all anybody is waitin’ for is for you to fuckin’ leave, bennett.” he should snuff out his cigarette and walk back inside, but noah will likely follow. instead, for a reason unknown to himself, sonny engages further. perhaps sonny feeds on it, too. “jesus, kid, you ever spend any time out in the sun?” it’s arizona, you get a tan through the car window. noah must black out his windows.

Adorned by the dearly departed, and the mocking resemblance she’d offer to the perfection. A walking altar to the MacClean girl. Flickering candle light would only paint her as a ghost, a mirage sculpted like clay to fit into constricting buckle shoes- the kind found at Sunday services. And bows pulled tight around her waist, in a dress that may have seem tattered perhaps, instead would seem endearing on the porcelain doll. 

Where Noah would once look and see what the whole town saw, Eileen- He now would look to her and see what was always just out of his grasps. The mocking of a ghost that cast her own shadow in his footsteps.

“It’s these warm welcomes that keep me coming back.” Noah would become notorious in Boot Hill, long before Alice learnt to taint his name with her own tales. Before the blonde learnt to strip him of sovereignty, and trim his talons. He would be the boy no one dared to cross paths with. In his violence and destruction. He would antagonise. Perhaps just for the sake of a killing boredom. 

Standing beneath flickering lights, adorned by the passing by of cars travelling who knows where at the hour, Noah would find the parts of Boot Hill that sunk their teeth into Sonny.

“I’ve been in all week fuckin’ your brother- no one’s said he’s as pasty as me.” 

THEY   FEEL   ODDLY   self   -   conscious   with   the   gaze   of   the   male   settled   on   them   like   that   ,   a   kind   of   contemplation   that   serves   as   confirmation   of   their   existence   .   A   minor   thing   ,   maybe   ,   especially   for   some   who   might   be   used   to   living   life   loudly   ,   but   Ed   has   always   been   quiet   and   timid   .   

It   is   an   astute   observation   that   they   hear   ,   and   an   accurate   one   at   that   .      For   a   minute   ,   Ed   feels   like   being   snarky   ,   to   say   :      What   ,   did   my   accent   give   it   away   ?      But   cruelty   and   snappy   words   were   never   things   which   he   was   fluent   in   ,   so   he   thinks   it   twice   over   before   ———

❛      Is   it   really   that   obvious   ?      ❜      they   ask   ,   and   somehow   their   accent   even   gets   more   pronounced   ,   voice   lilting   up   in   a   question   that   seems   to   answer   itself   .   A   slight   tinge   of   red   colours   their   cheeks   ,   before   trying   to   muster   up   the   words   for   a   justification   .

(      For   what   ?   His   presence   here   ?   His   existence   in   general   ?      )

❛      It’s   ,   erm   ,   well   …   it’s   my   first   day   here   ,      ❜      they   say   ,   a   slight   upwards   curve   to   their   lips   as   if   they   were   in   on   some   kind   of   joke   .      ❛      I   know   how   annoyingly   obnoxious   tourists   can   be   and   I   swear   I’m   usually   …   well   ,   not   like   this   .      ❜      Although   what   this   is   ,   they   aren’t   quite   able   to   say   .      ❛      I’m   not   bothering   you   ,   am   I   ?      ❜

I don’t belong anywhere. It was the first lie he’d ever tell her. Debauched tongue, twisting words where talons would lie. Something exquisite. That’s beautiful. She’d tell him- and perhaps it was the first truth she’d give in return. For where others shy away from the creature he taught himself to be. Promising to end you with bared teeth, and extended claws- but she knew to tame a beast like Noah.  She knew he was the kind of beast you kissed, only to bite out his teeth before he could bite out yours. Toothless, only then could anyone claim Noah Bennett as theirs.

But this kind of beast, he blend in all too well with the decaying frames of houses, hollowed out, and parchment white paint that would absorb him. In the bleach soaked room, Noah would be nothing more than another product of Boot Hill. The kind that clung at your throat, and slowly poisoned your veins.

He was a creation of God after all.

“You didn’t hear me.” His words are short to the other, something almost teasing curling to his features. The ones a soft contradiction to his words. The kind that dissolved into the heat waves.  From it’s place nestled behind his ear, Noah pulls a cigarette and places it between his lips before flickering it to light. Embers testing, and breath pulling. His eyes only flicker from the other for a moment, before they’re back again. Daring perhaps.

“I didn’t say you’re not from here.” As if the sentiment was as obvious as any, “I said you don’t belong here. Boot Hill has nothing to offer your kind.” 

FIRST   DAY   IN   BOOT   HILL   and   already   Ed’s   trying   to   do   laundry   ———   which   is   still   an   exciting   prospect   in   and   of   itself   .   They   craved   the   urgency   of   chores   ,   the   obligation   inherent   in   them   ,   the   idea   that   they’d   be   absolutely   fucked   if   they   didn’t   do   it   because   then   they’d   have   nothing   to   wear   .   It’s   a   weird   world   to   live   in   ,   where   he   can   only   rely   on   himself   ,   especially   when   Ed’s   so   used   to   the   idea   of   maids   and   butlers   and   the   like   taking   care   of   these   things   for   him   .

(      A   sideways   thought   :   they   really   should   have   planned   out   their   trips   better   ,   because   spending   their   first   day   in   Boot   Hill   doing   laundry   of   all   things   wasn’t   at   all   how   they   planned   this   to   go   ———   but   when   they   checked   into   the   motel   and   unpacked   ,   they   realised   they   almost   had   nothing   clean   to   wear   .      )

Checking   the   tag   of   his   Gucci   woollen   hoodie      (      only   the   first   of   many   such   luxury   items   he   had   for   today      )      ,   Ed   had   two   sinking   realisations   :   the   first   is   that   a   lot   of   their   clothes   weren’t   really   at   all   suited   for   the   desert   and   the   second   is   that   they   don’t   know   the   first   thing   about   what   the   hell   the   symbols   in   the   tags   mean   .

Deciding   that   there   was   nothing   else   to   it   ,   they   bit   the   bullet   and   decided   to   ask   the   stranger   beside   them   :      ❛      Do   excuse   me   ,      ❜      he   says   ,   sidling   up   next   to   the   flaxen   -   haired   boy   .      ❛      But   do   you   know   what   all   these   symbols   stand   for   ?         ❜

Cracked and peeling, humidity lifted the parchment pale paint and threatened to reveal the layers of soap tinted green that long rest beneath. The small hues were all that brought any life to the place, for even the boy who stands with his hands pouring in cottons managed to blend with his bleak surroundings. He’d dissolve into Boot Hill- he was a product of it after all.

You don’t belong here, the words of a creature missing would ring in his head. Even through the whirring of struggling machines. Broken down and beaten sputters. On their last legs, even Noah’s attempt drown out the ghost with the rattling was futile as he switched it on- it did little more than splutter as if it were it’s own pulse beating back to life. It was no less quiet than the boy who rest his hands across the lid and turn his back to it.

Then there was another- there. Their voice pouring like they had a mouth full of cobwebs dipped in saccharine honey, and Noah would just stare. Distant hues drifting from their face, stark and dark in contrast to the blurriness of Boot Hill. Then to the clothes in their hands, and the tags they wrung around. Like he was carved from marble,  “You don’t look like you belong here.” Noah’s attention would dart back to their face, but he’d make no motion to take the clothes from their hands.

Laundry was a task that Violet often did whenever she wasn’t busy with work, wanting to take the work load off of her guardian as much as possible. It was the least she could do after all he had done for her. And so, she’d usually waltz inside the laundromat with a smile on her face every week like clockwork. You could never see Violet Addario without a smile on her face, even with the hell she’s been through. It was a sunny day anyways and there truly wasn’t any reason to be anything less than happy. As she prepared to start the first load, she heard someone else walk inside with her. A curious glance is thrown in the direction of all the noise, looking to see that it was just Noah.

She knows of him, he’s the son of the same pastor her mom used to worship as though he were God himself. They had never talked much and for the most part, Violet didn’t think much about him ( that probably sounded bad but it’s the truth ). She jumps nonetheless at the noise, clutching her chest and holding onto the cross hanging around her neck anyways. A soft chuckle soon follows as she glances back down at her own basket. “You startled me there,” she murmurs, figuring it’d be too soft for him to even hear. It seemed as though he was lost in his own world anyways.

Noah hadn’t even given Violet the time of day to look in her direction as he scattered the contents of the basket inside the machine, before slamming the lid and turning it on. Allowing the whirring machine to blend with the white noise and broken and beaten down sputters they’d continue to make. Machines on their last legs, rattling and pulsating back to life. The smell of sudds and artificial spring time fills the room. And he turns the back on the machine.

His movements sharp, just as the boy himself was. He’d taught himself this vulgarity- this violence in only the way a god knew. To grow talons where a tongue once lie, made for sweetness and honey nectar. Designed to pray to a god- to beg.

“You blended right in,” The words leave his mouth like something violent as the girl sits amongst the pale walls. She was familiar, but so was everyone in this town. Perhaps he saw something that could have become of him in her. Something so delicate.

He leans against the machine, his eyes not leaving her for a moment as he pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights it between his lips. “You want one?”

Pouring over the notes of her french translations of Latin, she’d shoved them aside as the young man before her chewed his gum rather loudly. The sickly squelching noise as his teeth withdrew from the candy sweet-smelling goo. Her forehead went taught as her brows knitted together slowly with that disapproving look she always wore when someone came in that could disrupt her little quiet slice of heaven. “Did you leave your manners at the door?” With a gentle tilt of her head, she sighed, knowing better when it came to Noah, “It’ll be kept under N for Nabokov. Three isles down and to the right.” Her crystal blue eyes drifted down to her papers and the mess that her desk was right now before returning to the oddity that was Noah, her curiosity getting the best of her, “Why the interest in this book? I didn’t think it’d be your cup of tea.”

Boredom consumed in a town like Boot Hill- surrounded by the endless dust soaked highways and glaring sun that dried out the world beneath it. Stale the small town would become, like an untouched room full of forgotten things. Left in preservation, sealed air tight. Alice’s room would remind him of it these days- with dust bunnies collecting on her television, and moths beginning to eat her clothes. He’d keep things of her’s, like a scrunchy, and a bracelet. And her obnoxious habit of for blueberry gum. 

Perhaps she still lived in him.

“Haven’t you heard,” He grins at the other, something sharp and unnatural on his face. Something that once held a resemblance of charm, now nothing more than the mirror image of his ageing father. “I’m a true romantic at heart.”

“Can you show me the way?”

     blue’s shift ended about two minutes prior, but she was still loitering by the counter at boot hill lanes. beside her and behind the glass sat an endless amount of plastic prizes, cheap but beloved by boot hill children and won via the cluster of arcade games in the back that always seemed to be malfunctioning on everyone’s shift but hers. the job at the bowling alley was never something she did with the intention to stick around all that long, but she did quite enjoy serving kids and the elderly. blue was likeable, her smile almost never faltered and that made her an expert in customer service. currently, though, she was frowning down at her phone, typing and erasing a message on the tiny lg rumour she brought with her only in case andie wanted her to come by. the blue keypad felt too difficult to fiddle with, so eventually she gave up, gaze lifting when she noticed she’d caught the attention of someone else. her work uniform shirt was slung over her arm, caught in the inside of her elbow, her hair now out of the ponytail it’d once been in so she looked more… professional. “you alright?” she chirped at the other, her often sunny disposition seeming to brighten like someone’s had their fingers on the dimmer. 

 Noah had always been something intense himself- all consuming in only the way that something carved from the blood and bones of Boot Hill could be. Held in the hands of the lord, caressed and coaxed until he himself became a young god. Where ichor replaces his blood, and floods his veins. And he shatters the halo between his teeth, gums bleeding and tongue cut. Sharp. He learns to be worshiped. And Boot Hill is his altar.

These days though, it was hers. It was Alice’s. For people didn’t speak of Noah, they never truly did. They spoke of that boy, the one with the stormy hues, and bruised knuckles. The one she dared to date. What would she see in a boy like him, when she was so- perfect?

He’s in the bowling alley, perhaps because it’s the one damn place in this town that she hasn’t tainted with memories. The one escape he seems to find in the years of her hauntings. But he still sees her, even in glances. Even in those who far from resembled her. Noah catches himself staring, and so does Blue.

sonny feels like he’s spent most of his life inside this bar. he’s been working there since he was seventeen, almost twenty five now, and he’s accepted a long time ago that this will be his life. maybe he won’t always work at the bucking horse, maybe he’ll get a legitimate office job or some such, but his life will always be boot hill. mostly, he’s fine with it, but occasionally, he’ll get a moment where his heart feels like it’s been hit with a jolt of electricity. a rare, fleeting moment where the idea of being here forever, being this forever, makes him want to scream. he could scream now, if he wanted to, virtually alone outside the bar. the sounds of indistinct conversation and the twangy sound of wanda jackson makes dusk at the bucking horse seem somewhat otherworldly, a dreamy haze that transfixes sonny as he stares ahead, enjoying his cigarette break with the palpable apathy of a tenured bartender. leaning against the wall outside the batwing doors, sonny sees someone approaching. surprisingly, usually content to ignore others like they’re likely to ignore any macclean, he finds himself speaking: “wouldn’t go in there. the dominellis are celebratin’ a birthday.” by the end of the night, sonny knows he’ll be cleaning up broken tables and shattered pint glasses, and he only has so many cigarette breaks in a night.

Suffocating was the only way one could describe Boot Hill, with dust that crawls into your lungs and claw at your insides. You don’t belong here, words once resonated from an angel’s mouth as she observed the creature that had become of Noah Bennett.  Pale as parchment, with hair that once seemed to glow golden- now held the illusion of bleach. Carved in violence, and coaxed by the hand of god. The only hue to his being was that of a taunting red that caressed his cheek. Stinging. It was a vague reminder he’d grow used to that she was endlessly wrong about him.

No, I couldn’t survive outside of here. For he was nothing more than a design of Boot Hill, they all were. How didn’t she see that?

“And what are you doing out here then? Waiting for me?”