OPEN.

[poleaxed]

ill put an img here l8r.

Comments

https://bakerstreet.dreamwidth.org/8457233.html?thread=3642920721#cmt3642920721

[poleaxed]

was it clear from context or whatever
that she wasn't trying to eat you in the fun way
*fun way =/= cannibalism i'm just not that hard core :(

[deepwound]

You know, I'm not a fucking idiot. The cannibalism was indeed real fucking obvious from context. And also that she was a lesbian.

"tonight"

[angelhunter]

He's been thinking of Joan's sleeping arrangement as scheduled. What it really is, is routine. Part of their day. Comfortably, he retrieves her, they prepare her for sleep, he monitors for a while before going to bed himself, and they wrap up in the morning. He hasn't embellished the process with any concessions, hasn't offered her coffee or let her linger her room overlong, and a pleasant normalcy has seeped into him nonetheless.

He joked with her.

Self-awareness holds him a little rigid, bringing his posture back to the week they started doing this. Upstairs, with her electrodes attached, he takes a seat in the easy chair he moved in for their morning interviews.

Hap rubs his hands together before beginning.

"What I wanted to talk to you about, completing the work... I know the others don't talk to you much anymore, but when they did, they told you about her, didn't they?"

itt 'im not like the other girls'.

[poleaxed]

Joan thinks she's getting good at this. She's always had vivid dreams, always been able to lead them to an extent-- Hap calls this lucid dreaming-- and so she seeks out the dead while she sleeps. She focuses while she's asleep, and is able to remember more and more of her dreams, report them back faithfully, without embellishment. It feels like a puzzle, like developing a skill. It feels like the only worthwhile in this uncracked eggshell tightness Hap insists is life.

That, and talking to Hap. She knows he has her here against her will, she knows, but that doesn't make him any less vital, interesting, dynamic. He's the center of the universe, and they both know it.

When he speaks, she no longer pretends she isn't listening. "Yeah," she says. "They talk about her like she was a martyr. Fully canonized, on the spot, three miracles and all."

She rolls her eyes. Saint Prairie sounds insipidly boring to Joan, someone who flinches from gentleness on instinct.

*who themselves arent like the other girls

[angelhunter]

Good. Hap was and is reluctant to say her name. Even in thought, he can't make it sound innocuous. It's barbed in his brain, and it would be on his tongue, too. Maybe Homer and the others told Joan about the power she had over him. He would rather not prove it.

"Only two, that I know of," he says, self-deprecating with noticeable effort. They probably count her escape as the third. He doesn't accept that. Wherever she is, she regrets leaving. If not him, them. Joan included. "The third was a work in progress. They hit a wall, but if you could break through it..."

He gazes intently at her, her potential as sharp as a hook. "I want you to find the fifth Movement."

[poleaxed]

Joan winces. She doesn't want to. She wants to tell him she doesn't want to, that she's ill suited for this task, that she's a horrible communicator who doesn't get along in groups. She would, if the appeal of him giving her a task didn't outshine her hesitation. It's almost like she's important. It's almost like she has a purpose.

She's so fucking stupid, she could cry. Instead, she stalls. She isn't going to survive, if she lets his light shrivel her up like a raisin.

"And in return for having to fucking network with people who hate your guts, Joan, I'm prepared to give you..." She gives him a significant look.

[angelhunter]

Hap shakes his head, straightening in his chair.

"They don't have it. Their contacts —" he gestures to her, "your brother, to you — won't give it to them." Scott threw that in his face not long after Prairie abandoned them. When he did, the dejection that sank further into the others eradicated Hap's reflexive suspicion. "But the connection you have to the other side is different. Personal. You could convince him."

As for performing the movements together, that's Hap's responsibility. And they will do it. They'll have no other choice.

[poleaxed]

The look on her face is one of pure want-- eyes wide, lips slightly parted, like she's tasting the possibility he describes. It's so potent. What if she, stupid ugly Joan Dority, has the key to the universe?

She can barely believe it, except he does, and he's the smartest person who's ever been willing to talk to her.

She's still not letting this opportunity slip. "Let me go outside," she says. "Just for an hour. On a leash if you want. Please."

[angelhunter]

His jaw tightens in searing disappointment. This afternoon brought about the acute realization of how much of himself he's made available to her. It's unusual, it's inadvisable, and apparently it's insufficient. The insidiousness of their rapport is gentle and quiet. Joan moves fast and loud.

"No."

[poleaxed]

She wilts, but she doesn't let herself wilt all the way. She keeps her eyes on him. "Hap, come on," she grinds out. "I haven't tried to escape since you brought me up here. There have been chances. I haven't taken them."

Her hands are white-knuckled fists on the bed. She lets out a hiss of a sigh, ashamed to have to say this at all. It feels like lowering herself. Everything feels like lowering herself. "I'm worried I'm gonna... do something to myself."

cw suicide imagery

[angelhunter]

So she's been holding onto that, has she? Hoarding her little pile of instances when she deigned not to make a fool of him. He's been even more generous than he thought.

"How," he demands, unmoving. Unwilling to feel the weight and flex and threat of his own body. He fills his mind with images of the methods he's denied her: hanging from light fixtures that aren't there, wrists torn open with shards of glass that can't break, ceramic pots he's replaced with flimsy plastic. A hurried, violent deluge, that spills over with a flash of contempt.

cw violence mention, suicidal thoughts, etc.

[poleaxed]

So it's not about her desires, it's about their expression. Most people would be concerned that she's even thinking about this, but Hap's not most people. This is the price. He doesn't think like normal people do.

"Little things. Breaking my fingers. I could slam my head into the window. I don't wanna die, Hap. But I know if I fall at the right angle, I can shove my nose into my brain. Anybody can do it. It's not my fault people aren't creative."

cw him

[angelhunter]

"That's a myth," he tells her, lacking the resource of will to do so kindly or with any levity.

Hap reaches for his glasses, pulling them off along a hard-pressed sigh. He is mollified, very meagerly, by the fact that she only wants to hurt herself. Not take herself away from him and the study.

His gaze flickers down and is caught by the smudges on his glasses. The tiny, transparent streaks he's been staring right through. "Maybe this was a mistake."

[poleaxed]

She should feel panic at the idea that he's thinking about-- or genuinely threatening, it's hard to tell with academic types-- to take her above ground privileges away. Maybe her emotions have become dulled like her senses. She jogs in place, tries to keep healthy, but she knows she's atrophying. This is no different. No fear, no dread, no panic. Just a muted disappointment, resignation.

"There are things that aren't a myth." And she doesn't believe him, anyway. "I'm not a squeamish person, Hap, and I'm trying to work with you. Was the other one this nice about being let upstairs? I've never tried to escape up here."

She's heard about that, if only because they never fucking shut up about her down there.

https://bakerstreet.dreamwidth.org/10565807.html?thread=4303273135#cmt4303273135

[poleaxed]

lucky u im easily amused

But all jokes aside, Joan keeps herself busy. She finishes up work in bumfuck Kentucky and moves on over to the bar he told her about. Being as rare as it is to get matched with someone even moderately attractive on those stupid dating apps, she wonders if she came on too hard. She wonders if he sent her a cowboy stock photo. She waits in the parking lot, curling up in a blanket and pretending to sleep while she rubs one out-- at least she won't be morbidly horny once he gets there.

But she's taken a few minutes too long, because mister cowboy hat-- Raylan? Rayland?-- is already at the bar. She leans in next to him, not sitting down. Her legs are her only attractive feature, covered as they are by tight faux leather. Her dating outfit doesn't show much skin, just tight pants and a tight shirt covered by soft green flannel.

"Order me a rum and coke?"

[ultimatums]

Raylan had expected her to be there already when he got there, so he spends the few minutes waiting for her wondering if he's being stupid. He's definitely too old for this, for one. This is the kind of thing younger men than him do, or at least the kind of thing done by people whose jobs aren't the fulcrum upon which their lives turn. But to her he's a gravedigger, even if that's just a stupid joke. He has time, waiting, to take the badge off his belt and stuff it in the pocket of his jacket – if she asks genuinely, he's not gonna lie, but maybe he can avoid it. Plenty of people carry around here, though, so it doesn't occur to him to do anything with the holster at his hip or the gun in it.

The ice in his bourbon hasn't had enough time to melt when she actually shows up. He takes off his hat by the crown, setting it on the bartop and turning in her direction. Lindsay, the bartender, offers a first-name greeting like she knows him: she's blonde and soft spoken, with a high, almost cartoonishly feminine voice and a propensity towards hauling her shotgun out from under the bar to shoo off unruly patrons. He orders the rum and coke, to be added to his tab, and tries not to think about what impression it's giving Joan that he's a regular.

"You're not from Kentucky, right?"

[poleaxed]

She tries not to over-analyze him-- it's not like she's anyone to judge. She rarely dates, and with good reason. She's shitty at it, shitty at anything that's supposed to paint her in a good light. Some part of her wishes she could just skip this and hump in his room, but it's so rare she gets to go on a real date. It's flattering, even if he doesn't know.

She sips her drink. "Nope. Texas." Kentucky, Oklahoma and Louisiana are some of the rare places she feels like she can tell people she's from Texas without catching shit. "But I been all over. Am I gonna get chased outta town for not drinking bourbon?"

[ultimatums]

"Depends how quickly you apologise," he says with a little smile, tilting his head a little. "But it begs the question, if you're not from here, what the hell are you doin' here?"

[poleaxed]

Joan holds up her hand, scrubbed raw and red. Both her hands are tender like that, and so she has to pull the sleeve of her flannel shirt down pretty far to get to one of the remaining streaks of engine oil around her elbow. "They needed a mechanic, and I was passing through."

[ultimatums]

"Right. So you're travellin'." That makes more sense. Every time he meets someone who voluntarily put down roots in Kentucky, there's an urge to grab them by the shoulders and shake them until they get the message and leave. "How long you gonna stick around?"

[poleaxed]

"I dunno," she says. "Depends on how the job goes. Might not stick around if it turns to shit, you know?" She sips her drink, watching his face for a reaction.

[ultimatums]

"Uh huh." His expression is momentarily a touch envious, if only for the freedom she seems to have, before it returns to something more placid. "Well, be careful you don't get turned around and end up back here. I was on the way out for a while, and yet."

[poleaxed]

"The alimony payments putting a dent in your moving fund?" She makes a wild stab in the dark, mostly out of the urge, always, to draw blood.

[ultimatums]

"It's my job, actually," he says, his face a little pinched. Does he just look divorced or something? "Why'd you figure alimony?"

[poleaxed]

"Sounded funny in my head." She's good at reading people, but not that good. She suspects she's touched a nerve, but she's not sure which. If he's really paying alimony, that'd be funny, and a little sexy. She wonders how big his dick is.

"Can you dance in a circle?"