Repose

[Locked to F Eames & J Arthur, together.]
[After returning, and after Albin has a conversation with Carnem about liability, etc.]

Hi. I just wanted to say it was really, really nice working with you.

[Public]

The one thing this town is missing is a tailor.

[After hearing from his lawyers, the same firm as in 1999, actually, about the B&B, which he's authorized them to reacquire.]

Looking to hire a few people for the B&B. Manager. Assistant. That sort of thing. Place is haunted. Can't mind that.

[Si M]
Hi. Marta wants us to visit, and they came to ask about Destiny. Do you know her brother? Someone should see if he's okay, but I don't talk to him.

[Claire J]
Hi. Do you have any stories about nice drinks today?

[F Eames & J Arthur]
I don't think I can do it.

[Public]

That's one way of recruiting for the denominational worship in town. I'd forgotten the town could do a little intentional mischief, fuck with a few heads on the trot.

[Janus A]

Hello, darling.

Who: Billy K. and F. Eames
What: Dreaming
Where: A prison island
When: Present (night)
Warnings/Rating: TBD, but let’s start with warnings for kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, and (at the very least) implied abuse.

( When he woke up in the tapestry room, Billy knew that it was because the Prince had found someone new. )

Who: Eames and Hannah and Arthur
What: Dream-training (sorry, Arthur)
Warnings: Let's go with TBD given Eames is involved in dreaming here.

( Eames was tone deaf, and couldn't sing a note )

I'm looking for someone who would be willing to walk my dog mid-day four days a week, would prefer someone who's got some experience doing so, and will negotiate a fair price for the task. If you do that sort of thing, or have a reference of someone who does that I could contact, let me know.

[Public]

Sex, love, what's next for the town public discourse? Politics? Death? I could talk about death. Dead as a doornail. Pushing up daisies. What's after like?

[Hannah S]

Hello, Hannah.

[J Arthur]

Have you filled every form out now?

[Janus A]

I owe you coffee, darling.

Who: Holly and Eames
What: A dream
Where: A dark and foreboding sea
When: Nowish/When we finish
Warnings/Rating: TBD. Just to be safe, let's go with possible jump scares, violence, bashing, and military stuff.

The boy was a boy. He wasn't a small boy, because he couldn't recall ever being small, but he was a boy. Aged about 10, his brown hair was shaggy, the bangs falling well into his eyes and obstructing his view of the world around him. He wore military fatigues that bunched up at the heels of his white sneakers, and the buttoned camouflage shirt boasted sleeves that went past his fingers. He was an unimpressive scrap of a thing, but his brown eyes were intelligent as they looked beyond messy brown strands to peek down the hall.

The hall of what, you ask?

Well, a ship, of course.

This dream ship was built in a more gilded age, with shiny, warm wood and ornate runners running here and there in the halls, from first to third. It was the type of ship that had a name that would never be forgotten SS-this, HMS-that, RMS-the other. The outside was pristine white, all the way up to the gleaming black fireplaces that jutted into the sky. The decor was Art Deco, and it was all plush and posh... or it had been once. Tonight, the boat was abandoned, a ghost ship taking on water and listing on a dark, dark sea. The lights still worked, but they flickered with abandon, and the boy glanced this way and that down the third-class hall and its ankle-deep seawater, and he ran. From someone? To someone? There was no indication yet.

He was a pop of camouflage, a slap of sneakers in water, a blur of movement as the ship creaked ominously, and he rounded the corner and ducked into a room he'd been in often. But, this being the type of dream it was, the room was black, black, ink and absence and cold.

[Public, after visiting the rec center.]

I was curious and curious and curious about why people never said things the clear way. Why not say what you feel? Why not just be honest? Why lies and secrets and pretty dances? And I've realized that it's just that no one wants to be disliked, and so they twist and turn and tie themselves in knots saying things they think are the right thing, instead of saying the things that are true. But, why? Why, why, why, when then people get to know someone who isn't you at all? Why offer flawless when you're not, or do you believe you are? And I think that too now. That some people can convince themselves, and the truth is you'll never, ever know anyone else unless you know their truth, and you'll never know their truth if you don't stop and listen and stop wording your defenses before they're even done telling you how they feel.

And, another thing, tarnish is beautiful. Shadows are beautiful. Divots and cracks and shattered things are beautiful. No one really wants the perfect thing. Perfect things are like dull surfaces and not real at all. Real is always better.

The end.

ISO the whack-job who chopped off his fingers in a glass box in space because you are definitely going to have to pay for my fucking therapy after that, dude.

[Janus A]

Hello, darling. About?

[Atticus M]

Did you just flog off your place for a hundred dollars?

[Janus A]

Your man is going bonkers, darling.

Who: Eames and Nel L
Where: The strip-bar
Warnings: I'm going to say language from the out, but.

There were three bars in the town that you could drink in, and two out of three were pretentious. Eames didn't mind a bar full of tits, it was positively mild atmospherics, after Amsterdam. And Paris, actually if he thought about it. It was at least honest about the clientele it had and the clientele it wanted and all right, having no name deliberately probably fucked the mailman right off, but it was for all its faults, very clearly a bar. It was also extremely difficult to bug a bar like this one, which also commended it to Eames. He was a little twitchy-paranoid currently about the opportunities to be monitored but with the bass line blown out by the speakers, the churn of people through the bogs some of whom came out sniffing indiscreetly, and the people behind the counter, you could pick a spot back up from the stage where you could see all entry points with your back against solid wall.

Which is what Eames did. In vintage under a navy blazer over cream pants that were absurdly fitted for a man of his thickness of thigh, or at least, this side of Europe. He picked up a beer along the way, one that was American-branded and he sat at the end of the bar, with his hip against the length of wood and his heel clipping the stool and a peripheral awareness of the barman sliding around back there. The barman was a large lad, but he wasn't dangerous. Eames had watched him long enough. As he had anyone who looked vaguely military by bearing in a town with a camp on the outskirts.

Eames was watching the girls. Not the tits, although he did like breasts, the pneumatics of his dream-women would give that general impression. He was watching their facial expressions as they stood in the shadows, glittering with sweat and cheap body-shimmer and the way they looked at the clientele, at the stage, even the back-office. There was a range of expression he hadn't entirely finessed yet, pinned it down until he was certain he could replicate it. He was also intermittently watching the floor-show, it seemed polite. Eames was, if not immediately obvious, avoiding the world outside, darling and thinking too hard about it.

I'm genuinely doubting that we ever see spring.

Does anyone know if the woods are [...] normal again?

[Public]

Do I have to remark on the woods? They're very wood-y. Bit smelly, but that's already been covered.

Anyone have any advice for what to do when you feel pretty depressed and don't see a way out? Please don't tell me to take a bath or listen to Enya, self-care isn't really cutting it.

[A cute little Christmas card that sings "Here Comes Santa Claus" with a little speaker when it's opened. Inside there's a note that says "I O U one wish" in bad handwriting. There's a little ♥ drawn underneath it.]

Easy, or hard?