Realistic or Modern 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐍.

[livingdead]

by ash & mel.

𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐍

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[livingdead]

lucas

supposed dead man asks for a smoke

mood

tired af

location

marion, nebraska

oufit

the same converse he’s worn since high school, faded jeans, a flannel, and a thick jacket that’s missing a couple buttons.

tag

PRETTY HATE MACHINE.

Lucas couldn’t picture her face clearly anymore if he tried.

The last few days he spent crumbling up the letter, fishing it out of the trash a few hours later, analyzing every word as though there were invisible ink between the lines. There wasn’t, and it gut punched the rationality out of him, leaving a deep cavity in his chest where he could not sleep or eat or think of anything other than the letter. Mentions of Marion haunted him most.

When he did dream, he began to sketch them before his memory faded and what he knew of it was fear and the cold, sticky sweat on his back when he got out of bed. If nightmares had a scent, he thought of dirt after the rain and fresh pines. Why then, he thought, did it feel so unfamiliar? It was an uncomfortable feeling. Almost as uncomfortable as seeing his mother’s name at the end of a letter. She didn’t exist to him, not really. Memories of her were hazy at best, and Andy had only known her through few pictures their dad kept.

The mistrust he had with this letter was not that it was written by his mother, but that he couldn’t have pictured his parents in the same room together, never less the same town. He felt sympathy for Andy in some type of way, knowing that, if this were true, he couldn’t have needed his brother’s support more than now.

It was in passing that he mentioned going back, and his curiosity amidst his uncertainty ruled over him. He wanted to visit, if he could believe it, and maybe he would fall asleep in the mattress he grew up in again and the last few years would seem like a dream. It couldn’t have been understood by only him; that feeling of nostalgia that he pushed further back in his mind yet desperately needed to relive. City lights were not dull street lamps and his cramped dorm could never be as restless as the woods. Though he enjoyed the solidarity a lot more, the truth was he missed it—did he miss his life, his brother, or Marion itself? It was quiet, at the very least, and quiet was what he needed.

He rationalized it to himself again. Why he should go back, what are the benefits, the draw of it. He was lying to himself, mainly. He wasn’t the only one convinced, he found out.

Their car stopped and Lucas was about to ask whether they separated here, but rolled down the window on his side and quieted his thoughts while lighting a cigarette. A breeze tossed a few strands of hair into his face, and he reached to the back seat to find his coat, worn and ragged, much like the roads and fences surrounding them.

Behind a blanket of clouds, the sun was a glaring eye in the sky, drifting below the horizon line and painting the sky grey. The wind picked up, following him outside, determining which way the trail of smoke blew. Somewhere distant were young voices, the sound of childhood memories that Lucas himself could not remember all that well besides the carelessness of it, knowing what lies ahead but not quite grasping it, living but not as fully as everyone else. Lucas pushes his curls back with one hand, running his fingers through a greasy, loosely curled mess. Leaves sapped of all their life littered the ground in orange and brown and mostly the beige that grass became in the winter, with huge evergreen trees every which way, ridding of its former self. The cig sat between his lips, an elderly man with a dog waved hello but he didn’t respond back.

Spaces between homes, almost too far apart and too isolated, a sort of emptiness was about. He hoped Pierce wouldn’t take note that his hands trembled, or it could have been the weather.

“Aren’t you coming?” He hollered. It was like seeing home for the first time after a long vacation. There was something unreal and solely comforting about that experience, because there was no better place to rest. Now he may not agree with that at all. In fact, he found himself missing his dorm, which he never thought possible.

/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.

 

[PRETTY HATE MACHINE.]

pierce

...

mood

something's definitely throwing off his zen. he's chillin' though. honest!

location

satan's armpit

oufit

some kinda thrifted grungecore for sure

tag

livingdead

There was nothing waiting for either of them in Marion. Nothing but some lingering concept of a beanpole teen, a piece-of-shit ‘64 Cyclone and more excess hormones than the both of them could count on all fingers. What a coincidence that two of the biggest backwater stragglers ended up slumming it around the exact same city at the exact same time. What an even bigger coincidence that they should both receive letters for an offer so similar. It was all too perfect, all too enticing. Pierce initially jumped at the opportunity to see his own kid brother with the fervor of an amnesiac - and what started as a fun little romp of gas station snacks and worn out cassette tapes ended with contemplative silence behind the wheel of a rattling engine.

When he left this place behind, he told himself it’d be the last time he’d ever see it. Fine. There was nobody there to send him off anyway save for a girlfriend that he couldn’t help but feed a bit of false hope to. But the sky over the countryside was bleak. Dark clouds rolling over the horizon, heavy with humidity and yet not a drop of rain. Just present enough to thicken the air around them and give the illusion of a weighted chest. It was almost as if he never even left.

Pierce worked his jaw. Marion was a relic of post-War nostalgia. A community so rural and uninspiring that it seemed people had actually started to wise up and ship out. Population 127, mostly jaded doomsdayers looking to wait out the decline of western civilization behind manufactured homes thrown together out of corrugated scrap metal. McCook wasn’t much better, but it was close and served as a bigger escape - and the thought of getting the chance to rest his head there seemed to keep his uncharacteristic pessimism at bay. If everything went smoothly, they’d only have to stay the night. Luc could have his Lifetime moment and Pierce would be in for the long haul back to New York.

A couple map references and a few more dirt roads later, and Pierce’s beater came to a whining halt. As Lucas gathered his coat, he craned his neck to get a better look at a familiar childhood home. A tattered roof, peeling paint and an overgrown lawn that bent with the wind. Pretty par-for-the-course. Nobody could really claim it looks neglected if it’s always been that way. I mean, what’ve you got to compare it to?

Aren’t you coming?

Pierce somehow managed to maintain his laid-back persona through all of this despite his own relative tension, and he cut the engine before reaching for his own jacket. Yeah. Sure. Wasn’t that the plan? He considered it kind of a dick move to make his own problems anyone else’s, and so he pounded dirt to catch up with his cross-country shotgun-warmer. Couldn’t say he wasn’t at least a little curious…

/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.

 

[livingdead]

lucas

supposed dead man asks for a smoke

mood

unsure

location

marion, nebraska

oufit

the same converse he’s worn since high school, faded jeans, a flannel, and a thick jacket that’s missing a couple buttons.

tag

PRETTY HATE MACHINE.

By no means was the neighborhood lively, in fact he was unsettled by just how eerie it felt. It was suffocating, but his childhood home was just down the street and he could walk there from memory, not that Marion was complicated to begin with. It looked identical. Somehow he pictured it differently. He might’ve dreamed it and altered his perception. The biggest coincidence of all was that he never met his road-trip companion before, as though he was never here at all, a figment whose purpose was to have him question. If he had, Pierce was unrecognizable. If he had, they exchanged names on the playground and never looked back. If he had, it was before he ever suspected he would never see his mom’s face again.

He held his cigarette out to Pierce as they walked by each other’s sides, keeping pace, like inseparable best friends, except they weren’t, and Lucas stared numbly at the ground. Preparing for a dialogue that never began, his shoe launched a pebble that rolled across the pavement. It lost his sights, taking shelter in an overgrown patch of foliage.

“What’s it like?” He asked suddenly. He had been practicing his next lines in his head, and still cleared his throat afterward. “I mean where’d you use to live?”

Honestly, there wasn’t much to explore. By the looks of things, not much changed. The woods perhaps, but they were not as alluring and as whimsical as they used to be. Besides isolation, he only thought of mosquitoes and wild mice. He pulled his sleeve down slightly to scratch his wrist.

He sensed Pierce was not in a similar mood about their situation, decided to play it by ear, and see for himself whether they wasted the last few hours of their life coming here. It had nostalgia value, at least.

/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.

 

[PRETTY HATE MACHINE.]

pierce

...

mood

something's definitely throwing off his zen. he's chillin' though. honest!

location

satan's armpit

oufit

some kinda thrifted grungecore for sure

tag

livingdead

Pierce wasn’t sure what it was about him that made others want to share their smokes. The talk wouldn’t be any more intimate with the gesture, but he’d never turn it down. If it was an olive branch, it was a tempting one. He piqued a brow as he brought it to his lips. ❝Really? That’s what you’re gonna lead with?❞

From the short time they’d gotten to know each other, he figured Luc for a bizarre little guy. Always seemed to be that he wasn’t sure what he was gonna say before he said it, never entirely mopey but still maintaining that constant air of profound sadness that only those raised in a depressing dustbowl like this could harbor. A heart of gold and a head full of grunge. Though they weren’t necessarily friends yet, he didn’t mind the small talk, especially if it meant the indulgence wouldn’t kill the dude’s vibe. He just had to hold out hope that Luc wouldn’t press for details.

Pierce exhaled, a quick wind of laughter obscured by a throat thick with smoke - ❝Nah, I’m just fucking with you, man. 349. The, uh, service road we came in on? It passes by the old cemetery. Couldn’t tell you how many Pierces take up that lot.❞ - he paused to silently offer the smoke back before elaborating - ❝Dad’s side of the family’s been tending that land since the push West. I can only imagine just how mind-numbingly boring it was to have been stuck here then. Already remember it being boring enough for my own youth.❞

He shrugged, then settled his hands into his jean pockets. There wasn’t really anything more to say about it. Two things rang true about Marion’s residents: none of them grew up wealthy, and none of them spent any time doing anything other than playing shooting gallery upwind. He sought an opportunity for a subject change within his line of thought.

❝I’m surprised we never really crossed paths before. You went to McCook, right? I was kind of the go-to guy if you were up for a good time.❞

/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.

 

[livingdead]

lucas

supposed dead man asks for a smoke

mood

unsure

location

marion, nebraska

oufit

the same converse he’s worn since high school, faded jeans, a flannel, and a thick jacket that’s missing a couple buttons.

tag

PRETTY HATE MACHINE.

Lucas stared in response to the prospect that he had somehow messed up, replayed the prior few seconds back in his head wondering if he could have worded his question differently or said nothing at all. Anxieties that didn’t show in his expression at all but instead froze him for a minute when they hit him, soon shattering like the ice that’d coat the lakes in a month or two. He had fallen in, draped in heavy winter clothes and losing sight of his hands, his nose, his chest only producing some semblance of warmth.

Small talk was slightly more bearable than walking in silence where homes seemed abandoned but really weren’t, where their exchange couldn’t be overheard. Lucas preferred it, although he could head straight for his childhood home and meet up with Pierce later. It felt strange not to know him. At least, he didn’t know him well. He was just as curious what brought him here as to what possessed his mother to write that letter.

He drew the cigarette with no intentions of handing it back. Lucas acknowledged Pierce’s answer and didn’t come up with any more questions. “I kinda…” He blew out the smoke from his throat, “I was pretty quiet. I didn’t really talk to anyone. That could be why,” he admitted. He wondered the same thing, concluding that people could be in the same place at the same time and never learn each other’s names, even multiple times, and the number of missed opportunities and friendships that were possible he didn’t bother to estimate.

A deathly shy kid who failed to connect with his peers, observing but never participating, being sat down with his teachers who asked if everything was alright at home. With time things got worse. Lucas was never liked, maybe it was his awkwardness or the lack of skin on his bones or the shape of his nose, or how often he was caught with tears welling up in his eyes only to be ostracized and he would cry harder. By highschool he rode life by like it meant nothing to him, because back then it didn’t, and all he cared about was his baby brother and getting another smoke.

“I guess we might have.” If they had, Lucas would have ignored him. “Just didn’t know. I mean we crossed paths now, right? It’s kinda weird.” He paused. “Did you like it there? I remember hating it.”

/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.