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there's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet [m]
IP: 184.167.4.118
Posted on May 16, 2020 at 04:28:29 AM by Tovah

WARNINGS: LANGUAGE and pop-culture references that might be annoying if you don’t watch HBO xD







our mother has been absent ever since we founded Rome


Tovah hated Westerns.

Well, she didn’t actually know that. The closest thing to a Western she’d ever seen was season 2 of Westworld, which had been so baffling as stand-alone “entertainment” that she’d given up halfway through. She supposed she approved of the light beard all the men wore, and the chaps were cute in a look-at-my-junk way, but the hats? Ridiculous. The horses? Horrible.

And the setting?

Tovah knew there were people who felt claustrophobic in New York City. The tall buildings, the thick crowds, the subterranean travel – she could understand, in theory, how people might feel suffocated. She guessed that growing up there, she’d become a bit of a rat or a roach: most comfortable closed in, with walls near enough to touch. Quiet places made her feel disturbed and suspicious. It was hard enough falling asleep on Shaman, without the sounds of traffic and the blare of sirens to lull her to sleep, the weight of skyscrapers hovering over her head. And that was in Laketon – what passed in Shaman for a town. Other places – the island, the moor – were so wide open, Tovah felt like she might float off into space.

In short: this place was a disaster.

It looked just like Westworld, except without any people or animals or robots or anything else. Dry vistas extended all around the horizon, the middleground rippled with dry grass and sagebrush and red earth. And in the foreground: “buildings.” Lean-tos, really. Barely closed off from the elements, with logs and boards shoddily stacked together, gap-toothed as a meth-head. The kind of buildings people with no construction experience hastily threw together to protect them from enemies and animals, more than the climate. Tovah could feel the moisture being sucked from her skin into the air.

”Ugh. Gross.”

She felt dirty in a way that she was totally unused to – the way that involved actual dirt. She brushed at her arms ineffectually, turning a circle in the middle of this dusty, desolate wasteland. Only moments ago, she’d been asleep, wearing nothing but a holey old t-shirt and cheeky, faded underwear; the dirt seemed to immediately crawl up both. It would have seemed reasonable to assume she was still asleep, except that this was not her first unannounced-teleportation-rodeo, and these sensations were unlike anything she’d felt before. This dryness was unlike anything in New York or Shaman. These smells. The watery blue of the sky.

At least Dolores & Co. had taught her what a bar looked like, around here. She shuffled toward it, trying and failing to avoid any rocks poking at her tender feet. Her journey was peppered with cursing.

Inside the saloon, the quiet settled even more heavily. Shroud-like, she might have said – thick and dead. Tovah shivered, even though it was barely cooler than the searing desert heat outside, and padded over to the bar. There were bottles everywhere, scattered over the floor and tables as if a rowdy night had been interrupted by an unlikely Rapture, but her skilled glance had told her the obvious ones were empty. It’d take some digging, she resolved, and dig she did, through cabinets and drawers and into a hidden stash beneath the counter that revealed a god damned treasure: the good stuff, tucked away for safe keeping. Tovah crowed with triumph, and pulled the cork out with her teeth.

Whatever it was, it was high proof – not a trace of vinegar. She swallowed that swig of gold and moaned like an old western whore.

Nobody was here to hear her, anyway. She straightened, wiped her mouth with the back of her bottle-wielding hand, and went in search of pants.

If she’d paid better attention to that mind-fucking show, she would have expected the obvious: there weren’t any pants up in here. There were pantaloons. Petticoats. Bustles. Corsets. Things for making a callgirl’s ass and other assets look lofty and perky and plump, in direct opposition to the shriveled dryness of everything else around here. It all smelled a little dirty, in the familiar way. Tovah didn’t mind that so much, but a lot of what she found had that “girlfriend experience” vibe to it – lacy and beribboned and white – which she was not about.

If she was gunna look like anyone, she wanted to look like Maeve.

Eventually, she found things that were acceptable. Mostly, they were black. She tugged and pulled and laced herself into a getup with blessedly few frills, leaving her stockings bunched around the ankles to protect her feet. The heels were downright sensible, compared to other shit she’d worn. The blouse and corset (loosely tied – who was she trying to impress?) showed no more cleavage than she might, going to a club. All in all, it was less uncharacteristic than she might have assumed, and looking in the mirror she almost recognized herself.

She pinned up one side of her hair with a pretty tortoiseshell comb, because why not? Then she snatched the bottle from the dresser and clopped back down the stairs.

A few hours pass.

The bottle is three-quarters empty. This is concerning, since Tovah isn’t sure she’ll find another, but fortunately she is pretty drunk and can slow her roll while she considers the options. It seems she’s going to be here for a while. It seems unlikely she’ll find food in the middle of this hellscape. It seems she will remain alone. Thank god for that bottle, because the last bit concerns her the most. Tovah is very far from being a survivalist – she’s barely adjusted to not having a bodega on every corner. What she needs is someone who knows what the fuck is going on, what the fuck they are doing, and how the fuck to get out of here.

As if called from the aether, a new player joins the stage.

She’s leaning on the bar when the doors squeak open, the sound siren-loud in the dusty silence. She lifts her chin and clutches the bottle possessively, ready to defend it from whoever might try to take it from her. But it seems to be the sheriff, based on the getup and the badge, and she relaxes marginally, hopeful that this person might be able to help.

Only it’s not the sheriff, it’s – ”Kane?”

He doesn’t hear her. The word is lost beneath the back-squeak of the closing doors, the jingle of his spurs as he strolls toward her, looking for all the world like he belongs here. And he looks great, she admits to herself. More than great. That Marsden character has nothing on him. He looks great far away and even better up close, stopping mere inches from her and then leaning in further. His pant leg brushes her knee. A ludicrous accent tumbles from his lips. He has not been this easy with her since…since…

Her stare trails up from his lips to his eyes. There’s recognition there, but it’s strange, like she’s half-familiar to him. Her own eyes are a little appraising, a little wary, a little turned on, and as previously mentioned, more than a little intoxicated. He’s playing as if this is a game, and suddenly she’s not so worried about getting out of here. She’s willing to play, too, to stay this close to him.

”Same as you, I expect.” She’s never been good at accents so she doesn’t bother, letting (if anything) a little extra Brooklyn filter in. She drags the bottle toward them without breaking eye contact, a smirk curling the corner of her mouth. ”Care for a drink, stranger?” A quick tip to her own lips before offering it to him, which shouldn’t seem as intimate as it does in that moment. It’s a challenge not to focus all of her attention on his mouth. ”The bartender seems to have absconded, so I’m afraid I’ll have to do. I’m…Clementine.”

It’s almost like a do-over of the first time they’d met. She’d been drunk and confused and recently teleported then, too; she’d given him a fake name, gotten too close with her hands, her mouth. But this time there aren't any weasels to stop them, and her magic feels far away as she straightens the collar of his shirt, surreptitiously brushing her fingers over his throat.

”And what’s your name, Sheriff?”





but there's gunna be a party when the wolf comes home


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