& you

You booked the night bus for a reason. . . so you could sit there in this hurt. bustling crowds or silent sleepers You're not sure which is worse closed mumu, written by amanda

[artxfsurvival]

{ adam & alix }​:

This was really freaking Adam out. The driver never showed and he couldn’t find anyone that wasn’t on the bus with him in sight. His teeth chewed on his lower lip as he pressed the call button on his phone again for possibly the twentieth time that hour. Voicemail. Again. “Uh hey Mom,” He spoke into the phone lowly as he entered the bar, somewhere he hadn’t yet looked. “Like I said in the last voicemail, the bus broke down, we’re still stuck, I’m really getting freaked out. Please call me back-” The automated voice cut him off, and Adam sighed heavily, shoving the flip phone into his rucksack. He startled at the sound of another voice, recognising her as one of the other’s from the bus. “Yeah, the entire town kinda seems that way.” He admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “The phone working?” He asked, wondering if that would be able to get through to his family is his mobile couldn’t.

Alix looked down at her clasped hands, the ring on her third finger seeming to glare at her the longer she looked at it, so she instead turned her attention to the man that had just walked in through the bar’s main doors. At his question, she glanced to the payphone one more time before shrugging. “It’s technically working, but everything just goes to voicemail,” she said as her eyes swept the room and all the discarded items again. “I take it your cell phone is doing the same thing?” The burner phone sitting in her bag was just as useless as the payphone, though she was beginning to believe that the cheap flip phone wasn’t the issue, and that the issue was likely much bigger than anyone was willing to admit right now. “God, I could use a drink right now.”

[artxfsurvival]

{ charlie & alix }​:

There was no fridge in the motel room, so, of course, that meant that there could be no pizza left uneaten. Unfortunately, that now meant that there weren’t any leftovers left for Charlie to eat for breakfast. It made sense that the pizza place was closed, so Charlie wandered down to where he knew there were a couple other businesses - but they all seemed closed to. Well, that was a waste of time. They couldn’t find the bus driver, or anyone from the motel, which was a little weird… but honestly, he didn’t mind having a bit of a break from the bus. They’d find the driver soon, he was sure of that. 

When he finally spotted a figure inside the bar, Charlie’s eyes lit up, and he rushed to the door. It wasn’t until he saw her face, and realized she was another passenger, that his face fell again. “Wait, really?” He frowned, walking over to where she was seated at the bar. He grabbed the bowl of peanuts instinctively, starting to much on those while he stared at the keys. “Why would someone leave their keys?”

Alix didn’t like to think of herself as a pessimist, or even a person who gave up on something easily, but the last few weeks had be particularly difficult and she didn’t particularly care for much else besides getting as far away from Salt Lake City as possible. So, when she found the bar empty, she didn’t put much energy into her search outside of the calls. Staring at the boy for a second, she loosed a breath, then jumped off the bar stool and started making her way behind the bar.

“I don’t know,” Alix said softly, her gaze sliding to the abandoned keys once more before she started to search for glasses. “I mean, it’s a small town, so people could be off doing some small town event or whatever.” If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t know much about town events, but what she did know was that there was always a town outsider or a town hermit that moved against the flow of the crowd and that she had yet to see someone like that. “I just feel like we would have seen someone by now...”

[artxfsurvival]

{ candy & alix }​:

”Okay, so this one might be weird,” Candy started, rambling again for the umpteenth time that day. While she wasn’t quite as panicked as some of the other people from the bus, but still, not being able to find anyone else, including their bus driver, was more than a little unsettling. “But have we checked that dive on the corner? Maybe he just had too much to drink. Hell, if I was the one driving through Bumfuck, Kansas, I’d want a stiff one.” The woman next to her, the unfortunate recipient of her newest idea, was the only one she could find at the moment. Her roommate and it seems the rest of the bus people had scattered to the winds, looking around. “I mean, he could just be in a bathroom stall or in a back room if he drank too much. I had a bartender do that with me one time. Nice guy.”

starter for @artxfsurvival​ ( candy & alix )

Alix stood leaning against a post outside the motel, absentmindedly picking at the already chipping white nail polish on her fingernails. “I can’t imagine I’d want a passed out drunk to be driving us halfway across the united states.” Sighing, she pushed away from the post, eyes moving across the street in search of any sign of movement other than the wave of the trees in the light breeze. “How much longer do we want to wait here before venturing off to find a worker or a washed up bus driver passed out on a dirty gas station bathroom?”

[artxfsurvival]

{ nell & alix }​:

[ nell & alix ]

Nell needed air. The stale motel heating was suffocating and Nell wasn’t sure what was more jarring: sharing a room with a stranger or sharing a room with only one other person. After a lifetime of full rooms and full houses, the silence was unsettling. Maybe the vending machine would have toothbrushes. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Nell headed out in search of a vending machine. It took longer than expected to find one, to unsatisfying results. Though, the snack selection almost made up for the toothbrush disappointment. Chips, M&M’s, and a single pickle in hand, she was halfway into the chocolate with the pickle as she came across Alix. “Hi. I thought I was the only one still out and about. Happy New Year, I suppose.”

@artxfsurvival

Alix hadn’t been much of a sleeper the last few weeks. Whether she had her schedule to blame or the copious amounts of coffee she’d had to prevent her dreams from lulling her into a false sense of security, she wasn’t sure. Alix was nearly done with her second cup of shitty motel lobby coffee when a flash blonde hair and a warm greeting appeared out of thin air. “Is it already?” She fished her phone out of her pocket to check the time, staring at the lock screen for a moment before locking it and tucking it away again. “What a way to start the new year,” Alix said with a chuckle and a tilt of her head toward her coffee. “Bad vending machine food and even worse coffee. Though, I have to say, the pickle is a weird addition.”

[artxfsurvival]

{ starter ;; open for mumu }

Once they’d all woken up and waited for the driver that never showed, Alix decided she didn’t exactly want to wait around to find out. With her travel pack slung over a shoulder, she trekked off from the group, deciding to find another way to Philadelphia--even if it meant paying for a taxi to the next greyhound stop. It didn’t take long for her to realize that plan was a failure. Alix stopped once at a gas station, again at a coffee shop, then again at a bar with a sign flaunting a pay phone inside. After being sent to voicemail more than a few times, her mind took note of the abandoned drinks and plates at nearly every table. It was peculiar, especially for a place that likely isn’t busy right before closing--small town or not, bars tended to empty out save for a few stragglers--but it looked like the evening rush abandoned everything at the same time.

Alix wasn’t sure hos long she’d been sitting at the bar before the door opened, an hour maybe, likely two. She released a sigh and looked up to see another passenger from the greyhound. “No one’s showed up,” she said as way of greeting. “Not the bartender, a patron or even--” Alix waved at a set of keys a few feet down the bar-- “whoever those belong to.”

[livplots]

“You don’t owe anyone an apology for the destructive ways you saved yourself; you were just surviving, In ways you know how.”

— misanthrofray  (via wordsnquotes)