Rusty Craven // Park Ranger // 35
I deserve a 21 Gun Salute.
Cyan Chiyoda // Entertainment Broker // 27
She's unintended, not unloved, And you're the one to keep her safe and sound.
Absinthe Capone // Priest // 34
When the curtains call the time- will we both go home alive?
G Westfall // Cashier // 28
Stuck in my own skin, I feel it taking its toll.
Wren Romero // Cashier // 20
I'm a wreck, I'm a mess. I'm a certified depressant.
October Roulette // Bodyguard // 49
Probably burn in hell, But I’ll swing from the chains.
Holder Teichman // Coroner // 36
Most days you reach for safety, remain calm, forgeyt that you know me.
"...I know! There's a lot more bulbs out on this string than I thought there were gonna be, I guess that's what I get for scavenging stuff from the radio station that KB hasn't used for years huh?" At first, it certainly seems like Gabriel is talking to himself, stood atop a ladder on the front porch of the house he and Josie now share with a number of dusty Halloween decor pieces piled up around the feet. Of course, that's before an answering "Mraow!" comes from a box below, Lenore's fluffy tail flicking absently as she slaps the string on a decorative spider who's missing more than a couple legs. "You're right, I think it gives it a more run down and spooky vibe too, and that's that."
He's so resolutely lost in his work, tangled up in string lights, and his conversation with his cat, that it's with a short squawk of fear- and a tumble off the ladder into a pile of decorations- that he makes any notice of Josie returning from work. "Heeeey babygirl, welcome home!- ow." He doesn't seem too bothered by the fall, groaning and standing to dust himself off. "Hope you don't mind. KB gave me the day off so I uh. decided to get a jump on decorating for Halloween- Though I think some of this stuff hasn't been used since like, the nineties."
The Boone house is easily placed as one of the oldest in Huntsville, a towering farmhouse with the paint starting to peel and a field split into four off the back, it's surely not the sort of place Cyan would be living, at least, not before now. He'd been busy the last few weeks, school back in session, newcomers needing their connection to the town's intranet set up- but in a lull, he'd found the time to extend an invitation to Aiko to come over; to let her meet her niece, if nothing else, in a space where GiGi was far less likely to throw a screaming fit the moment she was separated from one of her parents- another clumsy olive branch from an asshole older brother desperately trying to un-fuck his familial relationships, now that he had the clarity to do so. He wasn't sure it'd ever quite work- but trying was what mattered.
"Shit, that's the time- Nah, I got it Russ, you're good." the cursory knock on the door is met with a short conversation from inside, and then a number of latches and locks flicking open. "Aiko! Hey- you find the place alright? Come in, yeah? I was just helping Rusty finish up some crossbow maintenance." He waves her inside easily. "Make yourself at home! Mi casa es su casa, or whatever. You want something to drink before I go get the rugrat?"
"Hey- I'll catch you guys later, yeah?" G nods to his retreating friends, Wren having long since lost interest in trying to beat Cyan at Street Fighter while G pumped quarter after quarter into the arcade's Galaga machine- he supposed it couldn't have felt good spending the whole afternoon getting worked over by a guy with a baby björn on, which had, in fairness, been why he hadn't agreed to play Silas during the rare day all three of them were off work at the same time. "I'll catch you guys for band practice in a few days, I'm gonna try a couple more rounds at this." He motions to the machine behind him, and as he's left alone, he's marginally aware of another person approaching behind him.
"Shit, do you wanna play? I've been hogging the cabinet like, all day- I can take a minute to like, play something else. Or go over all those bass tabs my friends just handed me so I'm not winging it during practice- either way I am like... so not married to the idea of keeping other people from uh, fighting the ever-present threat of alien invaders, yanno?"
"Salutations, sibling mine." It's always been... easier, to bother Felix than his sisters. For the one, he'd been around him more, growing up, his slights were a little more... recognizable, in their past, and the Chiyoda half of the family had a succession based roadblock in many exchanges that Silas had always had... trouble navigating. Felix had never endured the constant scrutiny of a Japanese father squaring them up against Cyan's achievements- for better or worse. "You busy today? I hate to only hang out when I've got like, a thing I need your help with but like, a bunch of new people have moved into that uh, listeners house, or whatever, and I've got a bunch of computers to set up there now- if you're not like, busy, and down to hang with your shithead brother, I'll get us lunch and we can uh, catch up? While I make you press buttons on the host computer in my van." A pause, then he continues.
"If you don't help me I'm going to have to climb up and down on a roof like, way more times, and you know I don't fuck with heights, man."
"Should have brought a bag, definitely should have brought a baaaag." Wren mutters under her breath, the keys to her dad's truck barely held in her mouth and an armload of groceries threatening to topple into the parking lot as she shuffles out the front doors. "Why do they have to ask for so much when I do snack runs? I don't even work there- they owe me for this one." She dumps the pile onto the passenger seat with a groan, one of the bottles of particularly sought after gatorade from a recent newcomer falling and rolling off down the lot. "Ah, shit."
She catches up with it just in time for it to roll to a stop in front of another young woman, sighing with relief. "Ah, thank God, I was sure I was gonna be chasin' it all the way to the radio station." She tilts her head slightly, then snaps her fingers. "Ah, you're Aiko, right? Cy's little sister? I'm Wren, we met at the uh, lake party where Hank went...." She lofts a hand upwards quickly, yanking it down before going. "Bloop." Then clears her throat. "Though, now that I say that out loud it feels a lot darker than I meant it to, for that to be the reminder of where we uh, where we met."
It's easy enough to tell when Doc's the only one working in the morgue, the sound of early 2000s club pop punk only ever loud enough to drift upstairs when he's the sole doctor settled into the basement office- regularly offering to work the overnights for cataloguing Felicity and Zeke might not want to do. He's certainly been here since last night, because a small handful of things are evident upon stepping into the small space that serves time and again as Huntsville's citizens' last stop before the graveyard on the edge of town: Doc's made a bed behind the main desk, and as he sings along to the radio, his mismatched slipper-clad feet are kicked up on the desk, the right bearing a rabbit missing an eye, and the left very clearly a monster foot.
"You're a hot m-mess I'm lovin' it h-hell yes- Christ Almighty!-" Sam's appearance, without a knock and with the music deafening his ability to catch anyone coming down the stairs, sends Doc spilling from the office chair and into the floor, the coroner upended for a moment before he springs to his feet, straightening his blazer over his shirt with a wheeze before lobbing a stapler at the radio across the room, knocking into it just violently enough to make it stop playing. "Ah h-hello Sam! I didn't hear you come in! S-Scared the life out of me." He quickly slams the top of his laptop shut and kicks his makeshift bed underneath the desk.
"Nope! Not working today! Ask me your produce questions next tuesday from noon to six PM, because right now I am just here for- Oh! Hey Kira." It takes a moment, as she turns around, to realize exactly who's tapped her on the shoulder, clearly expecting an older person with questions about groceries who knew she worked there some days, she seems relieved, turning to find a former classmate and fellow 'huntsville for (almost) lifer'- a title worn for better or worse. "What's up? I'm just uh, grabbing snacks for band practice, I took away the guys' rights to bring them when Gabe turned up with a bag of baby carrots he had already eaten half of. If he'd just said he forgot that'd be one thing, but he was adamant that six baby carrots per person was a 'completely normal snack.'"
She adjusts her basket slightly, fluffing dark hair back into place. "Haven't bumped into you for a minute, that's my bad. Desperately trying to get my old man to let me work as a ranger full time, so I've been uh. sucking up. Yeah, I ain't even gonna lie about that one- How've you been?"
"Well well, if it isn't Hollywood." It's kinda hard to take the jovial greeting as anything other than something bordering on 'light threat' as October's hefting an axe from hand to hand in the side yard of the Listeners' House- especially when he seems to have caught Jordan's approach without even turning around. "What's the occasion then, killer? If you're here for a working over, I'm afraid I'm a little busy." He steps back, and with one violent swing, cleaves the log in front of himself in two, tearing the hatchet head back out of the stump and placing another. "You could also put a little work in outside of being pretty, if you were so inclined, but who am I to give any orders, mm?" To October's credit, the standoffish nature was, at it's core, his nature, and Jordan had never taken issue with it, rough-edged and dangerous to... anyone fool enough to enter his orbit, after all.
"Quite the hit at that whole speed-dating thing, weren't ya, handsome? Don't think I didn't know what you were up to. You're lucky it's a game I like playing." Another swift swing of the axe, another splitting of wood. "Get over here and set me up again."
"G-G-Good morning, Dr. Dagon!" Doc seems in relatively high spirits, a cup of coffee clutched in each leather-gloved hand as he shuffles into the Morgue, the younger doctor's usual tan trench coat quickly hung beside the door and one cup handed over to Felicity before he pauses to take a sip of his own. "J-just us t-today I take it? D-Didn't see Dr. H-Hunt on my way in, s-so I only g-grabbed two cups of coffee." He scrunches his nose a little at his own cup- it's never particularly good coffee here in Huntsville, but people under the threat of an eldrich horror can't be choosy, Doc reasons.
"I m-m-managed to catalogue the f-few n-new arrivals w-we had last night before I went home, n-nothing out of the n-norm, just some a-ah, old a-age decedents from the n-nursing home, th-they're in drawers six and f-f-four." He skirts around Felicity carefully, moving to the file cabinet behind the desk. "I d-don't think we have a-autopsy requests for them, b-but preliminaries are d-done. N-No ah, 'potential c-cult activity' or 't-tentacle-related injuries' to speak of. A p-pair of phrases I d-don't think I'll e-ever get used to- d-do you get used to th-that?"
"There she is, the birthday girl- Yes, yes, before we go ragging on me, I am late, but I am not a dollar short." October can count on exactly one hand the number of people he's fond of that he didn't have a part in fathering, but resolutely among them, for quite some time now, was certainly Tiffany Royale. Maybe it was a recognition of artistry, maybe it was a knowledge that despite it all, she was just as ego-driven and broken as he was- or, just maybe, October's fondness was best earned with a good lay and then leaving him the fuck alone until he got bored again- whatever the reason, he'd had a noted soft spot for Tiffany for some time, enough, at the very least, that he'd remembered her birthday- holding up a bottle of Jack Daniels retrieved from his U-Haul with a smirk.
"Drink responsibly, if your beer goggles make you hook up with a loser, I'm not the guy you're going to blame for it, you know the drill, baby." He presses the bottle into her grasp. "Now, why're you lookin' like somebody killed your pet this close to your birthday, doll? Anything I can punch to make it better?"
"I'm g-g-g-going to head h-home for the d-day- wh-when Felicity c-comes in, I've left my notes on the d-desk in the morgue office- b-but we've only g-got a couple o-overnight stays until the f-funeral home g-gets in touch." Doc is already prepping to head home, leaned in the doorway of the police station as he pats himself down for keys to his house and his wallet- cellphone held aside as he checks the time. "I-If anybody n-needs anything I'll k-keep the walkie on, but I'm o-off the n-next f-few days. T-take care of yourselves e-everyone!" There's a few 'night Doc's!' that follow him out the door and onto the sidewalk-
Just in time for somebody rushing by to nearly take out the coroner, staggering the doctor and sending his phone sailing across the parking lot. He winces at the sound of impact. "Oh. that sounded expensive. a-and p-probably unrepairable." He frowns, turning to the person who'd plowed into him. "A-a-are you okay? R-running from something? Someone? Sh-should we both be running?"
It's been quiet in my mind, now I'm paranoid. It's just a matter of time before it's making noise.
"I guess you can just call me Doc, but I'm Holder Teichman. I'm 36 years old, and a Boston native which means I'm just visiting Huntsville. I've been a coroner for the past several years, as I find it far easier to work with the dead than the living, these days. Back in my prime, though, I was a surgical prodigy- capable enough that I found myself in the clutches of Boston's notorious Mystic River Killer- and forced to circumvent their death... an act that lead to several more, given that I'm the only surviving victim. I've been in Huntsville for almost a year and have settled as best I can into the position that feels most at home for me. Despite my previously illustrious life, at present, I am a guilt-ridden, repentant, traumatized shell of my former self.- A handful of traits that I fear my best efforts and unwavering loyalty and altruism cannot counter."
Name: Holder Albert Teichman
Aliases: Doc, Dr. Teichman, Holder
Age: 36
Sexuality/Gender: Homosexual Trans Man He/Him
Personality: A deeply nervous man, Holder's speech patterns are laden with stutters and uncertainty, and he finds it difficult in the present day to trust anyone, much less a town full of relative strangers. Endlessly loyal when he eventually allows himself to trust someone, it's guilt that guides his actions and efforts- a constant belief that his stringent clinging to his Hippocratic oath in the moment that he had to decide whether or not to let the Mystic River Killer die caused the death of three more people- and left him the sole survivor of their bloody rampage. Driven to help others to the point of self-harm, he'd set himself ablaze to keep someone else warm for even a moment longer, kindness often taken full advantage of by those without his best interest at heart, sensationalized and exploited for a time after his brush with death- it was really only his arrival in Huntsville that allowed him to take a breath and stop answering to the constant interviews from news media, television, and the dreaded true crime podcaster.
Occupation: While a Coroner in Huntsville, Holder's former work was that of a surgeon- though his shakes and injured right hand have left him unable to trust himself to work on anyone who isn't already dead.
Affiliations: Huntsville Police Department, the Town of Huntsville
Scent Profile: Faint cologne and aftershave he's about to run out of, the constant clinging scent of blood and antiseptic, as clean as one can be in the aftermath of what's happened to Huntsville. There's the faintest smell of wood polish, paints and oils- though this is clearly tied to his hobby over his work.
Aesthetic: Tight leather gloves hiding the reminder of your most crushing shame, blood and sweat clinging to pale skin- the shadow of doubt looming over your shoulder. You are no killer, so now their blood is on your destroyed hands. A pendulum, a pivot- the world changes, so you do. Now the ferryman, pennies on the eyes, a fee for the afterlife- their journey overseen by careful, still-shaking hands and a desperation to right the wrongs you've inflicted. your phone still rings off the hook, they didn't tell you when your morals and virtues die in the split second you make that kind of decision that the vultures come despite the body still breathing. You are a story. You are trauma porn. You are clicks and interactions and you cannot take it anymore.
This place is a godsend. You feel just as guilty for that feeling as you do everything else.
It's like an hourglass I can't turn over And when it's out, it comes down like a mortar.
CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN HUNTSVILLE POST ARRIVAL
Now serving as one of Huntsville's Coroners, Doc is, strangely, doing better than he ever was on the outside. The constant media circus unwilling to let his trauma die with the other victims of the Mystic River Killer now on the other side of a barrier that silences all emails, phone calls, and interruptions, he's comfortable in the quiet that's come from being allowed to focus on his work, even if the bodies he's handed are particularly brutal. There's a comfort in the commonality of cause of death- 'ghost related slaughtering' is an easy enough marker to make on paperwork, with the rare deviation to include natural disaster, gunshots, and falls from great heights. There is a comfort in death- a comfort Doc has not been offered- but not for lack of trying.
Even now struggling to trust the people around him- and to cope with the reality of his continued survival in the face of crushing odds when others haven't been so 'lucky'- Doc's tenuous friendships with his coworkers- and those who have attempted to get past the walls he's hastily cobbled together to assure him there's no reason to be alone in a place where more people than anywhere else understand the ache of losing someone to savagery. But their efforts are slow-moving, as Holder's trauma lingers, crawling and creeping through his mind like tentacles to constrict ever tighter- ironic, he reasons, given the current state of things in the place he's found himself. His is an existence of slight hermithood- loyal to those who have taken the time to offer kindness and care- but not trusting, never trusting.
The willingness to turn one's back on someone was the simplest path toward being stabbed in it, after all.
Thank God the water's cool. Sure, Ziggy's never been one to complain, at least, not after he'd decided that he needed to repent for his lifetime of being an insufferable dick, but it had been a cooker the last few days on the handful of odd-jobs he'd undertaken, and he felt bad for Cash, the German Shepherd panting more than he was doing anything else lately. So it's no surprise that he's playing frisbee with the pup and a few of the other locals now, a towel around his shoulders and swim trunks both already wet from a few trips into the lake- at least one of them surely to chase the dog, similarly wet and thrilled to partake in the day's festivities.
He's taken by surprise, though, when in the middle of chasing a throw, Cash halts in his tracks to start barking, wagging his tail wildly. "What the hell's gotten into-" He trails off, turning to look where the canine's attention has settled. "Shoulda assumed it was you, Sparkplug, everybody else in this town's about as interestin' as wallpaper to Johnny Cash here." He reaches down to pat the pup's head, crosses arms over his bare torso with a grin as he take Bri in. "Damn nice day out, ain't it? Crossing my fingers it stays that way, been a scorcher the last few."
There's a recognition within him that life is short, and in Huntsville, it's even shorter. There's an understanding that every time they're in the presence of Ondine or Esther, they're putting them at risk.
there is also the understanding that Esther and Ondine will kill him if he pulls away from them again, and maybe death by whatever Huntsville has planned is better than the idea of his neck being snapped by his lovers, so it's truly no surprise that they've elected to attend the festivities- though perhaps a little more surprising that in full view of any who might watch- he reels Ondine into a hug, and crouches to set a fond kiss on the crown of Joei's head, the toddler gurgling before clamoring to her feet- inevitably to try and toddle off to cause some form of baby chaos. "Oh dear, I've gotten her started." He laughs. "How are you, beautiful?" He's nervous- it's clear in the tighter corners of his smile, as tattooed fingers lace in their own. He's trying, if anything he's trying, it's hard to shake the worry that this might get her hurt. "I would have given you and Esth warning I was planning on coming- but after a couple days of thought I wanted it to be a surprise, that I drug myself out of the chapel."
It's unclear which is weirder, to see October out of his usual heavy punk garb or stage jacket in favor of a black tank top and clearly hand-cut shorts in an attempt to at least look like he knows it's hot outside, or if it's more offputting that he seems to be in a relatively good mood. In fact, instead of his usual abject scowling, he seems almost plucky and jovial, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, a beer in hand and conversing with one of the regular hangers-on around the little... collective, that circles Quinn. His dogs seemed to have made an appearance as well, and it is, in fact, Glory who seems to have taken pointed interest in another commune-dweller, having crept off now sniffing nervously at the pants leg of a stranger- who happened to be holding food.
"Glory." a voice rumbles flatly, October arching a brow as the dog sheepishly wags his tail and sits down- long nose still fully extended toward Remi's thigh. "Ah, I'm sorry about him, thinks with 'is stomach more than that walnut rattlin' about in there he calls a brain. Hope he didn't bother you too bad."
