WE KEEP THE WORLD ALIVE.

[enginire]

indie. priv. sel. meIanie caviII from tnt's snowpiercer, derived of show canon and headcanons. dossier. face. verses. headcanons. prompts. rules under cut.

please follow only if you're over 18. i am 25+. this blog runs on beta. i write meI as a lesbian. she is in her late 40s, and will not ship with anyone exceedingly young. she's also a super busy gal so relationships kind of fall off the deep end when you're trying to keep humanity alive. usual rules apply: no godmodding, please be polite. i'm contactable via im's, my ask box, and i have discor.d for mutuals. this being said, i will most likely not interact with non-mutuals. i love crossovers and plotting pre-established relations, whether they're positive or negative. meI can be pretty antagonistic sometimes, and makes some incredibly rough decisions for the good of the train. i won't sugar-coat these. she is cold, ruthless, seemingly-detached from the plight of the train aside from its perpetual movement. she has tortured people and murdered people to ensure the survival of the mass population. don't be afraid to hate her, or have your muse not like her. it's cool, i get it. she's a nightmare sometimes. triggers will include body horror (e.g. freezing, lung of ice), general creepiness and grossness from wiIford, brutality, blood, drugs, gore, some mentions of torture, and death. please keep yourself safe! if you need me to tag anything explicitly, please let me know. anything overtly rough, i'll tag with #trigger /. i know this isn't a huge fandom where everyone's aware of everything, so if you have any questions or need things explained, let me know! info on the train. permanent starter call.

[aflawedfashion]

Melanie Cavill | Snowpiercer 2x01

[enginire]

@nightcars: i was sure about you the day we met.

it's a saturday. late. there's a waspish hum of voices and champagne flutes clinking against silver platters and low hors d'oeuvres, ma'am?s from wiIford-stained vests and white gloves. there are jewels beyond comparison — glittering brooches, low-necked rubies. the room stinks of wealth, from buffed and branded floors to the nasal pitch in each laugh.

where there is wealth, there is wiIford. joint in one hand, single malt in the other, brocaded cravat splitting down between the two, there is wiIford. he is a sceptre on the night, ensuring that stakeholders and their guests alike are truly revelling in the marionette show he puts on. (he's all but in a top hat and ringleader's garb — roll up, roll up. come watch a man snort coke off his choice of waitstaff's cleavage.)

while she has never had the honour of attending a party so illicit and exclusive as this, the chewed corner of her index nail and picked-at crease between the bed of her little finger and the skin is testament to the anxiety slowly churning in her stomach.

he's drunk by now, leering and guffawing into his whiskey. he grabs and he gropes and acts as though the world revolves around spindly fingers that palm tickets and baggies into people's palms (roll up, roll up. get your snowpier.cer tickets now.). he's one drink away from lecherous, and meI, standing as close to the edge of the door as possible, sucks in one deep breath before intercepting his unlucky prey with a careful hand on the shoulder, and a sorry glance to joseph's sprawled out body.

"do you want to get some air? i don't mean to interrupt, i'm just — a little woozy. joseph, robert foIger was asking about your experience with luxury liners — he's looking to invest."

it's bittersweet now — the train is a stacked chessboard. no matter how many times you play, how many different combinations of moves you can set, you always lose. (it's been too long to continue losing. it's hit after hit, beating after beating. the metal bends to your will as long as you have the strength to mould it, but the more she tweaks and fiddles and groans under its weight, she feels it cracking. the truth is, snowpier.cer is failing. she needs parts, respite, direction. the more meI pumps her own blood into the system, the more she loses.)

i was sure about you the day we met. it strikes something in her that she originally thinks is cold. it's a numb, frozen lump in the pit of her stomach that she blinks through to thaw. it's an i saw you, and it's meI realising just how desperate she was to be seen.

"you know, i — wasn't sick that night." it's her secret — the one she's been keeping for years now. not too much champagne, or too crowded a room, but that order for respite. it's not just the train who needs it. people need it too, and perhaps it's just that. in all of this, that's what she's lost most. sight of the people. what they need.

"i figured you deserved a break from him. and i don't like parties. seemed like a good opportunity to talk to you." away from him goes unspoken, but it's this moment that she finds herself edging her hand closer toward audrey's. (it's subtle, at first, all the way up to brushing her pinky against the other's. she doesn't look down, acknowledge it, or even think too deeply about why, just that it is.)

"are you still? — sure?"

[zachrp]

𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝚂𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙾𝙽 𝟽 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.

content warning applies. change any pronouns / wording if necessary.

you're either with us or you ain't.

you do the same damn stink eye as your dad

i'm not saving you anymore.

you should be dead.

i love a gal that takes me to dinner and doesn’t expect me to put out.

you're sitting over there talking outside both sides of your mouth.

i know i had to make a pretty strong first impression.

you’re lucky. don’t forget.

i just bent over backwards to show you how reasonable i am.

it's gonna be dark soon.

did you just threaten me?

you see, now i just think you're lying.

kid. i ain't gonna lie. you scare the shit out of me.

are you kiddin' me?

do soy sauce packets count as food?

i'm dealing in certainties, and i'm doing my part to give them what they want.

what'd he have? a knife?

i get why you did it.

i would not have messed with that guy!

hot diggity dog! this place is magnificent!

i don’t give a shit if you think you’ve found the secret to life.

if you keep thinking everyone's an enemy, then enemies are all you're gonna find.

let me give you some advice.

you should go before you find out how dangerous we really are.

that takes guts... and then there's you.

people want someone to follow.

same goes for you too right?

little pig, little pig, let me in!

i want you to think about what could've happened, think about what happened, and think about what can still happen.

don’t pretend you don’t know the score.

anyone wanna finish the game? come on! i was winning!

it ain’t just about getting by here. it’s about getting it all.

people can try and you set you in the right direction, but they can’t show you the way.

listen, i like you, so i don't want to go hard proving a point here.

we'll win. but we need to wait for the right moment.

i hear your concern. i'm not insensitive to it.

people say i have an expressive face.

i always found it hard getting close to anyone.

that remind you of anyone you know?

if you knew us, if you knew anything, you would kill us.

well pardon me.

look, just put it down...

we need to talk.

hope you're not trying to hide stuff from us 'cause that generally doesn't go over very well.

i feel like i ought to give you a signing bonus.

you bunch of pussies!

nobody's evil. they just decide to forget who they are.

i think i've made my position very clear.

i'm serious. do you want me to prove how serious?

bet you thought you were all gonna grow old together.

whatever you had going for you... that is over now.

what's about to happen is gonna be hard to watch.

if you're having problems of that nature, come to see me.

some people are evil. i've seen it.

i was gifted these pickles.

how about a "thank you?"

i can't be the only one to notice that you got a fat lady in charge of keeping track of rations, can i?

he's an idiot.

you'll get yourself killed.

you should know, there is no door number four. this is it. this is the only way.

speak when you're spoken too.

in case you haven't caught on, i just slipped my dick down your throat, and you thanked me for it.

i can see this is hard on you guys.

we provide security for others. we bring civilization back to this world.

you guys have a barbecue or something and not invite us?

i'll find you.

you were thinking about someone else.

my apologies for leaving the place a bit of a mess, but we got a litany of other shit to attend to!

you like ice cream? we have ice cream.

me? i ain't doing shit.

you got your friend killed.

not making a decision is a big decision.

drink from the well, replenish the well.

suck my nuts.

he's a coward. they're more dangerous.

don't be rude.

this must be hard for you right?

no matter how things go down, i got your back.

we'll crack open some tequila, we'll talk, we'll work it out.

you don't have to do this.

your people are making me lose my voice doing all this yelling.

i'd like to take it back to awkward silence now.

i mean, you have been king shit for so long.

we made it. we can make it. we can.

you're not me.

it’s because you got no guts.

was the joke that bad?

is that you? underneath all that man bush?

thanks for saving my life before. and other time. oh, and the other time.

get on your knees.

you really want to see all these people die? you will.

i am indeed a smarty pants.

what the hell, man?

we're the ones who live.

don't wander around here on your own.

[enginire]

snowpiercer rp prompts. episode 4-6.

adapt. that's what humans do, isn't it?

systems resist change, even without their maker.

i'm just a scientist - i'm here to save the world, not change it.

i know our chances of surviving are slim at best.

i knew you'd be up.

no rest for the weary.

i want you to ask for help.

i'm not afraid to be seen together.

you just don't want to walk to work with me in the morning?

you have the privilege of seeing it that way.

i'm gonna give you a chance to make things right.

i want you to go get a gurney and some sheets. we need postmortem data. do you understand what i'm asking you?

i gave you a description of a killer - what did you do with it?

she's dead, and our killer gets his bacon and eggs.

they don't even know who they're chasing.

work it out now. work it out later - just do your freaking job.

now i've got a sense of what you do here, i thought you might have a take on it.

you know people, high and low. you know their secrets.

that would be confidential… if the answer wasn't no.

cut the shit. you have my support.

you've been stashing supplies there, right?

these people broiled the earth, then they froze her, and now they hang the spoils on their wall.

i came from nothing. i know a thing or two about class.

that anger you feel when you look at all of this? it's justified. let's used this.

alright, two things - i don't give a shit who you are, and someone up here has got a thing for chopping off dicks.

you knew he was missing and you didn't tell us?

good news first… we may have identified the killer.

all the piss and shit left in the world. you get used to the smell.

is he going to go through all of our things?

you think he was capable of something like this?

it can't come off like we have sheltered a monster.

i hear you eat people.

it keeps everyone up here scared of you… like — i'd eat a dude just to make everyone shit bricks like they do with you.

you know, you're a lot cooler smashing the system than being his dick.

morality's a moving target.

he might've been the murderer, but removing body parts… that's how he screwed up.

what do you mean he screwed up?

it's a punishment that women lay down on men.

the murderer who hid among us is dead, and a second suspect is in custody.

thanks to a successful investigation, order has been restored, and i assure you, justice will prevail.

let's put the politics down and celebrate a win.

you know i can't let you do that. you've seen too much.

a myth's a powerful thing - pray you never know the weight of it.

some of us are ready to change his terms.

it will be perilous, filthy work - more precious souls may be lost.

but we didn't come this far, suffer this much, to give in to the same tyranny that destroyed us in the first place.

all this time in here, and you still won't talk to me?

what you say in here is admissible… so our smart visitors stay quiet.

yeah, if she messes up, we both suffer.

i guess we should leave you two to celebrate.

look at us - made it three whole months before shacking up.

i was sure about you the day we met.

by tonight, this will all be over and you'll be back here with us.

stare out the window on your own time, please.

that stunt was beneath you.

you've grown calloused doing his bidding. you used to try and make a difference, too.

i am asking you to stay true to your vision.

don't make me threaten you.

you think we have a class divide now? this could blow the whole thing up.

god, i wish i could open a frigging window.

i miss the sound of rain. i miss so many things.

you just keep your head down, alright? we'll watch your back.

i guess they're his rules to change.

he chose the will of the people.

we don't have will, we have order.

you must be happy now that you're bourgeoisie.

are you gonna extort addicts for sex today?

now, you're gonna see some things that are unfamiliar to you - things like hygiene and self respect. you will hear people speaking in complete sentences. now don't punch them, don't punch their belongings, don't lick things - am i making myself clear?

maybe he turned over the wrong rock.

i've got $400 million in early investor status and a whole world of pain when it comes to my survival.

day-to-day operations… justice, resources — maybe these matters would be better handled here, where their effects are felt.

he mostly just stared at us coldly - which, i won't lie, is very effective.

i was as much her hostage as i was his.

send a message that justice is not reserved for the rich.

don't take this personally, huh? and don't get caught.

so you go ahead with your show trial and prepare to suffer the consequences - because you're messing with my blood line.

the confusion… the ache in my guts, the fear - that's love, isn't it?

he said fear makes people honest.

i was silent when i should have spoken, but he gave his life to save humanity from the darkness that almost swallowed me whole.

well, that changes the calculus, doesn't it?

there's no choice - it's what she asked for in the worst case.

you need to hide him.

keep your head on a swivel, because trouble comes sideways.

to climb, someone else falls. to gain, someone else loses.

have all the fun jobs, man - and you don't even have to follow protocol.

you can shag the help too, right?

maybe you should find a girlfriend.

they'd suffer along with the rest of us - they're putting the gun to their own head.

why would they punish you?

careful what you wish for, huh?

you should've left me out of it! then all of this rage that you feel, all of the blame - then it would've been pure!

when they discover he's missing, this'll be the first place they look.

there can be no more contact - it's for your own good.

i need to tell you something, in case anything happens to me.

he's an illusion to keep the rest of us in line.

christ, what a picture.

tissue damage is limited. as for your melon, it could be days before the fog clears.

i'm not cleared to know.

do you know - if what you did comes out, you'll lose your job, probably an arm too and your girlfriend? well, she'll just drop you like the piece of rough shit that you are.

so here's what i want: every last thing i can get.

there's fun to be had here, and i plan to have some.

and now we all know you're as dirty at they come, you're gonna have to play along, aren't ya?

she was a warrior. she fought like hell. and she loved you kids more than anything.

you're the head of the family now.

i wanna do something for them - for everybody. lift spirits.

fancy meeting you here.

we should run away to tahiti together, you know?

there comes a point where you can't stay on the sidelines any longer.

you did all this by yourself?

i think maybe you should be teaching me.

i feel like i've lived so many lives, died so many times.

i don't have your courage.

we're fighters. we protect the things we love.

he's gonna be fine - it's just gonna take time.

i might never get another chance like this.

we can talk about this tomorrow - make a plan, okay?

lucky you. you get to put on some grubbies.

you cannot spare the rod with these people, you know - you've got to hammer down.

the whole goddamn human experiment - it can be undone by a bloom of mould.

they were selected for diversity, for health, for skills - to give us a fighting chance on the other side!

you decide who lives and who dies.

you don't know the specs, and i need you on diagnostics.

i designed her. i'll fix her.

i'm not gonna stand by while you abuse people.

these are my last words: i won't let you extort me and you're a dick.

i don't get you - so righteous on the small stuff, but pretty darn flexible when it comes to high crimes.

you shouldn't have locked me out!

don't you ever feel like you're being kept in the dark?

i wanna show you something you haven't seen in a long, long time.

i know it seems like this might be the end, but it's not - it can't be.

we are going to make it. i just know it. we just will.

find someone and hold them close, and please, try to stay warm.

it's gonna come out, what you did, whether i spill it or not.

you should, uh. go find your girl.

i should've shown up for you last night.

what if i'm not the person you think i am?

the celebration will end, but their grievances won't.

well, it's nice to see you back among the living.

keep the door locked and, if anyone knocks, pretend you're not here.

[hintons-a]

I HAVE THE TRAIN. Jennifer Connelly as Melanie Cavill SNOWPIERCER, SEASON ONE, EPISODE ONE, "FIRST THE WEATHER CHANGED"

[enginire]

oh we're so unbelievably back

[enginire]

@nightcars.

there is something not right on the train. steadily, order shifts into the limits of acceptable when rations are split between the carriages, and the nightcar is flush with guests every night wanting to waste what little time they have left on whiskey and tits. (she'll provide the whiskey. the rest is particularly guarded, when drunk patrons remind her of that cruel glint in joseph's eyes when she slips out into her quarters to hide from the rest of the noise. it's an interesting career for a woman who hates parties, but she is nothing but a battle of contradictions in herself.) but order aside — wiIford industries' grand voyage put into one corner, and the unnecessarily strict beatings to keep would-be revolutionaries in line, there is something not right.

"you know, i knew mr wiIford. and in all the time we knew each other," two fingers brush the rim of the glass, readily topped-up with her own liquor and anything amber and thick behind the bar, and meIanie's head cocks from one side to the other before dousing the lurch in her stomach with scotch.

"he never mentioned a daughter." she doesn't want to get into the nitty gritty of the nature of their relationship, but she knows how he presses his ties, and how he leaves thick thumbprint bruises wherever he can. she knows how he drinks his coffee, snorts his coke, plays his games like a kid with a fucking magnifying glass on a hot day — but nothing about a daughter.

[enginire]

@nightcars: i need your help like i need a third boob.

it's right to say they have a history — one more tumultuous than the first nail-biting stretch of the bering strait that meI is sure she barely breathed through seven years ago. like all things, time makes it a little easier; the constant hum of the engine draws life in each compartment, settles an uneasy stirring down-train and keeps them twisting languidly between caverns and valleys of the swiss alps.

time halts her neuroses with each successful rotation, but with audrey, each meeting is just like unpicking your own sutures. one of them is more than likely to come away from it hurting.

"audrey..." she sighs through it, folding arms across the boiler suit. (they used to joke that teals don't suit her — the blue offsets the colours of her eyes and lends itself to the airhostess quality of hospitality in first. with empty palms and dutiful kisses plastered down her shoulder and up the curve of her throat, you're better than being first's bitch seems to be one of the many, buried unspokens between them.)

"i'm not asking as a friend." as an engineer, as the brake oil, as the blood and sweat that jars metal cogs together from blueprints stacked in her quarters — as wiIford. the train needs its switzerland, and the nightcar needs its audrey.

she leans now, presses the small of her back into the verge of the bar behind them. civility is no small feat when all they can do is stare daggers into each other and hope that the next four weeks are filled with apt distractions, but she extends whatever brittle morsel of an olive branch that she can find and hopes it doesn't rot between her fingers.

"— you know, when we first spoke about the nightcar, i didn't think it would work. that... exposing people like that was just a weakness that wiIford's order couldn't survive with. i backed you because it was either this or a brothel, and that energy burden was unacceptable. but you stuck with it — you gave people hope, a way to work through their grief in a productive way that... i could never have found an equation for. you proved me wrong — you always prove me wrong. the train needs you. i... need you. and it looks like you could use a bit of your own medicine. so before you throw this all out because you're punishing yourself, let me help you. we used to know each other, once."

[deivll]

    lucifer sentence starters     episode 4 - 6.

you broke into my house?

you were taking forever in the shower.

are you sleeping with this idiot?

never been thrown out of anywhere before in my life.

something very disturbing’s just happened. it’s horrific, really. for the second time, i’ve been thrown out of a woman’s house.

i mean, i appeal to the virile urge in all wo/men.

you need to go undercover, because you’re our best way in.

why is she able to refuse my charms?

people don’t have power over us. we give it to them. you have to take your power back.

i need to take back control. i need to behave like i always have.

i mean, it seems obvious now, actually - i need to have sex with her.

are you gonna help me or not?

you’re quite adorable when you’re flustered.

i’m not flustered, i’m nauseous.

okay, look. let me make myself perfectly clear: i will never, ever, ever sleep with you.

playing hard to get? i like it.

wow. you’ve never been rejected by a woman, have you?

the odds are definitely in your favour out there - probably not batting for the same team, but you never know. go forth and conquer. i know you want to.

i promise, if anyone here hurt your sibling, i’ll find them. and i’ll punish them.

if you weren’t so pent-up sexually, we’d be firing on all cylinders, i’d say.

i certainly don’t need any help getting wo/men into bed.

do you honestly think you can just ask people to have sex with you and they will?

you forget. i love pain.

men - they always want to talk!

we can get him/her back to where s/he belongs, if you could just provide me with a weak spot.

seriously, darling. are you well? the berries are ripe and ready to be harvested - i mean, look at me.

don’t. please.

if i get an STD from this thing, i’m gonna kill you.

is there anyone you suspect that might do this to you?

do not shush me.

a deal’s a deal - especially one with the devil.

i do believe there’s good and evil and right and wrong.

does it scare you?

i mean, how could i be scared of something i don’t believe in?

do i scare you?

either way, he’s going to get someone killed. probably himself.

this love thing makes you all quite stupid, doesn’t it?

just hand over the cash, and no one gets hurt.

i believe that’s a fair request, actually, so just pop her around and the money’s yours.

greedy little jackal, aren’t you?

what is it about you and guns, eh?

what’s up, jackass?

hell truly hath no fury like a woman scorned.

i happen to be an expert on punishment, and i’m not sure it fits the crime here.

chlamydia, the clap, a raging case of crabs - that’s what you deserve. not death.

why do humans think they can rectify one evil with another?

why does everyone say that before they’re punished?

come on, shoot me.

son of a bitch, that really hurts!

i don’t bleed!

i don’t lie. but i don’t always tell the whole truth.

can’t sleep when you’re not home.

the models don’t appear to be wearing any clothes.

you were shot and you bled. no sharp objects until we find out why.

the danger of getting hurt is positively thrilling.

now come on, tell me your most dangerous desire.

we need to get out of here now.

i am dreamy, but try to contain yourself.

i got a taste of danger, and i want more.

that whackjob’s gonna totally get me killed.

tomato, tom-ah-to.

see, that’s why we make such great partners - the ‘he said, she said’ of it all.

when do i get my own gun?

i wouldn’t trust you with my kid’s lightsaber.

if i’m gonna be forced to work with you again, i call the shots.

bloody hell! that hurt! do it again.

you know, i’m quite skilled in restraints.

let me guess, you did him a favour.

i process tragedy through my work.

that favour you owe me… i’m calling in my IOU.

i was trying to prevent more death.

well, aren’t we the little saint?

you are the oldest young person i’ve ever met.

i’m not gonna drink at a bar where everyone hates me.

did you ever consider that they hate you for that very reason?

well, somebody’s not being crowned homecoming queen, are they?

surely you’ve heard the expression 'deal with the devil’…?

people come to me to ask for favours and more often than not, i’m happy to oblige.

i don’t need your sympathy, but thank you.

firstly, let me state that i’m in no way standing up for my associate, but on behalf of myself, and only myself, i think you’re a complete sack of arse.

sadly, the only thing broken was that incontinent troll’s nose.

if i’m not going to look out for you, who will? hm?

maybe next time, i won’t be around to save your ass.

you and my backside used to get on well.

is it my thanks you want, or a kiss?

i don’t do favours for guys like you.

what is it with the men in my life?

act like a child, get treated like a child.

witnesses said they heard you making threats at the door.

no wonder he can’t get it up.

so you’re just gonna sit around and wait for revenge? that’s rather lazy.

i was promised a gang war, and instead, i get a crybaby. this is boring.

you know, they really don’t make bad guys like they used to.

after five years behind bars, a brothel would be my go-to.

i can’t be held responsible for what happens after i give someone a favour.

if there’s one thing the devil knows, it’s that people need to take responsibility for their own bad behaviour.

enough danger for you yet?

you do remember that bullets hurt, right?

you had your hero moment. stay down, or you’re gonna get shot.

ass saved. you’re welcome.

you’re addicted to creating chaos and seeing where the chips fall, to hell with the consequences.

you’re having another one of those 'gut feelings’, aren’t you?

you’ve already wasted so much of your life.

oh, well the good news is that whilst all dogs go to heaven, you’d be surprised how many pigs are waiting for you in hell.

you were never as good as me.

keep your enemies close, right?

who gave that order?

if you come clean now, i’ll go easy on you.

if you really want to do something, you should.

shall we move the party upstairs?

so what unpleasantness felled this heap of unrealised ambition then?

let’s pretend for one second that you’re someone else - someone nice. someone mature.

i mean, getting murdered is probably the most exciting thing that ever happened to him.

i gave up an epic foursome to be here.

call me when you’ve got a murder with a pulse - or at least someone good-looking.

i was hoping for a good shag just as a palate cleanser to wipe the foul taste of boredom from my mouth.

i need your help like i need a third boob.

- knew that was a mistake the moment it came out of my mouth.

i’ll have two tropic wonders and your face smashed into the ground.

i believe they call this interrogating!

we were like fish and chips - salt and pepper - hipsters and condescension!

if we’re gonna work together on this, you’re gonna have to trust me.

nobody steals from me and gets away with it.

he’s not gonna change.

i thought you said lying was a bad thing.

you’re not from around here, are you?

you can’t just smash two people together like barbies and think that that’s gonna fix things.

pardon the intrusion, you village people rejects, but one of you has stolen something that belongs to me.

please identify yourself, so i can punish you accordingly.

i thought we were past you thinking you’re invincible?

a few bad apples shouldn’t paint us all in a bad light, now should it?

you like being considered a criminal, don’t you?

he’s hiding something. we need to force it out of him.

i’ve sat in a parked car and not had sex.

have i done something to offend you?

ooh, whip out the cuffs then.

why shy away from a little bondage fun?

despite all your weirdness, i actually really like working with you.

i have never lied to you. and i will never lie to you.

been a while since i had a good hunt.

you’d never lie to me, right?

stick within the limits of your intellectual capacity.

why do they blame me for all their little failings?!

don’t call me that, please!

[quietparanoiac]

Snowpiercer (2020), 1x08

[quietparanoiac]

“The train demands it.”

[diver5ion]

[enginire]

@nightcars: just wait till we get home...

the clatter of bowling pins brings her back down to earth. there's a precise science to it — precise in the fact that when she bowls, the takes into account the brief wisp of air that comes out of the AC unit at the end of the bowling alley and the chatter that lines each alley from left to right. it's arthurian in nature — guests either side of them filling themselves with ale and sticky beer before lobbing a ball down a waxed lane like it's the most normal thing in the world. (she thinks it must be, for first — this is the way they relax. from 1940s whiskey to beer that froths itself at the tip of their glasses. there are wings somewhere in the establishment and burgers made of nearly everything except beef.)

it's a fragile ecosystem, really. first spend their time more enamoured by the luxuries it can offer than the understanding that they're on this train for the long run. that's fine, until it matters. fortune five hundred and those spending more money than sense on investments are what drive the world, even when the world is nothing but a frozen berg in the past. but this? this is what it's about. she aims true, spinning the ball slightly as it's freed from the tip of her fingers.

"i told you i'd win." it's with all the confidence in the world as meI takes a quick sip of her beer. mhm, comes audrey's response, and, as out of place as she may seem, she grows into the game as well as anyone else. (there'd been an unspoken bet there — meI believed that the maths behind it was paramount, and audrey'd been sifting her way through the wading bullshit of said maths in order to let her win. that's what it is, right? letting someone beat you to it? that's not what matters.)

just wait until we get home... it comes with a delicate sip of a too-frothy beer from the concession stand, and earns the snap back of meI's head. she squints into the dark, alleys only lit under new energy ration systems, and it tilts to the side.

"you sound dangerous."

[nightcars]

determination makes up what education she doesn't have. spending hours as the headwoods's lab rat doesn't make her able to gauge what the cold had done to her, and what isolation had made worse. her urging succeeded in getting some of the pouch into her, to her relief, as cold turned melanie into something distant — someone not all there, after loneliness and what she assumed to be hunger. she was piecing together each of her comments, of where she would've gotten the food brought with her from the train. reality must have been out of grasp, and she would return her to it.

the truth was that her association to alex had been peripheral for the last days, kept apart by intention as wilford prepared to leave melanie behind. losing a mother once was enough, losing her for good was a reality no one should have had to face. audrey knew it twice over, and even without knowing, could imagine how that felt. "alive and well, but she needs you back on that train. we all do." no matter what, they all did — few were more necessary to operations than her.

selfishness existed too, to have her back, to see her well again, despite knowing that she had shifted in mind. the cold had made her something different, someone distant, and she wasn't certain a return to earlier warmth was possible. ( little left on her is smooth, now. her voice, all but gone. the girlfriend melanie knew, lost in part to pain. ) her fingers squeeze the packet, coaxing more into melanie to return her to health. anything, to get there.

"i'll be fine. you'll need to finish the rest soon." need, non negotiable.

her eyes didn't leave her now, unwilling to focus elsewhere. if this was their last few days, or hours, she wanted to remember. "no. i'm different now, i don't feel the cold like i used to. do you feel warmer?"

[enginire]

there's a nod that curls in on itself, tightly wound in its cocoon of blankets and thick thermals. (this world is not cut out for a woman like herself — too cold, too dark, too stuck with the drift of snow and ice that settles itself deep in her bones. she shudders then, when the heat of the pack begins to spread itself down the back of her spine and grabs hold of her from one side or another — the cold has become the norm, has become the everlasting friend in the dark that shifts out from behind her palms. she spends her time mumbling into the tinfoil coverage of the sleeping bag, or juddering out into the cold keyboard of the dataset before her. the science is true: the earth is warming — somewhere out there, high above human civilisation, it's warming, but that's... too far away from the usual to be significant right now.)

she gulps down another squeeze of nutrients (because that's what it is, right? nutrients? — sugar, salt, electrolytes suspended in gelatin that keep her sustaining from day one to day thirty eight — this is new. this is all new. the tangible form of audrey pressing a deep curve into the cot is a development that she'd never imagined, half-dead and fifty degrees below body temp.)

"they left me." snowpiercer is a dead dream in the ice — a few hundred miles away by now, she imagines, and too far to hope for. by the time they come back again, if they come back again, it'll be too late, too far, too lost in time to recover from it. (she thinks she can probably see her ribs — snowpiercer had not been a gluttonous era. she'd only taken what she'd needed, from sushi to the odd tipple in the night car. she misses audrey to no end. — this doesn't count, does it? a hallucination, marked by the period at the end of the sentence. she survives only in the now, and loops the o to the W like a wilford fucking insignia.)

"why don't you feel the cold?" it doesn't click — the headwoods have killed the nerves in one of her shoulders, that much she knows. it doesn't feel half as cold as the rest of her, and the few times she's managed to reach back and press, there's been nothing but numbness eking out of the dead wound.)

"what did you bring? we should ration. no more energy packs until we do." and that's a hard, firm demand. she won't drink until they know what's left. she won't breathe until there's a plan in place. two souls are harder to save than one, and one is sitting at the end of the line with bags packed into the nearest maintenance buggy as it is. (there's a way out here — one shrouded in the cold and mist of a scathing atmosphere. it's there, but far away. it's there, but two days of calories and kilojoules that she's not sure she wants to use just yet.)

"m' warmer — it's warmer if you get close."

[enginire]

@nightcars: the truth of the matter is that i will never love anyone as much as i love you. you have never chosen me. we’ve done horrible things to one another, but for some reason, i still end up here in front of you… looking at you. wanting you. in love with you.

there is no winning in sacrifice. it's an open maw, deep and purple, like a wound that opens time and time again under the faintest pressure. any sacrifice is acceptable if it leads to the propagation and preservation of life — wiIford's order demands it. (that's what they live by — the tight, hard-wrapped book in the corner that denotes every single act, every single process that maintains control and reason up and down the train. it's thicker than a bible, and littered with its own thou shalt nots, and it outlines, in heady, precise detail, the level of self-stripping and ultimate penance required.)

there are things left unsaid between them. meIanie shifting out of bed late at night, offering a sad sorry, audrey as she gathers her teals from the pool in the corner, or the whispered phone calls with the engine, or the stone-faced shift in power from one end of the train to the next. there are things left unsaid that threaten them from the inside out, and draw a hearty schism between them when the pressure boils and bubbles under the already-cracked surface. it comes out in a rant, a misplaced frustration that turns her stomach cold the moment it settles between them. audrey wants time, and meIanie has none. no time to sleep, eat, breathe, think — she wants to breathe, she needs to breathe, she needs to sit and hope and wait for something easier to come along and so the rock splitting her shoulders in two doesn't push itself down any further and she needs to be able to do that without this without any of this without the arguments and the hurt and the interrupted nights and —

that settles it a little too finally.

from then, it's an irritation — a jilted ex who'd rather not see her in the confines of the nightcar. the barring, the deserved scathing comments. you've grown cold doing wiIford's bidding, you used to try and make a difference strikes something deep in her that she's been desperately trying to avoid while keeping her head up for air. truth hurts, right?

"i'm not going to disrespect you and say you're wrong," because she's not — there's always another priority. there's always first, or the engine, or a power crisis in third. there's an electrical fault in second, or the tail are making waves again. there's always something that makes her unfair to her.

"i can't give you any more, audrey." she stings herself, fingers that fucking wound with salt and lets it bloom into something angry and weeping. this is the final nail, the five stages of grieving that lead to acceptance. this is how it has to be now, it seems. two strangers on a train.

"i wish i could. and i hope you know that i feel... exactly the same, which is why i can't — there's more to this. i wish i could — tell you, but i can't. i'm sorry. i just can't — promise that i can do this with you. i can't promise that i won't have to leave, or won't have to keep things from you. you deserve all of it and more, but i —"

a sigh is breathed between her lips as she settles back against the wall. her eyes close, and her head tilts back in some silent prayer that it'll make this easier. i love you, but i can't do this.

"i wish it was different. i wish i was different."

[quietparanoiac]

Snowpiercer (2020), 1x07