☾ hunger of the pine

neil monroe // 24 and it seems i speak like waters leak and i'm losing friends, oh [click icon for menu] moon info

[neilmonroe-blog]

commonalities / d.l.

[neilmonroe-blog]

dominicloveless:

Dominic would be lying if he said that Neil wasn’t the first thing he thought of when he heard about Adam’s body. Or, lack thereof. He thought of Neil first, hoped that he hadn’t been there to discover it, to see the emptiness, the missing space of his once-friend. He knew they were odd – he and Neil. But in that oddness there was an odd sort of friendship and so Dominic knew that this turn of events would be hurting the other boy.

And then, the second thought, like with so many other things, was Hazel. Hazel’s body hadn’t been missing. It was in the ground, still, cold and decaying. Although he wouldn’t have seen if it was an empty coffin, hadn’t been welcome at the funeral, after all. And it was thinking of Hazel that brought Dominic to the swamp that night. It was odd that something that was his home, something he was tied to, something that was has him as the blood in his veins, had been the thing to kill his best friend. His only friend, at the time. Maybe still. 

The air shifted as he drew closer and there was an odd bitterness cutting through the heady weight of the swamp’s environment. And then the voice. Neil. “It’s just me,” he answered back, drawing further toward the clearing of murky, low water. “Just Dominic.” As he moved, he could see Neil more, patches of moonlight opening his pale skin. And he didn’t look good. Not in the slightest.

“Fuck, man, I’m sorry,” he offered, emotion thick in his voice. “I heard what happened… With Adam. I’m sorry.” He came to the edge of the swamp, not too close to Neil, and let his hand rest on the surface of the water. “Are you– I mean, how are you holding up?”

He’d not realised how cold it was, how bitterly the night air stung against his cheeks, his neck, his wrists, until he saw his breath escape from his lips as smoke. He’d not realised that his hands were trembling. Neil curled them into fists, bitten fingernails ragged and sharp against his fleshy palms.

He recognised the throaty voice which answered him even before it clarified its owner. Dominic Loveless. The name had haunted him, a year or so ago. The swamp boy who had appeared out of nowhere, as though the sinister waters had birthed him themselves; out of thin air, he’d materialised, and immediately the space he’d taken up was too much. Best friend. Neil had thought Hazel’s best friend was Cherry. He knew Loveless vaguely, understood they came from the same side of the tracks, shared a little history.

He didn’t realise they shared Hazel, too -- at first, killer or not, Neil had loathed him. Whirling through the stages of grief as though he were in a spinning teacup, he’d been in no right mind, but the idea that Hazel had lied to him -- had kept Dominic a secret, had picked this other kid up just like she’d picked Neil up, too -- it rattled him to his core.

The police had decided, in the end, that there wasn’t enough for Loveless to go down for Hazel’s death. Neil didn’t suspect him for it much, either: he was just a kid in the wrong place, wrong time. But that hadn’t rinsed him of his unease about the guy, the swamp boy who represented one giant question mark in his -- and Hazel’s -- life.

Neil turned slowly to face Dominic, impassive, barely registering his words. He watched the boy pass, edging closer to the bank -- keeping something of a distance -- and bringing his palm to touch the dark, still pool. How are you holding up? It was a ridiculous question, and one that Dominic knew the answer to just by one look at him. Neil shook his head softly. “I don’t...” He stopped, fumbling. “I don’t even fucking know.” 

He wasn’t in much of a state to discuss the missing corpse of his best friend with a near stranger -- a peculiar half-stranger, who knew him better than perhaps he understood. Neil’s eyes were drawn again to Dominic’s hand on the water, and his eyes narrowed. “I hate this place,” he spat, glancing about at the swamp. All it had done was take away, drown, steal. Two murder suspects stood at its banks, but the swamp was the only killer among them.

[neilmonroe-blog]

jailbirds / w.p.

[neilmonroe-blog]

willapotter:

Willa’s eyes darted around Foxcroft’s single holding cell, like she’d find some sort of answer between the bars. She sat on the floor, her legs crossed, her arms above her head, clutching onto the bars to steady herself. A million questions ran through her mind, but her body was frozen. All the fire she’d had at the funeral had burnt out, her bloody knuckles had long since dried. 

She fought Murphy as he and one of the distant Foxcroft cousins pulled her from the stage. The blood under her nails told her she’d done more than just kick and scream, but she couldn’t remember anything. It was all just a blur. 

Now, in Foxcroft’s single holding cell, all she could do was think, reflect on what had happened. Could it have been a mix up? Did they put Adam’s body in the wrong coffin? Surely that was it. That had to be it. Dead boys don’t just get up out of their coffins and walk away. Adam always wanted to live forever, and surely, disappearing from his own funeral would live to be one of the oldest folk tales in Foxcroft. Zombie boy. Immortal boy. The boy who couldn’t even die right. 

Willa couldn’t look at Neil. She wanted to reach out, to grab his hand, to steady them both, but she couldn’t. No, how could she be strong for him when she wasn’t even strong enough for herself? If Adam were here he’d know just the joke to crack, just the comment to make about the blood on her hands, just the thing to make them feel better. But he wasn’t here – so where was he?

“Where the fuck is he, Neil? We have to fucking find him.”

He and Willa passed a few minutes in silence, but it could’ve been hours -- time had rolled out before him like a slow-cresting wave, growing ever taller as it drew nearer to the shore, ingesting all in sight, looming until it towered over him as a tsunami. Three months ago, Adam had been alive. Three months ago, Neil could remember everything -- except the nights on which he’d drank enough to ensure that he’d forget. Three months ago, Willa could look him in the eye.

Her words dissolved when they reached his brain, melting away like candyfloss in a dirty puddle. We have to fucking find him. “We have to fucking find him,” he repeated, out of his wits, his voice deadened and his tone flat.

The backs of his eyes began to sting, the familiar twinge of pain -- of tears coming. But he blinked them back, cheeks still pressed against the cool cell bars, and shut his eyes. Instant relief; instant darkness. He allowed his thoughts to run cold for a moment, to stifle the jarring noise and traffic in his head, the barrage of questions that he’d been plagued with for weeks.

“When did he go?” -- Neil vocalised one such question, speaking mostly for his own benefit. “Not even where -- when?” How long had Adam’s body been missing; had Amelia known? Had she sprayed the coffin lining with vanilla anyway, shut the lid on emptiness? She and the Foxcroft brand were hollow enough, he supposed. Might as well keep that up.

Bile rose in his throat, and he almost bit his tongue to keep it back. 

[neilmonroe-blog]

commonalities / d.l.

They'd released him and Willa from lock-up after a night in the cramped single cell, the cops fully aware that there was nothing to hold them on save for disturbance of the peace. Not that there’d been much peace in Foxcroft for months. He’d not even gone home yet: upon leaving the station, he’d felt an excess of energy. Power, even. Worlds away from the weak spell he’d suffered through a week or so before. Restless, keyed-up, he’d walked straight past his empty, broken home and followed the path all the way to the swamps. Once there, he hadn’t known what to do with himself -- he wanted to run into the water at full pelt, to thrash about. To feel himself drowning, to feel himself struggling. He wanted to dive in and see who, if anyone, pulled him out. And if it was the police, and they reeled him out clammy and dead, just like they’d done with Adam, he wanted to know where they’d put his body. Because maybe, that way, he’d find out where they’d put Adam’s.

The image of the empty coffin, with all its lush velvet lining and gaping hollowness, was imprinted onto his mind. Where the fuck was Adam? He could cry -- he felt the sting at the back of his eyes as he remembered why his drunken self had even ventured over to the coffin in the first place. To see him one last time, and to touch his neck. He’d always had a quite particular neck, long and slender, with a protrusive Adam’s apple. How apt, Neil had joked. I bet they named it that just for you. There was a small mole there, too. Neil had touched it once, curious. What are you doing?, Adam had laughed. Checking your pulse, Neil answered. 

It had been racing.

Had there been a body in the coffin, its pulse would’ve been still. But Neil had been robbed of the privilege to check. And so here he was, at the site of the murder, staring into the swamps as though Adam would slowly emerge from the murky waters, pale and ghostly, his body returning to shore. Neil stood there, like a widow waiting for a sailor to return.

A twig snapped behind him -- he froze. Shutting his eyes, he felt almost like he was reliving Adam’s last moments. Had his killer crept up behind him, too? Had they snapped a twig underfoot? Did Adam turn around, or did they get to him first? He almost wished there was a killer behind him -- if only so he could lock eyes with the person who snatched his best friend away from him.

“Who’s there?”

[cassidyholloway]

Apple Cardamom Cable Knit Pie - Inspired by @neilmonroe 

[neilmonroe-blog]

cassidyholloway:

“Criminal?” Cassidy echoed as they exited the store, “No, candy that’s good for you is the dream. Why would you ever want to eat anything else?” Her eyes sparkled with amusement and mischief as she continued. “I mean, think about it – no more kids getting yelled at for eating too much candy and spoiling their dinner because dinner? It’s candy. Healthy, delicious candy. And baked goods. Gotta have those too. Healthy cookies and sweets for everyone!” Her voice rose slightly on the last few words, her free arm gesturing out to the non-existent crowd before she let it fall back to her side, grocery bag swinging wildly from her fingertips. 

She’s planned to just leave her bike, coming back for it the next day. No one in town would touch it – it was too old, too distinctly hers. Which was probably why Neil recognized it so easily. His arm pulled free of hers as he prepared to push the bike back to her place for her; part of her wanted to tell him not to bother but he looked so earnest that she couldn’t bring herself to diminish the offer. Instead she handed him her bag to hang from the handlebar or put in the little flowered basket. 

“Thanks. Before I got my own bike, I used to ride on the handlebars of Levi’s but that was a long time ago. I was much smaller. I’m not sure this old bike could take that kind of thing. Walking it back is probably the safest option for everyone,” she said, falling into place beside him and the bicycle. 

“You know what?” he chuckled, casting her a sideways smile as he swept her grocery bag into the pretty little basket -- he noticed it’d been decorated with flowers, and warmed inwardly as he wondered if there was anything she touched that didn’t represent nature, or growth, or goodness (except, perhaps, him) -- and started to wheel the bicycle alongside them. “I think you’ve convinced me. You started to sound a little like Caesar at the end, mind,” he added with warmth, “but I appreciate a little zeal.” 

He hadn’t felt so good for months: walking in the quiet, early-evening streets with Cassidy, the last of the day’s heat fading into night’s coolness but still there to warm his face. Hearing her wax lyrical about candy -- how had they even gotten to that point? -- and hearing himself laugh. It would’ve bewildered him, had he stopped to chew it over, but he refused. It was just so easy, see. So natural. And if he stopped, allowed himself to do anything other than float along with it, with Cassidy and the quietly rustling grocery bags and the slightly creaky bike-chain, he knew that he’d ruin it. The little niggle of doubt did linger in the back of his mind -- you shouldn’t be here; you shouldn’t be laughing, shouldn’t be happy; do you want her to end up dead, too? You’ve killed everything else you’ve touched -- but he let her words drown it out.

“It’s a pity,” he said, picturing a young Cassidy and Levi careening down the street, “That sounds like a pretty efficient mode of transport. Who needs taxis when you have a bike’s handlebars, right?” 

The sweet scents of Sticky Fingers wafted down the street towards them, taking him back to the other times he’d ventured inside, either with his hands in his pockets or intertwined with Hazel’s. A faint colour rose to his cheeks as he realised he was eating for free there again tonight, just as he had years before. Neil stopped the bike just outside the bakery, leaning it carefully against the wall between the flowery window boxes. He lifted Cassidy’s bag out of the basket and unhooked his from around the handlebar, turning to her gingerly -- the door was just to his left, but he didn’t want to barge on into her home. He was already intruding enough -- the sight of his scuffed shoes, shabby coat and dark-circled eyes against her neatly-painted, bright and feminine store front manifested that pretty plainly. They looked like odd company together -- but he reminded himself that she’d invited him, that he was welcome there. He just had to try to believe it.

“After you?”

[neilmonroe-blog]

ninadelgado:

“There’s nothing to say you can’t pay your respects after. Isn’t that what a headstone is for?” It was the theory of one, she supposed. A marker, a name etched onto granite or marble (Adam, she suspected, would have the latter, in tall its gilded finery), it was supposed to be symbolic. A place where heaven met earth, where ghosts could linger - close enough to nearly touch. Graveyards, however, had always struck Nina as tragically melancholy place. Stifled and still, they were a trap. If you loved someone, you should set them free. Their spirit should be allowed to float, the atoms that made them dissipate into the air. When she died (minus her organs, of course, which would be donated to the needy) she wanted her ashes scattered, reaching the four corners of the earth. 

And there’s nothing to say he isn’t right here, right now. Personal beliefs aside, expressing such a sentiment felt too intimate for their status. Then again, was there truly any greater intimacy in life than the one between healer and patient? Written across her mind were the names of those patients who had come and gone, the ones she had saved and the ones she hadn’t. It was a blessing, she supposed, that Neil found himself in the first. You’re alive, she wanted to urge, please keep living. Again, expressing such a worry was beyond her means, so she kept silent, urging him to understand her thoughts through pressed lips.

“Why am I here? That’s very…existential.” His words drew her back to the days of philosophy classes and her reluctant participation, most of the arguments going over her head. Her teacher had never been able to understand her hesitation, or why she might prefer to remain rooted in the land of the living. She could still remember the time they were assigned the essay title - What happens to people when they die? She had simply replied that she didn’t know, that she didn’t want to know. They already experienced one plane of existence, so why search for the next when there was so much to be done in this one? Neil was the living embodiment of that. And now, whether he knew it or not, she would forever be there, a fierce fighter whose strength he could call upon should he need it. Was it a blessing or a curse if he remained oblivious? 

“I was just passing - I wanted to make sure you were alright. Everyone should have that - someone to…check in on them. Given - “ Pausing, she tactfully searched for the most appropriate word, fearful of causing offence. “- the circumstances, I wasn’t sure if you would.” It wasn’t far from the truth, but deceit continued to taste wrong in her mouth. A terrible liar, she wondered if he would see through her poorly crafted illusion, or whether her words would stand up. With the truth pressing against the back of her neck, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to see or not - or whether it would hurt them both.

Nina had a sharp mind, he could tell -- but however correct her point about the headstone was, it did little to amuse him. A headstone. The thought that a slab of rock was what his living, breathing, laughing best friend would be reduced to... Adam, who’d once ruled the earth beneath his feet, towering above it and running, crashing, stomping against the ground -- no longer above it, but under it, with the only protruding reminder that the grass had once feared him being a hunk of marble with his name etched on in a delicate, regal gold. 

The thought near turned Neil’s stomach, and all he could do was grimace. He still couldn’t face up to the thought of Adam being gone -- death was for normal people; they’d been invincible. Adam more so than he, at that -- so how had he possibly died? Sometimes, Neil felt almost like a poison: there were two people he’d loved to death, now. 

He wasn’t much of a philosopher -- maybe he was an existentialist, maybe was a nihilist; he didn’t pay attention to the labels. But when he’d asked Nina why are you here he’d not wanted to know her thoughts on neo-Stoicism, or Kant, or the Aristotelian golden mean; he wanted to know why a bright and kind ex-classmate had decided to sit next to a suspect delinquent from her past on a cold bench in the stark night. And the answer she gave did satisfy that question, a little -- but whether it was due to his pre-programmed distrust of genuine outreach and kindness, or whether it was the bitterness that his suspicion had imbued within him as far as the town was concerned, he still sensed something deeper.

Her words were good, though, and even despite his cynicism, he still felt touched. “You weren’t wrong,” he said, though felt guilty about it immediately -- he remembered Cassidy’s home-cooking, and even Willa’s indulgence of his angst. There were people there for him; he just needed to train his eyes to see them. “Thanks,” he said, a little late. “For checking in.” Neil paused, allowing the question to form in his mind before he let it slip from his tongue. “Do you? Have someone who checks in?”

[neilmonroe-blog]

cassidyholloway:

Cassidy blinked at him. “You want me to serve knit spaghetti at my bakery? I mean, I’m a fan of unique recipes, but I’m not sure that’s going to work. Though… maybe I could try a cable knit type pattern on a pie crust?” she said, shaking her head. “Good out of the box thinking, though.” 

She waved his hand away when he offered her money, about to explain why she didn’t need it when she caught the staring contest going on between Neil and the customer in front of them. Old protective habits rose within her and she shifted casually so that she was standing in front of Neil. It didn’t work as well as it had when she’d put herself between her parents, Neil was taller than her mother, but she smiled at the woman still glaring over her head at him anyway. The woman was vaguely familiar but Cassidy couldn’t remember her name or she would have engaged her in conversation, trying to ease the tension. As it was the woman left without saying anything and Cassidy relaxed slightly, turning to greet the cashier. By the time their items were bagged and paid for, she’d put the awkward moment from her mind. 

“Okay, so… I’ll experiment with some cough drops after dinner? We can see if they help at all. It shouldn’t really be all that different than making hard candy, just kind of tweaked to be good for you,” she said, looping her arm through Neil’s again as if she was afraid he’d bolt the moment they were out of the store. “If they’re awful, at least some ice cream will help soothe your throat maybe?”

Neil was a 'creative type', technically -- he had a good capacity for abstract thinking, for imagination and wit, and he wasn’t half bad at the guitar. But he understood that Cassidy was on a level far above and beyond his in terms of creativity; not just that, but she’d without a doubt found her passion (he mused on the word with a little cynicism; his strongest associations with it were teachers and guidance counsellors urging him to find his passion in order to apply himself, to take his skills further, to engage -- they’d figured he wasn’t going to focus on algebra, but knew he was bright enough to explore something else. Unluckily for them, he was still searching). It was clear from the way her eyes lit up whenever the conversation turned to the bakery, and the fact she’d been able to turn even the most ridiculous, throwaway joke about knitted spaghetti into an actual, tangible idea.

He was somewhat bashfully putting the money back into his pocket, secretly relieved but determined to make it up for her through some other means -- he’d have to get creative, he supposed -- and waiting for her kind refusal, when he saw her eyes follow his to the old crone staring him out, and noticed her body shift to move in front of him. He could’ve believed that it was because she wanted to be closer to the cashier, given that she was the one paying -- but from the steely-eyed veneer of kindness with which she flashed her smile at the glaring woman, Neil knew it was an act of protection. He said nothing, a little taken aback -- he couldn’t really express it, but understood the feeling in his stomach to mean deep gratitude -- and committed the moment to memory.

Clearing his throat as they left the store, he was sure to carry at least his share of the bags, clutching onto the plastic handles tightly, as though if he loosened his grip the groceries (and Cassidy) would vanish, and he’d snap out of the dream with nothing but a growling stomach. “Sounds like a plan,” he affirmed, smiling. “Though ‘candy’ and ‘good for you’ is potentially criminal -- but I’ll let you off the hook this time.” He glanced around for a car, but found a pretty white bicycle propped against the wall instead. The warm feeling her arm linked with his gave him was one he didn’t want to lose, but his surprising manners (surprising, since his father had hardly been the epitome of chivalric teachings) won out. “Here,” he said, unlinking his arm and hanging his shopping bag from one of the handlebars. “I’ll wheel the bike. D’you want me to hang your bag up for you?”

[neilmonroe-blog]

jailbirds / w.p.

Immediately after a bomb goes off, all you hear is the ringing. All sound becomes mute, drowned out -- like a song playing from your neighbour’s house, blurred and fuzzy. Neil had just set off a bomb, and now all that he could hear was the sharp twinge between his temples. His knees had given out once he’d registered the significance of the empty velvet lining that gaped back at him. Granted, the decomposed body of his best friend probably would’ve had the same effect -- but it felt as though that empty box had ripped a hole straight through him, drilling a corkscrew through his stomach and yanking out the entrails. He stumbled backwards, squelching in the dewy cemetery grass, and with one glance at Willa and Amelia he began to puke. He vomited out all the rum and the whiskey and the pain in front of the dearly beloved, his skin so wan it was grey, and fell to his knees.  He was sitting in the grass, the platform behind him, eyes burning red and hands colder than they’d ever felt before. Time stretched out in front of him like a stop-motion animation which made all the little figurines leap up and run about except for him. He vaguely registered the finger-pointing and the aghast expressions sent his way, but his stare just gouged into dead space. He didn’t know what to look at; he didn’t think he wanted to see.  He didn’t really know what was going on until he felt the fingers digging into his arm, pulling him roughly to his feet and grabbing his wrists behind his back. Murphy’s words fell only as a droning murmur to his bleeding ears, but he recognised the cool, sharp dig of handcuffs. The next thing he knew, he and Willa were in the back of Murphy’s car. Neil just stared into nothingness, dead-eyed, unable to form words even if he’d wanted to. He allowed his body to be yanked out of the car, limp and weightless, let his feet drag their way along the linoleum floor until the jail cells came into view -- it was only the sound of the iron bars swinging shut that snapped a little sense into him. His eyes came into focus, staring out into the empty corridor, and only one thought ran through his mind. 

Adam could be anywhere.

[neilmonroe-blog]

He hadn’t slept. Not since the afternoon before, when he’d gotten out his suit to shake out the creases and remembered whose suit it actually was. Of course, he thought. I just had to wear Adam’s suit to his own fucking funeral. Neil had acquired it one night in the manor, when he and Willa and Adam had been a thousand leagues above the earth, high as kites and messing about with the Foxcrofts’ antique gramophone. They’d decided to throw themselves a high society party, just the three of them – Willa had taken Mrs. Foxcroft’s pearls and satin opera gloves, and he’d worn one of Adam’s old suits, and they’d waltzed and laughed and drank champagne from the wine cellar and flung the glasses at the walls. 

Keep it, Adam had told him, when he’d tried to get changed out of it the next morning. It doesn’t even fit me any more, and it suits you. I like it. So Neil had worn it home, put it away in his wardrobe. It was the first suit he’d ever owned; the only one he had. And now he was going to wear it to Adam’s funeral.

He’d been awake since 5.a.m., pacing across the floorboards, an indecipherable telenovela playing in the background and a tumbler of whiskey in his trembling left hand. Keyed up, half-cut, he’d chewed into his thoughts, indulging himself in a bitter mental tirade against Amelia, against the Foxcrofts, against God and against the fucking mess of it all. When Willa had turned up at eight, Mr. Potter’s clip-on tie in her hand, he’d almost thrown up over her. They’d drank and swore and cried a little, swiping away angry tears and neither acknowledging it, until suddenly it was almost 10a.m. and they were going to be late to their best friend’s funeral. He found the bottle of rum that he’d left stashed in one of Avery’s wellingtons in the entryway to Foxcroft Manor and took a swig from it as they’d entered. There was no one there to greet them; not twenty minutes into the service. Just outside the door to the reception room was a delicate serving-platter holding a jug of iced water and some crystal tumblers. Letting Willa head on in, he poured himself a glass of the rum. He was already staggering, blind drunk and desperate, but he didn’t care: he tipped a little straight onto the floor, too. For Adam.

That godawful photo was on display against an easel just inside the reception room, which opened up to him like it was his own wedding: Amelia was his groom, the coffin was their altar. Jittery, barely breathing, Neil stepped inside, not even bothering to glance around for an empty seat. Willa was already arguing up on the podium – the sight of it would’ve made him laugh, triumphant for the Bad Kids Club, if he hadn’t been so damn messed up – but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the coffin.

That fucking box. Adam had fought his whole life to break free of the boxes he’d been born into, but they’d gone and stuck him in one in the end, anyway. It made Neil sick to see it – sick, sad, and angry. He remembered what Amelia had said to him about sitting at the back or there’d be trouble – fuck your trouble. He needed to see him again, to touch that little brown mole on his neck and to feel the pulse that had once throbbed through it. To check that they’d buried him right, that he was wearing his Clash shirt and sunglasses, just like he’d once joked. All three of them were going to be buried in sunglasses – and with their middle fingers up, too, if the rigor mortis hadn’t got to them first.

Willa and Amelia’s argument was no longer intelligible; the adrenaline and his racing pulse drowned them out as he staggered up the aisle, blind to the sea of faces gasping and hissing, blind to the splashes his half-forgotten rum was puddling on the floor. He set the drink down on a high table next to the coffin, his entire body shivering. I’m here, Adam. I’m here to see you again. I’m here to say goodbye. With shaking arms, he lifted the lid – and his knees fucking gave out; he clung to the coffin rim, barely able to hold himself up, eyes filling with tears, brow furrowing in frustration.  “What,” he croaked, wanting to scream, wanting to cry out -- but his voice wasn’t working, the words wouldn’t come. He just stood there, speechless, shaking.

The coffin was empty.

[neilmonroe-blog]

cherryxxdixon:

If the town had fallen silent, the entire population would have heard Cherry Dixon’s sigh from the swamp. “Oh Neil, so predictable in your insults. First of all  I am not wearing hairspray it makes your hair limp and dull, and as you can see it is as  shiny and bouncy as ever. Second of all, I thought you above preying on teenage insecurities.” She flashed a smirk with all bark and no bite before going back to her coffee. “Caffeine keeps me going. Lot of shifts lately.” She sensed a deep pattern emerging. Quip, sip, drag. It almost felt like high school again but only almost. 

She kept her eyes cast down, trained on the dirt and the twigs and the mush. It all looked so familiar, like she had seen it before on the floor of her bedroom or felt it on the inside of her heart. Everything was so messy, so twisted..dirty..she felt like a mangled piece of earth left to rot. But that she couldn’t blame on him, that was only something she could pin on her addiction to attention. 

The most fun with fighting with Neil had been Hazel telling them to stop. The little jabs and pokes just to get a rise out of the other had all been out of love for someone else. The love doesn’t go anywhere, when the person dies but instead it creates a black hole. Every time you tried to be happy or move on or forget is just destroyed and inhaled everything. Cherry was constantly empty, always wishing for just a little more, hungry for a different feeling. Quip,sip, drag. “If you’re willing to let me bum a smoke off you…I might be willing to give up a coffee. You can even pick your flavor. Gin, Bourbon or Rum. I’d offer the whiskey but it’s got my cooties on it.” 

There was one trick he’d picked up a little into their tempestuous relationship, one tactic which had annoyed teenage Cherry to no end: they’d be mid-fight, swapping tirades back and forth, and he’d keep at it until she reached one particularly venomous and long-winded rant and then -- he’d just shrug. “If you say so,” he’d say, fully aware of how infuriating it was to cop out of the debate. The worst part of it was that his refusal to continue, even though it was technically a surrender, always felt like a win. 

He thought back to that tactic then, as she opened her mouth and began with ‘First of all’ -- that was always the sign that he’d have to settle in for a long rant -- but she stopped at the second-of-all, sparing him the need to deploy his favourite trick so early in the game. Huh. Maybe they had grown up a little, after all.

But he’d still not grown up enough to ignore her comment about working a lot of shifts, even though he’d picked up on it. With anyone else, he’d have asked as to why, or how they were finding it -- not even out of sympathy, or pity, but because it was interesting to analyse. But with Cherry, work was a touchy subject. She’d always chewed him out for not finding a job, for just dwelling in his poverty hole and scrounging money off others, not trying to climb his way out like her family was doing. Her family were noble poor, you see. The kind of valiant underdogs you clap along for. His family weren’t so noble, though -- his family were the type of poor you saw written about in the paper and shook your head at, tsk-tsk-tsking.

He sighed, resigned. He might as well let Cherry have one of his cigarettes -- it wasn’t like he was sharing them with anyone else, anymore. “Sure,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the packet, feeling oddly like he didn’t want to give her one of the ones behind his ears -- like they were his protective amulets, or something. He stretched over to pass her it, lighter and cigarette both between his fingers. “I’ll have a bourbon, if you’re offering. But don’t go poisoning me now, alright? I at least want another Pop-Tart before I die.”

[neilmonroe-blog]

cassidyholloway:

She didn’t press him about the coughing. There were some people who needed the extra prod to get things going, to show them that you cared, but with Neil if she pressed to hard she was fairly certain he’d just shut her out completely which was the last thing she wanted. She’d just drop off a good soup to him soon and hope that helped. Maybe some of that stop-smoking gum too. 

“Me? Worry?” she scoffed then grinned, “Okay, yeah, I’m actually really good at that so if you want me to find another hobby you’re going to have to find someone to teach me how to knit or something. Except I can worry and cook at the same time and I don’t think I can knit and cook at the same time. I’ll just stick with the worry.” 

She followed him to the check out, fishing bills from her front pocket the moment their little basket hit the conveyer belt. Past experience led her to believe Neil would likely want to chip in for the food, but she had absolutely no intention of letting him. She’d invited him for dinner, not invited him to buy her dinner. That was just not how it worked. While they waited their turn, she tapped her chin thoughtfully. 

“I wonder if I can make cough drops. Honey, lemon, some eucalyptus oil maybe? A little rosemary? I could try it. If you’re willing to be my guinea pig, that is?” 

He'd heard of the old phrase, ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ -- and maybe it was true for most, but the way to Neil’s was sarcasm. There was something about the pretence which he loved, no matter who it was that he was sparring with: see, when swapping ironic remarks back and forth with somebody, you both knew that there were two conversations happening at once; double layers of meaning. It was easy to bond through witty jibes and self-deprecating digs, since it required the knowledge that what you were saying wasn’t what you meant. Hence the two conversations -- and Neil loved it.

Sarcasm was, of course, better when someone else surprised you with it, so hearing Cassidy poking fun at herself over her worrisomeness made him laugh. “Hey, nothing’s impossible,” he swiped back, “you can totally knit and cook at the same time if you just believe. Just cook spaghetti, and use that as the thread. And for extra points, worry about the food you’re knitting to score all three.” 

He smiled, then eyed the cash she’d pulled from her pocket and reached into his own. He hesitated a moment -- was it ruder not to offer, or to offer? -- but went with the latter. “I can help towards it, here, I’ve got some change,” he said, the notes in his hand just shy of ten dollars. “And you know I’m willing to ingest pretty much anything, so I’d totally be up for giving them a try.” The woman in front finished punching her PIN into the card reader and gave him a hard look whilst she waited for the payment to process. At first he thought it was for the ingestion comment -- then he remembered why she’d be looking at him with such stern recognition. He just stared back, daring her to pipe up, until she took her receipt and bags and made to leave, shaking her head.

[lecataste]

David Foster Wallace | Infinite Jest | 1996

[lifeinpoetry]

the center of every poem is this: i have loved you. i have had to deal with that.

Salma Deera, Letters From Medea  (via pigmenting)

[neilmonroe-blog]

ninadelgado:

Average Friday night. He wasn’t searching for pity, but Nina found herself willing to offer it up, by the bucket loads, anyway. As is my norm, she mused, a little cryptically. This sort of life isn’t right. Most people would probably blame the person for that. They would gossip about how he had been an individual from the wrong side of the tracks, how he had always been destined for a life of grit and crime - how they had never trusted him. Nina couldn’t find it in herself to blame him, no matter the allegations tossed his way. And staring into his eyes, she found it wasn’t her place to. She was no God, weighing up the merits of a soul. But she wasn’t a Judge nor jury either.

Instead, she found it easier to pin the blame on Foxcroft. There had to be something corrupt about this town, an ugliness that was choosing to manifest itself at this particular time. People from this town were ruined. They ended up dead or trapped. And even those who had thought their wings were spread, that they had flown far enough, found themselves dragged back into its murky mysteries, condemned for the rest of the days to come. Reluctantly, she counted herself among that group. Somehow, she knew that the place where she was born was the place where she would be laid to rest. Luckily, she wasn’t a psychic. For what a bleak future that would have been to see. 

But it wasn’t as if she could entertain herself with the possibility of escape either. She had tried that once - and it hadn’t exactly worked out as planned. Sighing, she cast her eyes at the dimly lit architecture, almost beautiful in the absence of day. Small mercies. Try to be thankful for them. Perhaps it was a grim lesson, but her heart felt lighter all the same.

“So why did you pick here? There are better places to stare at the stars.” With her words, Nina cast her own eyes skyward, remarkably unmoved by the presence of twinkling beacons. Stars were beautiful - but it was all too easy to become lost in their depths. She would rather call the ground beneath her feet, the stability and richness of earth, her home. Not all those who wander are lost. No, admitted a voice, but all those who are lost will wander. Such teachings had always been enough to tether her.

His admission about the funeral startled her - although she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Clearly, the Foxcroft family held him responsible. Not exactly the most encouraging of signs. “I’m sorry - that you won’t get a chance to say goodbye.” Biting down on her lip, she didn’t add her observations about how that impacted upon his innocence. He could work that out for himself. “Me?” Her voice was credulous, surprised to be asked. “I barely knew Adam. Or Hazel.” It was important not to forget about her either.

Even Neil, who hadn’t graduated, had managed to get a hold of the copy of his matriculating class’s yearbook. Unsurprisingly absent from most pages, with only his name and a painfully ancient photo of himself included -- it would’ve been ballsier, he’d mused, if they’d summed up what they were really thinking and just used one of his mugshots -- and himself elected ‘Most Likely To Join A Cult’. (The police had actually used that on him, when they were throwing their plethora of theories out there and decided two months and no memory equalled crescent-moon cult worship. Remembering the officer slamming the yearbook in front of him during questioning with complete seriousness still made him smile.)

Nina, on the opposing page, had been voted ‘Best Smile’. He’d understood why -- from what he’d observed and heard, she was a nice girl. She didn’t smile so brightly now, though, as she spoke to a suspected double-murderer on a cold bench in a town she’d probably hoped to leave behind. 

There are better places to stare at the stars. She wasn’t wrong -- but then, Neil wasn’t there to count the notches along Orion’s belt. See, even though his eyes were open when he turned them on the skies, they were glazed and distant. It was as though he was staring straight through the layers of sky and star and space, burning a hole straight through the galaxy and peering into the blank, dead emptiness of night.

That felt a little too heavy to disclose to a girl he knew vaguely from high school, though, so he didn’t. Instead, he shrugged and swung his legs down from the bench to sit upright, feeling a slight head rush as he did. “I guess I needed the bench more than I needed the view,” he said. It was true -- his legs were aching, and he still hated his empty house. He’d sat on this bench before, chatting and smoking. In fact, he’d even lay on it before -- only the other way round, that time, with his head at the opposite end, perpendicular with Adam’s. When Neil had looked at the sky that night, he’d paid attention to the stars.

At her apology, he sniffed. Another shrug -- he was painfully non-committal, these days. “I will,” he said, “Just not in the officially sanctioned forum.” The bitterness in his voice was plain, though he softened his expression as he glanced at her. She may not have known them, but grief touched everyone -- especially in a town like this. A town this toxic, this repressive, this constrictive. “I know. But you barely knew me too, and yet here we are.” His tone wasn’t patronising, nor enquiring -- he maintained a cool, matter-of-fact plainness. Whether she’d known Adam and Hazel or not, his question still stood. “Just in general, then -- why are you here?”

[neilmonroe-blog]

cherryxxdixon:

Of fucking course it would be him. All she had wanted was somewhere quiet, somewhere she could just turn it all off. All she wanted was to turn her thoughts off, to get rid of the hot feeling that consumed her body , for that aching persistence that seemed to permeate every inch of skin she had to just fade away. But she wasn’t allowed that, not when Neil was around. He was a scar of Hazel. The thing that would constantly remind you of the pain, even if you thought it was gone. 

“Well apparently, I could ask half the town and they’d go with it being you.” Her eyes narrowed into little slits as she surveyed the man in front of her. He had never seemed like much when they were younger,and now she wasn’t sure. There was an air to him that kept her farther away than she would have at 17. Cherry didn’t know if he killed her, in fact she was pretty sure he hadn’t. But if she was going to blame anyone for how Hazel was even in a position to be able to be hurt it was going to be Neil. “Well as you don’t own the fucking swamps, I think I’ll stay here. If anything, I’d say you should leave. Little creepy, being here isn’t it? Little…obvious?” 

Why couldn’t he just leave, all she wanted was to lay down and sleep. To be in the last place Hazel had been. She took a coffee out of her carrier and took a long loud sip from it. “Don’t you have better things to do than hang out here? Like set something on fire or steal someone else’s bestfriend.” 

Though his words had been cordial enough, in their own peculiar way, the sentiment didn’t extend so much to Neil’s feelings. He twisted about to see her, his face enough of a frown that old wives would warn him about it ending up stuck that way by the wind. She seemed a lot older than he remembered her: more refined, dignified, mature. Maybe it was in the set of her shoulders, or the pucker of her brow. Or perhaps it was that soft sadness in her eyes -- the same sadness that shone through dimly in his, too, and Willa’s. The sadness of an irreplaceable loss. People said that you lost a piece of your soul when someone died, and if the eyes were the windows to the soul, maybe that’s why they didn’t shine as brightly afterwards.

She still had a little spark there in the hazel, though -- her fire wasn’t dead yet. He almost appreciated her bite: it felt old-school, like some things hadn’t changed. It was familiar, nostalgic, time-worn and tested. Maybe that was why it almost made him smile. “I’ve watched enough True Crime to know that the killers hardly ever return to the crime scene -- that’s just bullshit Agatha Christie peddles to make solving it easier,” he said, too fatigued to fight back on his innocence. In fact, now that he thought of it, he’d rarely actually said to anyone I didn’t do this. Instead he’d deflected, joked, cast himself out of society in bitter sorrow. After all -- on one level, he wasn’t sure.

He let out a little aggravated sigh as she sat within ten feet of him -- even that was too close. He watched her lift her arm to drink from one of approximately five hundred cups of coffee, drawing out a long, irritating slurp. For fuck’s sake. “Set something on fire? Depends how much hairspray you’re wearing. And real classy -- so, what, are you addicted to caffeine now, instead of attention?”

[neilmonroe-blog]

cassidyholloway:

The shouted words God damn you, Cassidy Holloway in any other context would have made her cringe, but coming from Neil as he chased after her in the grocery store only made her laugh. She was posed as if she’d been waiting, perusing the spices for ages by the time he showed up, but the effect was ruined by his coughing fit. Smugness at her victory turned to concern as Neil was doubled over, hacking into his elbow. She rested one hand on his back, knowing better than to whack him between the shoulder blades as people tended to do so often when someone was coughing. 

She straightened when he did, letting her hand fall back to her side. Her face showed her concern even as he tried to play down the coughing fit. “I’m fairly certain the basket had nothing to do with it. If anything this–” she plucked a cigarette from behind his ear, holding it out for him to take back if he so chose “– is more to blame than anything else. It’s 2017, haven’t you figured out that smoking is bad for you?” 

No more running. That much was for certain, even though it’d been fun while it lasted. Her lack of a car meant that she rode her bicycle or walked nearly everywhere she went, unless someone wanted to give her a ride. She was far from being an athlete, but she was lean and didn’t lack for endurance. Neil was more on the underfed, slightly sallow side of things. How often did those types of coughing occur? Was that the real reason he’d been absent? Was he sick?

Cassidy chewed on her bottom lip, plucking the spice she needed from the rack and holding it in her hand. “Maybe we get some cough drops too. Or I might have some at home…”

He resented his health bitterly sometimes -- growing up, he’d always be the one to fall first prey to the bug going around, or to catch flash fevers. His vision wasn’t great, but it’d never been bad enough to be worth the emotional hassle of asking his mom to take him to the eye doctor a few towns over. His skin was pretty weak, too, very prone to cuts and scrapes, and any bruise he caught would linger for weeks -- though he supposed all of his wild pastimes hadn’t helped that so much. Still, Neil was pretty used to feeling shitty most of the time, so his recent bout of cold sweats and hot rushes and dizziness hadn’t particularly phased him. The breathlessness, though, and the coughing it provoked, hurt like hell -- partly because of the itch it seared in his throat, and partly because it had ripped through the protective bubble of light he’d been blowing in the aisles. 

Feeling her hand on his back for comfort only caused his stomach to sink even further; he hadn’t been able to play it off without concern. Nor had the excuse he’d tried flown so well, either. Cassidy had likely diagnosed the problem correctly -- he’d always been a heavy smoker, but never so much as he was nowadays. 

She reached to swipe the cigarette from his ear, and even the mere sight of it between her fingertips looked wrong. Bashful, he smiled a little ruefully and pinched it back. “Wait, that’s what those FDA warnings on the cartons mean?” Neil held the cigarette awkwardly for a moment, aware that sticking it back behind his ear would be rude -- instead, he slipped it into his back pocket and crossed his heart with his finger. “Nah, really. I’ll try to cut down, honest.” For her sake. Even if it ended up a white lie, even if he smoked just as many or even more than before, he’d remember her baleful eyes and her anxious lip-chewing, and at least he’d feel guilty for it. 

“Please, don’t worry about it,” he said, referring to the cough drops. The last thing he wanted was to inconvenience her, or add another dollar to the cash register’s dark toll. “I’ll just have to swing by the bakery more -- honey is good for the throat, right?” He winked, and began to saunter towards the checkout lane.

[neilmonroe-blog]

buried in water / s.m.

[neilmonroe-blog]

shaemckinley:

The most important part of a lie, or so her mother had always told her, was to root it in truth. No matter how fleeting or feeble, something honest needs must form a backbone around which something decidedly less so could be built. Some lessons were not easily forgotten, not that Shae had ever been particularly keen on brushing her mother’s advice aside. Moments and memories of her sat glimmering gold and rose-tinted in the back of Shae’s mind, up on too high a shelf to draw down on a whim but shadowing nearly everything she did. 

Crawling through the grotty Foxcroft swamp was no exception. It was on her mother’s long-ago-uttered advice that Shae was picking around the edge of the water with her big yellow rubber boots and a little wicker basket at her side. There were water lilies to her right, along the make-shift green-slimed shore (eloquence, purity of heart); there were thistles growing thick to her left, just starting to bloom (pain, protection, pride). The effects of the pressed-flower talismans she threw together and the language of flowers they were borne of might have been over-stated and over-promised, but the “hand-picked, hand-made” label was entirely genuine. They were a pain in the ass, but they sold faster than she could make them. If it meant a few hours sweating her balls off and batting off blood-suckers, it was a small price to pay. 

Until and after the deaths– Hazel first, Adam next, as if the swamp sought only those ripest for the picking as tribute to its dark dank depths– Shae rarely crossed another’s path in her wanderings. It was a peaceful place, almost. Foxcroft was small but the folk who called it home had packed in more densely than Shae preferred, especially since she’d set up shop in the dead centre of the (albeit still quiet) downtown, and claimed the once-storage-space sitting atop it as her home. The swamp was a breath of fresh air and a chance to clear her mind. Standing a few arm’s lengths from the next closest human seemed to help clear her dreams, too, if only for a night. 

Her reasons for marching through the boneyard were decidedly more selfish than Neil Monroe’s, the poor boy who had loved and lost two young and able bodies to the weeds and reeds. It was for this reason, plus a touch of concern, that bid Shae to forgive him immediately for infringing on her holy alone time. (Concern, though she knew the madness at the root of it: the swamp wasn’t a living thing, didn’t need to consume to continue to exist; it wasn’t calling to Neil and it hadn’t called to Hazel nor Adam before him. Still, some part of Shae worried that if she lifted her eyes from Neil’s thin body he might fold into the water between them, spat out only when there was no life left within him. A body, a corpse, bloated and bogged, the toothpick which which the swamp cleaned its teeth of its meal, chewing up and swallowing everything that had made its victims who they were. You have such a vivid imagination, Shae, her mother had always said; it was a curse more than a blessing, especially when death’s bare-boned hand brushed ever closer, ever closer.) 

He’d seen her, not that she’d been making much of an effort to hide: wellingtons weren’t exactly conducive to stealth and now that his eyes were on her in such an accusing manner she realized she’d been singing under her breath. Here was Neil, alone as ever, and likely seeking closeness or closure; here was Shae, stomping merrily through what little peace he’d deigned to take for himself. Still and as always, her fat mouth won out over her common sense. “You look like you need a smoke, kiddo.” Murderer, or so half the town accused, but Shae knew how it felt to be firmly on the outside of an angry pack that ought to have known better. He tugged at her heartstrings, little Neil Monroe, and she found herself abruptly unable to let him alone. “And maybe some company.” 

It didn’t take much to ignite Neil’s curiosity: growing up in a household with little child-friendly stimulation had led, unsurprisingly, to a fruitful imagination and an abundance of curiosity -- or maybe it was just nosiness. Still, whatever his Freudian excuse, Neil kept an eye on Shae as she wove between the reeds, whistling beneath her breath. The tune she blew was high and melancholy; bittersweet. Most things were bittersweet for him, those days. Any laughter he released now felt like laughing with a stitch: painful mirth. Half a dozen different TV shows, his guitar, the chipped mug ringed with coffee in his sink, his lighter -- it all reminded Neil of him. And if it wasn’t traces of Adam which tainted everything, then it was traces of Hazel. Hell, even the swamps in which he sat now were theirs, in life and death: the tree he and Hazel had carved their initials onto was only five feet behind him. They’d expected it to outlive them, even revelled in the romance of it -- but he hadn’t anticipated it to outlive her so easily.

He thought that Shae hadn’t noticed him -- but then she was staring directly into his eyes, and it was as though time had skipped a beat; he hadn’t remembered looking round. The cool intensity of her gaze made his throat dry. She drew nearer, squelching in her rain boots, a visual cacophony.  Sniffing, he scratched the side of his neck and brought his knees to his chest, turning his eyes out across the swamps and poising himself in nonchalance.

He didn’t look at her right away as she spoke to him, just chuckled and rolled the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Pity you should say that,” he said, “since I always look like this.” And didn’t his lungs know it. 

Neil only turned to meet her eye after she offered her company. Squinting up at her, he paused for a moment -- unafraid of a little social discomfort, made immune to uncomfortable interactions by his street days -- to genuinely consider the offer, aware all the while that if Shae wanted to sit, she’d sit, regardless of whether he passed. He didn’t want to pass, though: whether it was the odd charm of the wicker basket in her hand or just because he was tired of sitting alone, he didn’t know.

“Sure,” he said, patting the grass to his right. He looked at her basket and smiled to himself. “Biology homework?” he asked with sincerity, even though the concept was ludicrous; they both knew what she was collecting for. He’d been thinking about it a lot lately, in fact.