NOW THE MAN CALLED CHRISTOPHER. SHINING CHRISTOPHER. HIS LITTLE SISTER CALLS HIM A SHARP AX, A SHARP EDGE ALWAYS CLEAVING FORWARD. HE'S A BRAVE MAN, BUT DEEP DOWN, HE'D RATHER BE TAMING HORSES. ━━━━ for briarbend.
amongst a waking sea of lightning bugs and threat of an inking black night, DANNY GIRARDEAU has just about reached his limits with KIT TURNER ╱ @precident
the veranda is nice, if insistent upon itself. wrought iron. intricate. evoking long and narrow evenings in a certain quarter along a specific street. the masonry under danny's feet even has the decency to look worn, although it seems half the guests downstairs know exactly when, if not by whose hand, it was installed.
it's all very lovely in the way extraordinary masterworks are, particularly ones owned by the sort of people who are comfortable allocating monuments to artistic genius and craft excellence to an annex best used for impressing people who will call it gaudy.
danny knows that he should not be, in any reasonable circumstances, thinking about the craftsmanship of the beveled leaf point he is currently pressing the fat of his thumb against with the full strength of his grip. only that the worm in his brain that is only good for crowding out dangerous thoughts exclusively seems to speak in terms of renovation, cost, and materials now. poisoned that he is now with talks of roofing and fluted gutters. he can't even be mad; he's done it all to himself, one eggshell paint chip after another.
and it's not, strictly, that danny is thinking about something dangerous. it's that he has one hand fisted firmly around the danger he would not, until this point, look directly at much less acknowledge. his fingers are creasing fine silk. the veranda in all of it's loveliness is an excuse; an escape; a trap door with teeth in the smithy-handled shape of old garden roses.
he lets go of kit's tie and smooths a hand over the exposed, damningly heartline-shaped wrinkling. as if this is a normal thing for him to do, with kit, and a normal thing for kit to have done by him. then he releases his trapped thumb, nail gone to throbbing, and wraps that free hand back around the iron railing behind him. like one of the immovable objects on either side of him might suddenly give out, but he isn't totally sure which.
only the lightning bugs can see, at this angle, how the skin about his knuckles pulls tight and pale.
danny says, "you know." like this is something they do: talk; touch; share oxygen, even on an open-air balcony. acknowledge each other as existing. exist together, alone.
"i'm starting to think you might be avoiding me or something."
he's spent this night on a track, pushed along from ex to ex to sister to convincing cardboard cutouts of neighbors with half disguised ill-wishes. and finally, finally, oh, he was so close. home free. a left, a right, a black car waiting. but there's a pulling at his neck, a wrenching forward, really backward, violently so, and suddenly: he's out.
at the very first, he won't look at him. won't let himself. won't give him that. and he wasn't gonna talk either, dignify it, was just gonna take his left to home plate. but there's hands at his chest, soft, smoothing out lines. it sears through cotton, leaves a scar of acid across his skin. he's looking then. he's talking then.
kit steps up, pushing off the doorframe and looming over danny. it starts slow. not calm, but slow, " yeah, you think so ? what gave it away ? " it's a very occasional situation, for kit, where his mouth starts to move before his thoughts can catch up. and he's taking on steam.
he's gone, steps back, arms thrown wide, " what possible reason could i have to avoid you ? huh ? did you do something ? did you . . . uhh, i dunno, leave me in prison and marry my ex girlfriend ? that shit ring a bell to you ? maybe ? asshole ? " he's pacing now, an immovable object once in motion, ears red and hands flying, rattling off the things he could be mad at. the things it would make sense to be mad at. the things anyone normal, anyone not kit, would be mad at. the rest catches in the cage of his teeth, slices up the roof of his mouth.
" and yeah, i heard myself call her my ex girlfriend, don't ── fucking ── you know what, first alex fuckin' accosts me, then bird and her fuckin' . . . widow bullshit, what, did you all get together ? break out the bulletin board, smoke a little weed, make a little plan, coordinate an assault on chris ── fuckin' ── and my mother is here ? and you ── "
he wrestles with the silk at his neck, crushes the fabric in an effort to cease the relentless constriction. it arcs through the air, tagging his gesticulations. " man, this is a fuckin' nice tie. fuck you. fuck. " he falters, sighs, rubs a hand at the back of his neck. " yes, daniel, i'm avoiding you. ever the autodidact, you're a savant, you figured it out. i'm trying to get my life together, god willin' and the creek don't rise, and you make that ── can you just fuck. off ? "
" that would be great, actually, " a hand digs into his suitjacket at the far end of his pacing orbit, shoves in the tie, comes back with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. " if you could all just ── " he's fighting a losing battle, uncooperative fingers numb and shaking and useless. ha, major league pitcher can't use his hands. ha, not a major league pitcher. " fuck ── " the pack hits the wall next to danny, the lighter skitters across the deck and connects with a dress shoe. " off. " he heaves a sigh, then, out of steam, wipes a palm over his face, collapses against the building, and slides 'til he hits solid ground. " fuck me. "
of course it isn't miss sherry's fault. she hasn't been here long enough to know. they are playing a game, just not with her. they're playing a game because they're always playing games, because birdie knew kit when she was five and he was six and that's what children do, and because most importantly not a things changed since then. not, at least, in any way birdie can size up right now, with her thoughts all dry-honey stuck. not when he's still the only thing blocking the sun from hitting her eyes.
he used to do that. stand there, in the exact right place, just to keep the things that were a little too much from finding her. she'd find his neck hot from sunstroke later, the skin pink under her flat palm.
"thought she was yours." she keeps her sunglasses on anyway, the way she was taught as a little girl at her first funeral. monty wasn't open casket, unlike this. unlike being forced to look kit in the face in a room full of people. "figured she must've had one of those— bobble heads a'you on her desk." from behind her lenses birdie avoids his eyes, following sherry's exit instead. she's tempted to call the woman back and ask what prompted her to lead him over. she's just as irrationally compelled to ask kit why he followed. instead she raises her own flute, drinks. her shoulders are back and square the like top of a picture frame. that leaves in the center, inadvisably, one particular organ. "shoulda stuck with elizabeth."
you should know how not to give it away.
" mm, tried. elizabeth's tricky. " around a swallow, he adds, " tried to marry my brother. " there's a pique in his brows, a perk at the corner of his mouth. he's looking at her, really looking, despite the shooting pain at his solarplexus, intimately jealous of her sunglasses.
kit palms at the back of his neck, a nervous gesture he's never rid himself of. it's not her. it's not not her. it's all of it. this house, these people. the tie is getting tighter, somehow, threatening to choke him out.
at the corner of his eye, lorelai turner hale works the room. he can feel it before he sees it, the eyes on him. hot on his skin. under his breath, he makes a plea, " air. " and it's swift, almost nostalgic, the way he leans back, swipes a bottle of something brown, loops her arm into his, nice to see you mrs. summers, yes lovely ceremony, we just had to see the gardens, and disappears them to the nearest terrace.
a blindspot. if a flimsy, fleeting one. he sets down his bottle, lights a cigarette, finds a pillar to support his weight. breathes deep. allows himself to look her up and down. " y'look nice. "
he's not hiding. nor snooping. he just happens to be ducking through the staff scooping ice into glasses and lighting candles for dinner service, and not circulating through cocktail hour as instructed. listen, there's a line at that bar. there's nothing between him and pulling a can of beer out the fridge behind this bar. which is what he's doing, nobody around, when he smells it: smoke. a wind-tipped candle, a centerpiece, a tablecloth. he sees it: flame. he reacts before he thinks, hopping over the bar and sacrificing a rag to suffocate the fire. for a second, he just stands here, tipping back his beer as it foams over in excitement. kit looks around to catch a particular set of eyes, only to find them already settled in on his own. he holds out an arm, pulling amara in around the shoulder. he passes her a singed menu from the ashes. " i dunno, it kinda works. avant-garde. "
sherry is a decent lady. she's a lawyer at the firm, and she's maybe got a couple screws loose. she handles his mother with the deft hand of years experience and takes sizeable pity on kit. thinks he's lonely. he could see why. " there's someone here i want you to meet, sourpuss. " she flashes a conspiratorial smile over her pinot grigio, tweaks his cheek, mouths: she's peeeerfect. the thing about sherry is she lives here, she's not from here. and there's a big fucking difference.
how he envies that. envies the naïveté. and when she finds him, somehow, again, in a drawing room that really pushes the limits of the approved cocktail hour zone, he would give anything to see himself from that faraway perspective. to know him, and think, this is a girl he deserves to meet.
it's a matter of seconds: he extends a polite hand, christopher turner. she plays along, elizabeth. her palm in his, that's wells fairchild ? she smiles, it is. he smirks, any relation to the miss birdie wells fairchild ? " ── awwh, " sherry kisses her teeth, " so you already know each other. you're just playing a little game with sherry. oooookay. well i . . . will be at the bar. you kids play nice. "
he lets go of her. only just lingering, bridging their fingers, sliding the hand back into his pocket. he puts rocks crystal to lips, nods back at sherry. " y'just pick up groupies everywhere you go, huh ? "
The power pitcher led the National League in strikeouts for three consecutive years in a span from 2018 to 2021. He also led the league in shutouts in 2019 and won the Babe Ruth Award in 2020 as the most valuable player of the MLB postseason. Turner won consecutive Cy Young Awards in 2018 and 2019, becoming the first MLB pitcher to win the award in his first two full seasons. He also appeared in four consecutive All-Star Games from 2018 through 2021 and pitched no-hitters in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Turner did not finish out the 2022 season with the Atlanta Braves, due to grand larceny charges levied against him by the state of Georgia. Convicted on all counts, Turner served four years of his six year sentence in minimum security federal penitentiary, and since resides in his home town of Briar Bend, Georgia under a conditional release program. [1] [2] [3]
so he's a mess. here we go !
━━━━ middle child of three, son of senator everett turner (r-ga) and lawyer lorelai hale-turner. the eldest, everett turner iv, died in a solo military plane crash three years ago, putting an end to his hollow political ambitions. the youngest, penelope turner, is herself an upstart young politician now after her family's dynastic tradition.
━━━━ kit was never gonna be their golden boy. irascible. no poker face. hyper active. degenerate. his brother was the perfect poseable articulated action figure. when you pulled his string, his father's stump speeches came out. kit could never stand still long enough to not ruin a photo opportunity.
━━━━ it was an act of giving up on him, really, that they encouraged the baseball. they left him to it. he was a little league legend, which means nothing, but they let him have it. it kept him busy, kept him tired, kept him tied down. by thirteen, every scout this side of the mississippi knew the name kit turner. they were watching.
━━━━ he really was that good. but as good as he was at pitching, he was almost superior at bullshitting. this became problematic in high school. don't misunderstand, he had a near singleminded focus on baseball. but the rest of his time was spent tagging cop cars, throwing bonfires, dealing drugs, spiking the punch at prom, and playing the game that got him caught up: stealing.
━━━━ it was, really, the perfect series of perfect crimes. through high school and college, him and his equally degenerate friends were responsible for a string of burglaries in briar bend. a false sense of security in the wealthy community left them vulnerable to their sticky fingers. keys under mats, doors unlocked altogether, no cameras, no alarms. sprawling estates with attics and basements and carriage houses stuffed to the brim with heritage silver, priceless antiques, collectable art.
━━━━ the mlb strongly encouraged him to opt into the draft coming out of high school, and he was strongly inclined to do so. that did not fly with senator and mrs. turner. he attended georgia tech, winning the men's college world series with them his junior and final year. he was airlifted to the braves before senior year, to the chagrin of his parents. but they're in for worse disappointment.
━━━━ at the start of his fourth season with the braves, the indictments came in. his parents pulled no strings to prevent his conviction. they quietly distanced themselves. from the group of offenders, kit was the only one fingered by the district attorney. it was natural to make an example of him, child of a senator from a good family and star athlete who had never (it appeared to the public) faced a consequence in his life.
━━━━ so he goes from starting pitcher for the leading team in the nl-east to solitary confinement for mouthing off in the space of a few months. there's a noticeable if meager effort by him to keep that chin up. he's captain of one of two prison softball teams. there's that.
━━━━ four years in, his mother comes down for her first in-person visit. she offers him a rope: work for me, live at home, serve the rest of your time on probation. he grabs it, even though he is somewhat certain she intends to strangle him with it. he's right, of course. she has ulterior motives: there's intrigue at carlyle, langford & hale. she, being the hale in question, intends to enlist an indebted spy to watch her back. or, to watch her targets and potential usurpers.
━━━━ welcome home, sucker ! now included: ankle monitor ! mother dearest sets him up as a sports agent for the firm, which mostly means nothing except he goes with scouts to stand at the fence and freak the teenage athletes out. and following lorelai around like a tight-leashed dog, "watching her back." she "renovated" the pool house for him to stay in, which is to say she'd do anything to keep him from living in the main house. they're in agreement there.
━━━━ so he's pretty miserable at present. it's been about a month of this now. he's well overdue for a nervous breakdown. it's a very different kit that came back home than left. still funny, but there's a morbid bend to it. he's always been slow to talk, and slowtalking, languid with his speech and movements. now he's startlingly reticent. he's quiet, caught up in his head. nobody ever would've called kit pensive before. now it seems like all he does is walk the orchards, fish, and swing at god in the old batting cages.
━━━━ he's avoiding everyone he can feasibly avoid. white knuckle gripping onto his already tenuous relationship with sanity. earnestly attempting to walk the straight and narrow. he's never been able to keep that up before, though, so it's only a matter of time.
as far as wanted connections: i'm like really good at plotting. come find out. i'd love to see people he was bad with, and i'd love to see people he stole from.
i am gonna put up a wc for his sister at some point, so if ur into that hit my line. :3
You intensified your abuse with threats, and these sometimes were aimed at me. I found this one particularly terrifying: "I'll gut you like a fish" - of course I knew that nothing worse would follow (as a small child, admittedly, I did not know that) but it tallied with my impression of your strength that you would have been capable of it.
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