𝚜𝚌𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜

[scpsis]

#𝚜𝚌𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜   ·   dependent  muse  blog  for  kilmerhq            written   by   𝑨   (   she/any   pst   twenty seven   )

𝚠𝚢𝚖𝚘𝚗  𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚛   ·   ( he/him   twenty nine   enzo vogrincic   )

𝚓𝚞𝚍𝚐𝚎     𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎   ·   (   he/him   thirty five   martin sensmeier   )

𝚓𝚊𝚔𝚎   𝚜𝚊𝚍𝚘𝚜𝚔𝚢   ·    (  she/they  twenty five  maia reficco  )

[tidelure]

you ever have that pop rocks candy as a kid? the real nostalgic stuff, the kind in paper packages already half-faded by sun exposure in the local bodega, designs purposefully rendered in stark black and bright neon colours, as if to signal to the child holding them what that they're about to put in their mouth could also be found exploding up in the sky on the fourth of july. the ones that stained your mouth for hours, coating your tongue and the inside of your lips so that each time you talked too avidly, somebody else caught the idea of what you'd been chewing. that's what judge waterhouse was like. like a man, only different. like a man, only not like one you've ever known before, and one that you won't know since. he fizzled. he left a mark. he was cautioned against by over-concerned mothers. and now she's looking at him, and he's looking at her, and four years after the fact cherise suddenly has the urge to stick out her tongue and stand in front of a mirror. i can still taste him. can i see him?

"oh, don't be like that," instead of baring her tongue cher drops her head backwards, the crown leaned gently against the dark plush of the booth, opening up her gaze to his full height. it has the terribly intimate impression of looking up at him from a pillow. when she stands it's sudden, fluid, one shoulder of her coat falling off a round shoulder. cherise takes another drag of her cigarette, trying to replace the sugary taste thats leaked in. she's very good at all this too, the performance of perpetual casualty, but there's a moth jumping from rib to rib that keeps cherise from straying too close. when she steps forward its in slow, sauntering steps, a pace at once asymmetrical and baring innate grace.

"at least get the jury and executioner out here before you make any final decisions." judge, of course, wouldn't call for either. he never had, and that's the joke, the punchline that bruised ⸺ he had no need for them or anyone else. or perhaps what she's remembering is he didn't need her. not enough to reevaluate an expired promise or to stay past dawn, to put out the fire he left raging in a rumpled bed. a thumbnail works its way between her teeth, the acrylic smooth and lacquered against cher's tongue. smoke smoulders near her face. she raises a brow. "⸺ is that really all the welcome i get?"

[scpsis]

cherise's temerity had been one of the many traits that attracted judge to her in the first place. she was bold face font, ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, in your face yet graceful in every way. he'd wanted to inhale her like the stupid fucking cigarette she had her lips wrapped around, but now ? the male was seething with an unfamiliar, misplaced anger.

anger was not a foreign concept to judge, but it was indisputably unwelcome in his bones. as a child, rage was ever-present within his family. his father's indignation shook the very walls of their home, booming like thunder. it leaked into his siblings and cousins, took hold of his mother, and, he suspected, would've sunken it's piercing teeth into him too, had he not left for kilmer cove in 2006. now a grown man, judge reserved those feelings for only the worthiest of occasions. except, this one didn't feel deserving at all.

it occurred to him that he was holding his breath, letting the oxygen cook inside his lungs like a hot oven. nostrils flared as he desperately gasped, hardened expression remaining cold. as the femme loomed closer, he began to feel hunted. ( their dynamic had always been playful in nature. like a cat and mouse. but he was the predator, and he'd fight to stay that way. )

" you can't smoke in here. " thick digits plucked the cigarette right out of her mouth, if only to show how serious he was. what he won't admit is how badly it burned to be that close to her again. the half-finished smoke sizzled — a final cry for help — as he drowned it a nearby cup of water left at the hostess stand. " what the hell are you doing here, cher ? " timbre croaked with despondency, followed with a grumble. years later and she still sparkled like a precious god damn gem.

[tidelure]

vedia was best at being alone when she was not entirely alone ⸺ she exceeded in solitude, in particularly spectacular fashion, when buffed on all sides by the soft cushion of glances and the hedgerow of attention. it wasn't entirely her fault ⸺ girls who prefer the centre of the room rarely come to this partiality on their own. they learn the aptitude by first being pretty creatures pinned to a corkboard, a showcase drawn up and speared through by hovering parental hands. all that to say that by the time the owner of the dim-lit leather booth vedia finds herself sitting in makes his way over to her, she's enjoyed the night immensely ... as she does every night at his restaurant.

"judge," his name comes out warm and rolled in the careless warmth so characteristic of vedia's voice. she's wine-drunk and lighthearted for it, smiling, a pink silk balloon filled to the point of shining. "i was wondering if i'd see you tonight." her eye glance over the length of him, clad in the vaguely familiar look of what she assumes to be a true seaman. though there were too many years between them for vedia to register judge as anything tangible, he had the platonic charm of a well-timed sunset or a neatly assembled cabin: a view on the roadside you enjoyed simply because it was there. "i don't know how you do it..." vedia cants her head, little fingers curling against the line of her glass, nails milky and round and clinking against the stem. like set of pearls pried from oysters they kept in the back. "if this was any better it would be positively indecent."

[scpsis]

her ethereal radiance was excellent for business. as good as a kilmer-level celebrity endorsement. he'd have sat her by the window if it wasn't too obvious, like a beautiful little advertisement — hopefully a social media post or two would do the trick, if she even used that stuff. panhandle oyster co's interior design was intentionally instagram-able, all moody lighting and high-end finishes. he'd consulted professionals.

his name was honey in her mouth — judge couldn't help the way it pulled at the strings of the corners of his lips. " i see we brought out the new sauvignon blanc for you. how do you like it ? we're still trying it out. comes from an indigenous-owned winery in california. all organic and sustainably produced. " his enthusiasm for hospitality is crisp, like the wine, and so very genuine. sometimes bordering on obsessive. " you have room for dessert ? we've got cheesecake with lemon curd that would go fucking perfectly with another glass. " expletive aside — it was his restaurant after all. he could speak how he wanted, even if that same lenience wasn't offered to his employees — he may as well have asked if the girl wanted him to serve the whole world to her on a silver platter.

[tidelure]

wymon had said sit, but after the slow trail in following him from bathroom to the hearth — too nervous to make the trek on her own, too shaken to deviate from his path — vedia remains standing, shuffling her weight and the bulk of her thoughts from one foot to the next. the room itself is inviting enough, small and slanted in a way the exterior of the parsonage implied, but there's the lingering sense of being something unsuitable for this house. it's foreign, and therefore she has no measure with which to understand what is acceptable — if it would be terrible to stain that couch there with the wet of her hair, or worse still to sit in the armchair in the corner, which might have belonged to a stern man in a dark robe — but it's also familiar. cast in a noxious glow. you are not welcomed in this house or anywhere my nephew, miss sahin.

it's the expletive that breaks her reverie, and from behind him vedia shifts uncomfortably. she feels suddenly very small, condensed in size by all this water, stripped of her clothes and some of the buffering volume of her presence: little more than some tiny doll that wymon could fit in the curl of one palm. her heart, however, remains the same size. it throbs with discomfort at wymon's expression of pain, and the knowledge that she doesn't know what to do with it.

"is it a splinter?"

it takes several wary steps to close the distance between them, and several more turns of the mind to bring vedia to the conclusion that kindness is meant to beget kindness. "i can— i can help." a hand reaches from beneath the towel, eyes flitting meaningfully upward for a kind of permission before taking his wrist. she turns the hand gently palm-up, running the curve of a thumbnail over the pinked skin of his finger, searching for the intrusion. contact hadn't used to be so scarce, or so frightening. when they'd been together, vedia used to greet him the only way she knew how, the way she liked best, with all her body against all of his body, the same way school children show their love ⸺ throwing handfuls of glue and glitter onto a page, smearing as much as they can onto a the open space to prove how much feeling is inside them. now, despite the cold of her exposed body, vedia feels heat flush around her neck like a locked collar from the mere overlap of fingers. the nail drags repeatedly, firm and gentle, over the soft belly of his thumb. she does not look up as she attempts to fill the quiet. "have you... have you been alright?"

[scpsis]

" yeah ... " wymon admitted in defeat, grimacing as he assessed the damage. he would've chosen to endure the stinging, written it off as a mild finger prick, if not for how she uses the wound to bridge the gap between them again. her hands are the same as they always were : delicate, fairy-like. though wymon was not a particularly large man, one of his hands could swallow both of hers, could pin each dainty wrist together effortlessly when the moment called for it. recollection tied a knot in his throat as her nail scraped against rounded, now puckered flesh.

he suckled on his lower lip, raking it between his teeth as a makeshift dam, fearful of what may spill out if he didn't. her inquiry proved to make that impossible. " i've been ... " the male trailed off, hypnotized by the repetitive grating of her fingernail, the oxytocin release that her grip inspired.

what he wants to say : i've been awful. i've been alone. i've been riddled with enough grief to drown an olympic swimmer. i am water-logged and always leaking, leaking, leaking. my body is a piece of broken driftwood. i'm haunted by mistakes and burdens that aren't mine. even more than that, there is not a day that i am not haunted by YOU.

but it came out as, " everything is different now. " he meant it.

[gr0tesques]

‎ nicky crowds himself against the wall of the booth when jake ( it's jake, right? or some other j adjacent name ) all but throws herself at him at the anecdote he'd shared growing up in a funeral home. "that i slept in a casket and pretended to be dead?" he draws the words out again, slower this time, too-conscious and somewhat unsure. maybe it wasn't such a strange idea at the time, but as he'd gotten older, he'd slowly come to realize that growing up around corpses was probably more peculiar than he'd thought. "to be fair, i was five and don't even remember doing it. apparently i got pissed off 'cause my brother hid all the blue crayons i needed for my drawing and that i just wanted attention or whatever." he shrugs, parroting the details of the story from the countless of times it had been told over christmas family gatherings, never mind the morbidity of a child playing with the idea of death. grabbing his half-empty glass of beer, he huffs against the rim, "oh, don't tell me you didn't do weird shit as a kid."

[scpsis]

" was the coffin comfortable ? " they were already buzzing with follow-up questions, feeling drunker on potential conversation than on the several cans of pabst blue ribbon that littered the tabletop they'd abandoned in trade for his. " i've always wondered like, why would they be comfortable if the person inside them is literally dead ? is that why they're so expensive ? " jake leaned their elbow on the table, propping their head up in their hand. " of course i did whack shit when i was a kid but i'm not who we're talking about here ... when was the last time you laid in one as an adult ? oh my god. can you take naps in them at work ? " incisors flashed in a genuine grin, greenish hue of the bar lighting shining in the whites of her glossy eyes. she showed no sign of slowing down, abandoning her usual tact. " do you still draw ? " final question was followed by a giggle — even they knew they were being ridiculous.

[tidelure]

"no," she answers, though her voice is barely above a whisper, closer to a pink kind of geometry than any actual sound: little more than a shape made by her soft mouth. "it feels nice," vedia adds, and something about this thoughtless addition makes her flush, the blood drawing up in rosettes at the high point of her cheeks. it's true, but she's not wearing enough to say it ⸺  like this, unclothed on the edge of his tub, it's too close to something she might have said the last time wymon had his hands on her body.

his hands are gentle to the point of reverence, and in the slow unthawing of her skin she feels oversensitive, raw. the fingers that draw cleansing water along the backside of her calf brush only incidentally against the underside of a knee, only grazing against the little tendons there, but still her breath falls out round and heavy, the jolt that follows it is so hot and white-coloured that it seems dangerous to be so close to water. you weren't supposed to let electricity near anything wet.

then he says it's my job, and vedia knows what he's referencing and what he isn't. the bigness of the statement ⸺  not the words themselves but the pillars behind them, the full, round implication ⸺ touches her like another hot hand, and suddenly it's all too much. it's too much on her body, on her heart. she cannot remember the last time she was touched so sweetly. she she cannot recall the last time she met someone as beautiful. the ankle in his grasp pulls away, retreating softly into the open air.

"but it's not."

what wymon is referencing — the innate duty of care, the obligation of one heart for another — hadn't been his job for four years. it was supposed to be, before ⸺  it was meant to be his forever. she had meant to be his forever. the water is sloshing gently from her sudden movement, and against the accompanying quiet it sounds like reprimand against the porcelain. despite the greater trespass not being hers, vedia feels as though she's done something wrong. even in all her hurt, wymon's innate gentleness made even disagreement feel like an act of violence.

"it's not your..." slowly she returns her foot back to its place, an attempt at recovery. like placing a brick in the spot a bridge burnt down long ago. " ⸺  it's been a long time, wymon."

[scpsis]

angled surface of his cheekbones grew warm at vedia's admittance, blooming with ruddy abashment akin to her own. they were two virgins, born-again — meek and mousey — fumbling and flustered. for a moment, he found himself wishing he'd wake up already. that this was some lewd fantasy cooked up in his wicked subconscious while his mortal body wept in it's sleep.

but her recoil is too tangible to be a work of delusional fiction. a cruel reminder that his romantic bygone was still not his to hold or behold. this tryst was a one-off, likely never to be repeated. pathetic for him to have hoped otherwise.

wymon didn't touch her again, even with her retrogression. there's reverence in how he kept his hands to himself, instead occupying his fingers with a new task : pulling the bathtub plug. the drain let out a guttural gurgle, sucking down the dirt, sucking away the evidence that he'd read her flesh like braille only moments ago. he stood up from the cobblestone floor, more sure-footed than he'd been all night.

" i know. " lament is weighted. a stone sinking at the bottom of a well. though he means no ill will, the words tasted sour, almost poisonous. an apology boiled at the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down with an audible gulp. wymon let out a sigh before speaking again. " come sit on the hearth. i'll start a fire. "

again, he's ornamented with chains around his ankles, each step out of the bathroom more impossible than the last. the fireplace was well-used, interior box coated in a layer of black ash. had he known she'd be coming over, he would've cleaned it. ( had he known she was coming over, he would've done many things — at the top of the list ? panicking. so perhaps it was for the better. ) the firewood was jagged and nubby against the pads of his fingers as he created a base for the flames to live. " fuck, " expletive elicits as quickly as the splinter that pierced the side of his thumb. a chastisement. wymon brought the injury to his lips as if the warmth of his mouth would ease the sting.

[wra1thed]

“         𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁   𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿   𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲,   𝘄𝗮𝘀   𝗶𝘁      ?         ”         narrowing   of   hazel,   pale   shape   of   her   hand   acts   as   a   dismal   sun   visor         —         uniquely   shit   one,   given   the   way   cyra   still   has   to   squint   into   blinding   rays.      (      glimmering,   dancing,   rippling   little   jewels   of   light   on   an      ever   -   changing   ocean,      moody   as   anything      +      god,   doesn’t   that   just   sum   this   whole   place   up         ?         everything’s   got   its   own   damn   mind   to   make   up.      )         “      you   paint   an   interesting   tale,   mr.   waterhouse,   i’ll   give   you   that.      ”         cynicism’s   edge   is   taken   off   by   her   answering   smile,   broad,   pearly         /         when   she   reaches   back   for   the   wrench   he’d   spoken   of,   hues   will   dart   forth   to   the   rock   in   question.      just   for   a   moment.      just   to   make   sure   that   nothing   glares   crimson.      (      damn   you,   judge.      )

[scpsis]

avidity, fervency — there were many ways to spin a weakness, but when it came down to it, judge was fucking riddled with impatience. empty hand was still extended outward awaiting the wrench, palm up like he's summoning the same kind of mythical, aether-residing being that he'd been joking about moments ago. " hey — " he resisted the urge to snap his fingers, not out of disrespect but to bring his companion back from the mystery he'd accidentally spun around them. " there's loads of stories like that around here. you'll get used to it soon enough. unless the nychterida gets you first. " the cliche of a fisherman whispering about local legends isn't lost on him, but he'd been raised to proudly wear the title of STORYTELLER.

[wra1thed]

𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱   𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗽   𝗱𝗿𝗮𝘄𝘀   𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀   𝗰𝗶𝗿𝗰𝗹𝗲𝘀   𝗶𝗻   𝘁𝗵𝗲   𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻   𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀      left   by   a   sweating   glass.      (      vodka   soda      +      a   hint   of   lime,   he’s   yet   to   become   a   pabst   blue   ribbon   princess         —         rue   the   fucking   thought,   honestly.      )      for   what   it’s   worth,   he’s   not   thinking   about   the   syllables   that   trip   off   silver   tongue,   let   alone   that   anyone   besides   his   sister   can      hear      the   shit   he’s   spewing         …         illusion   shatters   the   minute   that   jake   scrambles   into   adjacent   space.      on   the   record:   he   doesn’t   flinch,   thank   you   very   much.      off   it,   though         …         one   sharp   kneecap   will   bruise   in   a   few   days’   time   from   where   he’d   launched   it   straight   into   the   underbelly   of   the   chipboard   table.   quick   mutter   of,      ‘jack,   i’ll   call   you   back’      +      they   have   his   full   attention.         “         …         which   part      ?         ”         faux   -   confusion   is   every   bit   as   darling   as   he   wants   it   to   be,   thick   brows   knit      +      one   canine   dug   into   lower   lip,   toying   with   broken   skin.      (      just   in   case   he   needs   to   bite   down   on   the   half   -   moon   shape   of   a   smirk.      )         “      the   bit   about   a   couple   of   teenagers   fuckin’   near   the   batman   statue   at   four   in   the   morning,   or      …      ?      ”

[scpsis]

now perched in the booth next to the male, doll eyes blinking up at him, jake realized she actually did recognize him. however, their relationship was one-sided — even parasocial, in nature. they likened it to the voyeuristic connection between two neighboring apartment tenants : visually intimate, but only by coincidence. the only difference was jake had seen MUCH more of him than he had of her. this granted her a delicious upper hand, and she kept the information to her chest like a coveted dirty picture. there was no easy way to tactfully reveal to a stranger that you knew the shape of their ⸺ " accent. " it's an acknowledgment breathed quietly into the air, more so for herself. " what's the batman statue ? " perhaps it's the few beers they'd already annihilated, or ( more likely ) the innate sense of audacity she donned like armor, but she swiped the beverage on the table and took a long sip. after all ! she'd grown so familiar with him over the last few weeks, albeit not knowing a single thing about him. " it's jake. " introduction is spoken against the foggy rim of his drink, beading moisture dripping down her chin onto the worn vinyl of their shared seating arrangement. they extended a wet hand out to shake.

[gr0tesques]

the damndest things can come out of judge's mouth sometimes, something casey's already grown used to hearing just from spending so much of her free time hanging out by the docks. it's more amusing to her than anything else, despite the number of guests who've reported similar eerie encounters from their rooms (but tourists will see anything they want to if they believe them hard enough!). frankly, she's more afraid of what the living can do. "you know, sometimes, i swear you're just fucking with me." they look out across the water anyway, trying to imagine what judge had seen that night. allegedly. the watered down pepsi sloshes around in their cup as they move to grab the wrench judge had asked for, passing it to him with a heavy hand. "you gotta take my dad with you sometime. i know he'd much rather get on a boat with someone who actually knows his stuff." though not for a lack of trying, casey isn't cut out for the waters.

[scpsis]

a chuckle escapes from the back of his throat, cracking his stern facade. " i would never just say something to fuck with you. " sarcasm is palpable enough to taste — salty, like the ocean spray in the air. he took the wrench from the other, letting the weight of it settle in his hand. " i ever tell you i worked with your dad a few times back in the day ? " he offered the memory freely, haphazardly, despite how valuable it could be considered now that her father was no longer able to work. jaws of the wrench pinched around one of the bolts, his wrist swinging back and forth as he unsuccessfully attempt to tighten it. " fuck, it's stripped. " defeat lead him to drop the tool. it clinked loud against the metal in a jarring, harsh reality not unlike that of the bassey patriarch. " when i was like eighteen, nineteen — spent a winter on the water with him. do you remember that ? " he wouldn't blame her if she didn't.

[chazelle]

[thr0ttle]

falling  into  steps  with  wymon  felt  natural.  they're  both  here  wandering  through  the  land  of  dead  people  under  the  covers  of  the  night,  and  what  better  thing  to  do  than  to  stick  to  your  one  living  companion?  rohan's  head  tilts,  mulling  over  the  question.  yes,  is  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue.  they're  in  my  dreams.  they're  in  me.  he  settles  for,  "no,  not  really.  don't  think  i  have  that  ability.  only  some  people  are  touched  like  that,  y'know?"  there's  a  pause  of  silence,  and  then  he  glances  over—watching  wymon  watch  the  graves.  "you  think  they  ever  watch  me  work?  wish  they  could  bum  a  smoke  off  you?"

[scpsis]

there was a warmth that burned inside wymon. sometimes it was very tiny — a pilot light, just barely flickering. other times, a controlled burn, consuming him. when with rohan, it was a crackling fireplace, smoldering comfortably. " my uncle used to say that people who claimed to communicate with the dead were just looking for attention. i always thought it was kind of ... condescending. " he often found himself sharing these kinds of anecdotes with rohan, recollecting on his personal experiences in ways he couldn't with most. a half-grin threads onto his lips, cigarette bobbing with each syllable. " you ever whistle while you're working ? i heard that calls spirits to you. " when he says spirits, he means the devil, but he doesn't clarify. at an eary age, wymon had learned it was best to filter his religious reflections, in attempt to make himself more palatable.

[scpsis]

OPEN STARTER · @kilmerstarters location · a bar, some place downtown

" WAIT — say that again ! " in a moment, jake had practically dove into the other's lap. up until now, they'd been doing very little to hide how seriously obvious their eavesdropping was. but leaping into a stranger's — as all kilmerites still were to her : beautiful, bewitching strangers — booth was a whole new level of conducting research. " the last part. say it again. that line was golden. "

[deepinsideyourbeing]

Stalker vibes...

[maurawrites]

Martin Sensmeier as Jindaháa Twitchell Alaska Daily | 1.06 ‘You Can't Put a Price on a Life′

[tidelure]

( FLASHBACK : FOUR WEEKS AGO ) THERE'S A REASON THEY CALL A FREQUENTED PLACE A HAUNT. CHERISE RETURNS TO PANHANDLE, WHERE IT ALL STARTED. ╱ feat. JUDGE WATERHOUSE of @scpsis

her elbows collect on the hostess stand, weight leaned all the way into the dark wood pedestal the same way cherise slants all her charm onto the woman behind it. hey, i've got an interview with judge. could you grab him for me? at her nearness the hostess's features pull from unsure to in some way dazed, unbalanced by both the appearance of the type of face that certainly doesn't belong in the cove — beautiful and metropolitan, marked quietly by something larger than life — and the conspiratorial way with which it hovers. she's good at that, cherise already knows, but the reminder is a sweet, steadying force against that teetering creature of her nerves, so she lays it on a little thick, warming herself against the girl's astonishment. a hand brushes her wrist. thanks honey.

behind the partition of the waiting area she sits and pulls one bare thigh over the other, her legs collected and assembled in an angle that would make a mathematician reach for his instruments. how do we replicate this slant? she lights a cigarette from her place on the leather bench, and it's only partially to curb the gnawing sense of wariness: the other part of her simply wants to stain the place he holds dear. when judge comes around the corner, cherise finds he looks the same as remembers: handsome and full of blame.

"well?" she says instead of a greeting, using in place of hello or hey there some unrelated word with little meaning. it resembles in some way how they used to speak, substituting dense phrases for polite ones that could be used in public: you win for this need is making me sick, or come here for there's nobody for me but you. the smoke she exhales comes from the stick of her lit cigarette, but for a moment there's the sensation that it's summoned from somewhere deeper, that she's breathing out the fumes from some ember that crackles and spits at his nearness. her gaze tilts over the rim of her sunglasses, burning hot. she smiles, pointedly unpretentious, scalding. "i didn't get my interview time wrong, did i?"

[scpsis]

he was a trained guard dog, sniffing out an abnormality, investigating his domain. premature in her adulthood, the hostess's voice barely graced his ears before judge was already bounding towards the restaurant's entryway. it's a fault of his — one of many, and so minor in comparison to others — that he often doesn't give his youngest staff members the time of day. his brain didn't have the capacity for their frivolities. as they say, he didn't have the spoons. spoons ... " is someone rolling silverware ? " he heedlessly barked out of the side of his mouth, nose still guiding him towards the unwelcome smell of cigarette smoke. " who the fuck is smoking in h— "

her presence was a gust of wind and he's an already rotting hovel.

silence, as it often did, took hold of judge's tongue like a creature he'd consumed, now making it's way back up his throat. he kept his jaw clenched, masseter muscles tense enough to create divots in his skin in the very places her manicured fingers had once perused. her stunning visage alone scorched crimson as the cherry end of her cigarette, and though he'd put her flame out against his own skin time and time again, he'd nearly forgotten about the splotchy burn scars that once littered him.

for when she disappeared so wordlessly, so carelessly, cherise had taken all the evidence of their affair with her. leaving him to pick up the pieces of a crime they'd committed together, but he bore the punishment of alone. judge had grown to enjoy that solitude. diminutive and peaceful, he lived in it comfortably, like his cottage on the beach. she would not threaten that again.

" we're not hiring, " he spoke firmly, deep intonation escaping from his mouth like a popped cork.

[scpsis]

closed starter · for vedia @tidelure location · panhandle oyster co.

she was, without a doubt, lovely as ever, seated beneath the swirling chandelier made up of dozens of delicate individual paper lanterns, ( a fixture paid for by none other than adem sahin-van ness himself ) just as she was, without a doubt, always welcome in his establishment — to him, vedia was an extension of her father. namely, her father's money. judge observed at her in the same way he would an unguarded, crisp stack of cash : with criminally selfish intent. she was to be belauded, almost treasured. a delicate string of pearls hung around an aristocrat's bulging neck. the brunette was one of the very few whom judge dropped everything to attend to personally, listed high on a registry of prioritized customers that implied a direct phone call to him if he wasn't already working. tonight, he'd been out on his boat, immediately returning to shore at the mere mention of her patronage. the sun-bleached coveralls he adorned while approaching vedia's table seemed out of place compared to the polished restaurant's interior, but he moved with enough purpose that he may as well have wearing a three piece suit. " how's everything tasting ? " there's only a hint of a smile on his lips.

[we1rdos]

so  close,  yet  so  impossibly  far.  the  oysters  had  called  to  her,  their  beady  eyes  drawing  her  in  —  save  us,  she  swears  they  pleaded.  now,  she’ll  be  forced  to  stand  idly  by,  watching  as  they’re  tricked  into  believing  the  boiling  pot  is  nothing  but  a  giant  jacuzzi.  judge  is  an  impenetrable  wall,  firmly  built  right  between  their  deaths  and  freedom.  her  fingers  clutch  the  colorful  bucket  even  harder  at  his  words  ;  she  can’t  fail  her  aquatic  friends.  “  how  is  it  worse  than  the  fate  you’ve  written  for  them  ?  they  deserve  a  chance  to  decide  what  they  want  to  do  with  their  oysteristence  !  ”  the  shovel  flies  upward,  ziggy’s  flag  of  rebellion.  “  they  want  to  live  !  they  told  me  themselves  earlier  !  ” 

[scpsis]

" what are you gonna do, dump 'em back into the ocean ? " there's a hint of a laugh webbed into his expression, threatening to crack through the marbling of his impenetrable intensity. judge couldn't help but wonder, how old was this girl anyway ? he knew very little about her. just that her father was an overzealous, overbearing over-orderer at panhandle. he supposed that people who came from money had to get their rebellious kicks somehow. " had those shipped in from maine. they're not cut out for the water here. once you handle an oyster, if you put it back in the ocean, it dies. " emphasis was his greatest weapon, here. " have you ever actually eaten one ? "