#52troop

[peggies]

there's a crescendo of elements — some rain, some wind, and there's metal, as well, groaning while its awoken from it's sleep , precinct breathes through it like wounded animals. each inhalation drawn through the ribs of shattered blinds, each exhalation curdled in rust and rain. you know, david and daryl are like wounded animals and crescendos themselves. they're also more alike than either one would care to admit, but that's for them to discover. [ OBSERVE AND DEDUCE : the world has ended three hundred and sixty five or so times already, and yet still insists on dying again tonight. ] daryl saunters at the cell’s edge, haloed in phosphor glow, a statue cut from asphalt & stubbornness alike. cigarette winks alive between calloused fingers, CLINK! says the lighter. the first inhale rips down to the bone. he keeps it there, lungs iron-clad, letting the pain hum like penance. smoke unfurls upward, slow and tender. they'd originally parked here in the precinct to both shelter until the storm passed as well as loot. neither seemed likely anytime soon. the detective hovers about in daryl's peripheral blur, a figure stitched from paper trails and regret, fingertips restless around a pistol’s spine as though the act of checking it might reassemble his belief. ( old instincts rot the slowest, you know. ) above daryl, is a sign that states NO SMOKING. and daryl, half-saint, dull humored, breaks the air with a drawl that doesn't quite ask for forgiveness. ‘‘ rules still mean somethin' to you ? ’’ smoke spills from his mouth like confessions do, and he curls a hand against the bars. ‘‘ always been good breakin' 'em. then world went t'shit, took all the fun out of it. ’’ @52troop

[peggies]

⃰ prompt ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗⁱⁿᵍ ?? @52troop : you keep mocking me.

and for a moment, even the flicker of midnight candlelight appears to bow, arrested mid-gesture , mockery, she'd said, & oh — that quip of her ingenuous heresy strikes him deeper than any blade or prayer. the chamber exhales, perfumed with dust and lingering perfume of mischief made flesh. loki remains very still, [ the way an actor does before his cue. every inch of him aware that this is his element : spotlights and mockery and such. ] ‘‘ .. mocking you? never, my dear syn. ’’ the voice arrives honey-laced, deliberate, perfidious. vowels unfurl like smoke from some invisible censer. he might jest syn the way a thirsting man touches water: hesitant, greedy, like the young do.

‘‘ .. i only test the music of your patience, and you make the most delightful noise when you’ve caught me out. what better sport for trickery than the muse ? ’’ and the words linger in this evening air after he’s spoken them, as if reluctant to rejoin the lesser music of mortality. for that is what he is: SPEAK IS TO PERFORM, PERFORM IS TO EXIST. and the audience was ever so sweetly, so terribly credulous.

[peggies]

⃰ prompt ?? @52troop : what i wouldn't give to be in church this sunday.

somewhere, the wind drags itself across the carcass of this land .. a hymn sung through hollowed-out concrete. somewhere, in unfathomable beyond, a church bell rings, its echo mangled, its note caught in the throat of the wind. crescendo of dusk, or perhaps what remains of it, bleeds into the hollowed out arteries of the woods. FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF: that’s what’s left of the church now. four walls, a roof, and the echo of hymns turned to nothing. [ observe then conclude : the pews still bleed from the boards, the air smells of rot and resurrection, of faith left too long in the sun. ] rick’s voice just a threadbare whisper, confessional in its cadence, folds itself into that same shape. the words stir something dormant. and frank, creature of aftermath, that iron-wrought reliquary of violence and smoke, exhales through what one might call a laugh.

‘‘ .. yeaaah .. yeah, man. place like that wouldn't take us no more. damn pew'd fall in soon as we walk in. roof, too. ’’

pause. prolonged, deliberate / the flame of his cigarette quivers like a votive in the ruins. rasp of bone and half-remembered mercy. a joke, perhaps. a confession, more likely. addendum, the woods listen and they do not forgive. people are dead, skin is charred. and for a fleeting moment, if only in the fractured eye of divinity, two damned men look almost holy. ‘‘ if you find one still standin’, sheriff, i’ll light a candle with you. hell, maybe two. ’’

[peggies]

yellow jackets, season 1 prompts. @52troop

there is no blueprint for this. no comms, — no schematic that tells him how to stand or breathe beside a girl who is almost his and yet not at all and also smells really good. it's a paradox of closeness and distance sewn into every glance. she is a friend and half-step between laughter and confession. every word she gives him feels like the answer to a riddle he’s been asking his whole life, even when it’s something this simple: she loves the song he's playing in his new shitty car.

is he going to faint? he might faint.

boyhood is a restless sort of thing, all knees knocking under the table, all bitten lips and swallowed words. he is not yet a man with the language for love, only a boy clutching at phrases too small, too crooked to carry what he feels. beside her, nerves make a cathedral out of his bones, ringing with the tremor of almosts— almost brave enough, almost certain, almost hers, almost too excited to respond right back. ‘‘ .. really! -- yeah, no, totally me too! did you know, um, that the dude who wrote it did the riff by accident, like he dropped his pick and-- ’’ oh. conductor gone rouge, sketched lines in the chords. ‘‘ 'n and .. uh .. it .. riffed. -- ’’

right.