#private verse.

[d-eadeye]

Never been one for backwater motels, but when life starts buckin', well— better ride. There had been nowhere else. A disenchanted 'r' hung woefully from the Sweet Sugar Motel's flickering sign above the interstate, illuminating in sporadic bursts a fiery blaze of magenta that leaked through the skeletal blinds and their stale curtains. Its broken-hearted insignia felt eerily appropriate, thought Jesse, who dared not fathom the debauchery that had likely unfolded in his very seat, atop the very tassled velvet cushion in which he sat. The defunct lobby was dim with faux candlelight and polyester blooms, chipped linoleum in the façade of marble with a dust-laden chandelier dripping from its coffered ceiling. A decrepit soprano sung soft jazz from the old speakers by the door; every so-often the crooning would sputter with static and Jesse, for all his careful discipline, resisted the urge to shoot the damn thing more times than he could count on one hand, @killerdame , 𐚁.

"Y'all leave that goin' all night..? Ain't nobody here but you an' me, girl." Textured tones grate upon the air. He inhales the fragrance of artificial rose and gas-station perfume. The unsightly receptionist did not look up from her cracked phone screen.

"You can get a room or you can sit there with the music," said the woman. Jesse's chest shook with a tremendous sigh.

The weather would clear come morning. To ride a chopper through these storms was an all but certain death: compounded by the fog, the air was opaque with thick sheets of rain. He heard the downfall even now, hailing fiercely against their cheap metal roof, no promise of capitulation in the near or distant future. Jesse rocked in his chair. The aluminum cage of the old motel elevator rattled, mechanical bones straining as they lowered. What came next was a queer and diluted 'ding.'

The tired doors of the elevator yawned open like a tripped-up clamshell, Venus in its maw: the cowboy sat up straight.

He lowered his sunglasses where they sat upon his nose-bridge while the apathetic receptionist ejaculated a half-hearted salutation. Gold-rimmed hawk-eyes watched the sway of the intruder's slim waist with dangerous attention.

Thunder cracked. The soft croon stuttered and the lights flickered. His coyote tongue salivated.

Jesse caught fragments of a voice sweeter than sugarcane.

"We don't have anyone available right now," replied the receptionist in dull tone to the woman.

An abrupt ejection from his seat to his boot-soles. "Now don't go speakin' no nonsense when I'm right here. Wh'ussa matter, sweet-pea? Sheets ain't workin' like they should..?"

[biqbadwolf]

starter for @bleadhound

The streetlight flickers once overhead, throwing Desmond’s shadow long across the uneven concrete. He doesn’t move at first. Just stands there, boots planted like roots breaking through asphalt. His hands are tucked in the pockets of his jacket—old wool and denim, worn soft at the elbows, smelling faintly of sweat, blood, and river air. His frame doesn’t shrink with the dark. If anything, the dark clings to him, outlines him like a warning. There’s a stillness in his shoulders, but his jaw’s working, slow grind of molars and fury.

He hasn’t slept again. Not properly. Not since the last one they found—one of those bastards who laid their filthy hands on Kerry. Or on Maddie. He’d thought maybe putting the man’s head through a pipe wall would buy him an hour or two of rest, but no. The ghosts in his chest stay hungry. The baby stays dead. Rowan. A name he didn’t get to say out loud before it was buried with the rest of what they’d lost.

Desmond’s eyes, dull with lack of sleep, sweep over the porch of the old house like a hawk taking stock. Claire’s not here. He waited for that. There’s no comfort in crossing wires when the grief’s still fresh and the dead are still being talked about like they’re ghosts instead of people. He doesn’t want to see her cry. Not tonight.

But Alo? Aye. That’s different.

He steps forward now, climbing the steps with slow purpose, the wood creaking under his weight. He doesn’t knock. Just leans sideways into the doorframe and peers through the window beside it until he catches a glimpse of that familiar frame—shoulders curled too tight, jaw slack from whatever hell he’s trying to sleep through.

“Alo,” Desmond says, voice low but clear, accent softening at the ends. “Know you’re in there, mate.”

He waits. Crosses his arms. Shifts the weight on his feet just enough to keep from pacing.

“No need to hide n' there.” His tone lightens, a sliver of warmth slipping in. “Just thought maybe you could use a walk. Or a pint. Or both. I’ve got a car out front and no one worth talkin’ to inside it.”

He tilts his head, tries a crooked smile. Doesn’t quite land, but it’s earnest.

“You’ve been in this house too long, brother. You’re startin’ to look like furniture. Let me get you out of here for a while, ya? Clear your head. Maybe knock around a few ideas that don’t involve drownin’ in your own thoughts.”

[d-eadeye]

Midsummer in Savannah silence under the great magnolia trees, blue bliss beneath the rustling leaves. It was July, after all, @glossfang.

Restless aphids surveyed the buttonbush with cursory displeasure, burdened by wings too fragile to carry them elsewhere but the plains and he, burdened likewise by unfortunate circumstance, sat listlessly among them. He watched with dull envy as they filled their throats with what vestiges of dew remained and shimmied their hirsute backs with silent contentment, bitterly lusting for the simplicity in which they so seamlessly existed. Jesse drove the toe of his boot further into the sodden earth; and beneath his arid breath, cursed the sun and sweltering summer heat — this damnable locale nestled within the devil’s bosom somewhere between fertile prairie and swampland.

As did the fauna, so did the women the humidity made them restless in their bustles and naturally, they sought relief by way of tormenting their thicker-brained counterparts. The men could do nothing but suffer the lashings of their impatient tongues, wordlessly hoping the satin shades of their parasols might alleviate some modicum of ire and spare them further torment.

[ ... ] The cicadas screamed. A rogue wind blew back his chestnut hair and the limbs of the magnolia shivered with delight.

"Ain't you got somethin' better t'do, girl..?" Tobacco tongue seeped in molasses clicked against the backs of his teeth; hands clad in cowhide leather tugged the brim of his hat over his eyes. His back rests against the peeling, portentous bark.

He could tell by both the taffeta of her skirts and the gentle curl of her hair that she was no barmaid. "Yer daddy's gonna come an' put a bullet in my head if he sees you talkin' to me and I ain't feel like gettin' shot today."

[d-eadeye]

'But all to be found was her mountain laurel crown. Still tangled with strands of burnt-birch down,' @unholywood, ✩.

‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ “This it?” said a man from the rear.

The coachman drew the horses to an uneasy halt by the roadside, onto an arid, unprosperous stretch of land. It looked as though there were miles of nothing but poplar and mulberry sprung above smudges of dried thatch and weed. Sparse clusters of sweetspire kept their heads against the capricious gale while the driver steadied his reins.

“Yessir, tha’s it——- behind all them trees. I kept my word, son, I ‘spect you t’do the same now.”

The ground was dry, compact, and beneath his heeled boots, unyielding. The horses idly whinnied. “I ain’t gon’ swindle you, ol’ fella. Not today.”

Beyond its wild purlieu, the grounds were well-kept with regard to their expansive size; rolling hills with swaying sugar maple, aster and beeblossom, broad oaks with their stout and sprawling roots interwoven with verdant earth. Birdsong accompanied his walk along the property's bosom to its staid facade, doorway trimmed with ornately carved oak and embellished by over-grown, oblong topiaries in fat-bellied limestone pots. His thick finger rang the bell once then twice, before a brown-eyed waif finally answered the door.

Jesse removed his hat and held it to his chest. "Pardon th'intrusion. I ain't one t'bother folks from their home but, well.. Lady-of-the-house around, sweet-pea?"

[d-eadeye]

"In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat," @defyfates' felicia hardy. ٭

The radio gargles to life: vintage notes swirl upon the rasp of old-time melody, warm and distant, familiar yet strange. The drawl of a muted clarinet careens against the wallpaper flowers while silence strums at the curtain fringe. The cushions beneath him feel lavish though uncomfortable, rigid with rampant disuse. He silently wonders what the use is in having a grand ol' couch that is seldom sat in or a tired radio that croons to an audience of none.

He looks ahead; he watches the diamond necklace sparkle atop its linen bust from within its solemn cage of crystal. The lamplight, barely enough to be considered dim, strokes the many facets of its abundant diamond-drippings.

A siren wails somewhere distant. The woeful saxophone whines. He resists the urge to put a bullet through the crackling Victrola when the curtains flutter as if to breathe.

The burnished barrel of his gun slowly lifts the edge of his hat brim and a smile, as though it'd been there all the while, materializes through the shadow and song. "Was wonderin' how long you were gon' keep me waitin.' Ain't much a fan of the oldies.. Or heights. Or cat-burglars."

[d-eadeye]

“ah might be a damsel, but ah sure as hell weren’t in distress.” rogue is all horns, a raging bull fresh out the china shop. “ mind yer business next time, sugah.”

"So you one o'them real Southern girls, ain'tcha..?" A coyote smile with hawk eyes; extolled from his arid lips with a deep molasses drawl, words listless among wry surety and a loose bourbon tongue. He is content to revel in her honey-sweetened ire, to stoke the fervor of her flames like a January fire, endlessly eager to dwell longer than he should amidst coal and ember. The subsequent whistle was all but inevitable: uncouth, thick with all the crude thoughts his mouth yearned to say but did not. Jesse only feigned his submission. "Big hair n'a bigger mouth. Well they don't make 'em any better'n that, do they?"

Hands fell by his denim sides, thumbs hung benignly from sun-faded belt loops. The fraying toothpick at his lip rolled with idle glee.

"Alrighty-then. Now I ain't gon' lie to you, girl: never been one t'mind my own business. Too much'uva devil fer all that peace-keepin'. How's about you let me handle that there crate, git it where it needs to go, n'you can keep cursin' me out over some drinks? I'd bet my last dollar that you like 'em real stiff."

Sunlight gleams from a single silver tooth. "I reckon yer in good hands, honey."

[d-eadeye]

let me have one more look at you. one more look. :)

There was an old saying: once a hungry dog tastes blood, well.. There ain't no goin' back. I fear the same stood for a starved coyote, salivating from its jagged maw over the prospect of a woman's succulent admiration. If he was a wolf, he would'a howled; but he was an irredeemable dog with no redemption in his blood and so, he stood like a hungry mutt against that shoddy doorway, the right side of his brawn bent at the elbow while one dirt-dusted ankle eclipsed the other. Any more praise, he would'a barked, @luckstole.

"Git a good look, honey," he soothed, half-moon grin wrought dangerously within a velvet dark. "I'll stand 'ere all night." Thumb hooked at his belt-loop, no less.

He was a simple man in possession of simple delights, bewitched by all things pretty and irrevocably dangerous; and the things he wanted to do her, no good sinner would have spoken aloud. As seamlessly as she she'd ensnared his carnal attention, he'd just as soon forgotten his objective forgotten about the pistol that weighed heavy from his holster, aching with a need for chaos and release. Well, and then there was his gun.

The cowboy whistled, short and strained. "Matter fact... You weren't leavin', were you? I reckon we've got a thing 'er two 'er three t'discuss." Melted molasses over honey-bit bourbon, a slow drag of his yellow eye. "I got nothin' but time, baby."

[d-eadeye]

Rust gathered in the neglected crevices of humanity, dithered though present. The wind howls at him as if disdainful of the black smoke he exhales along its back, dark and singed like rough-churned coal from the dry gullet of a chimney stack, @umbralsun, 𐚁.

Daylight, like a dream, vanishes in a blaze over the horizon, the prickled arms of withered cacti idly reaching for the inferno. A tumbleweed rolls between their feet and Jesse, having savored his cigar for a moment too long, erupts into a boisterous coughing fit; he chokes into the crevice of his of his left arm, its polished metal joints creaking from within.

"See this is one of them times where I git envious of you machine-types.. [brusque clearing of the throat] Y'all ain't got no lungs t'choke on."