desolate

[tangodancerxmumu]

Sanem was very quickly understanding how precarious the situation in Kansas was. In her rented car, the ride to the airport at four in the morning hadn’t been too alarming. But once she got there and waited... and waited... and waited, and by eight, she was thoroughly panicked. No one had shown up to the airport, not even staff, and she hadn’t heard so much as a car on the road from where she stood. Her phone’s battery was dying quickly--she’d been on there all morning trying to get in contact with her ex-husband. “Thomas, this isn’t a joke. Something is seriously wrong here,” she hissed into the receiver. “Please, call me back, I want to speak to my daughter.” She hung up, hands trembling as she glanced back out towards the road. Red, hot tears of frustration fell down her face as she looked down at her phone, fully prepared to dial the same number she’d been calling all morning.

Suddenly, the sound of her frantic breathing wasn’t the only thing she could hear. Footsteps. She froze, realizing that she was utterly defenseless. She turned, prepared to run if she needed to, but the face looked so familiar it gave her pause. She squinted, and as the morning light gave it more illumination, she called out. “Eren Demir?” She hadn’t seen him since boarding school, and despite the dire circumstances, she was relieved to see a friendly face. “Sanem Aydin,” she reintroduced. “We went to school in England together. I was a year or two under you.” She’d had the biggest crush on him, not that that mattered much anymore.

starter for @adastraxmumu​ ( eren and sanem )

[tangodancerxmumu]

Eda’s heart was in her throat, had been since she woke up that dreaded New Year’s morning. It had all been too quiet, and when she went to check up on the boys, the streets had been too empty. Of the two people she’d seen, both had been breaking down windows to cars, to apartments, and she was much smaller than they were. Scrappy, sure, she’d call herself that, but she knew she needed to grab supplies and lay low and hope her brothers were doing the same out there. “Fuck,” she muttered, the door to the local grocery wide open as she stared inside of it. She looked back at her car, making sure the parking lot was empty before entering the store, her father’s old baseball bat in hand. Her brother should have had it on him. She should have left them with something, but it was only supposed to be a night.

She entered the store on high alert, the fluorescent lights illuminating decently stocked shelves. She knew she had to get in and out. Making a beeline for the toiletry products, she wondered for a moment if she should steal a gun while she was at it. She’d never had one, but she didn’t want to risk anything. In that brief moment of thought, and the turning of a corner, she didn’t notice the man coming until he was almost on her. Bat held out in front of her, she narrowed her sights, lips a thin line on her mouth. “Don’t come any fucking closer.” He didn’t look frightening, but she wasn’t about to risk anything. “I’m not above using this.”

starter for @nowhremumu​ ( aidan & eda )

[tangodancerxmumu]

typoqueenmumu·:

open starter for all

“Come on, Seth,” Adam’s voice was strained as he spoke into the phone, swallowing thickly. “I don’t know why every single person has decided to send me to voicemail, man, but you gotta pick up. You always pick up and I’m getting freaked out.” Ever since they’d woken up, Adam knew something was wrong. The six of them being the only people in town, no driver, no townies. Nothing. He’d tried called his mom - voicemail. His dad - voicemail. Every single one of his four siblings - voicemail. “I just want to know you’re okay,” He murmured quietly into the phone, a tear slipping down his cheek. Hearing someone behind him, he snapped the flip phone shut, turning around with an expression much like a deer caught in the headlights. “Uh, sorry,” He cleared his throat, wiping at his eyes. “Everything okay?”

Candy didn’t mean to eavesdrop, genuinely she didn’t. But he wasn’t the most quiet man, and with less people... “I was just wondering if I could do anything to help,” she offered, taking a step closer. Though he’d wiped his eyes, she could still see the tears glistening in them. It made her almost grateful that she didn’t have a reason to rush to call her parents. Her older brother. Her sister. She swallowed, pulling her backpack off so she could look inside of it. “Let me see,” she muttered, scrambling about until she found a half-empty travel container of kleenex. She handed them to him with a gentle smile. “I’m sure that whoever you’re trying to reach is fine.”

[tangodancerxmumu]

alltangledupxmumu·:

Charlie watched her sit down next to him, a small smile coming to his face as she leaned against him. “God, I know. My room was on the corner there,” he motioned with a nod of his head, “and it must have been windy, because branches from the tree kept knocking at my window. It was driving me nuts.” He shook his head, raising his hand to rake his fingers through his hair, messy from the tossing and turning. At her question, a laugh left his lips, and he shrugged. “You do you, but if your roommate is hungover from New Years I doubt they’ll appreciate it.” He nodded, though, at her suggestion. “Yeah, that was my thought too… did you go out and do anything last night?” He seemed to recall seeing at least one person wandering down to the bar, after he’d gotten his pizza - but it’d been too dark to see if it was even another bus-rider.

Candy chuckled slightly as she listened to the night the boy next to her had. “Poor thing,” she murmured, smile on her lips. “I wanted the bed by the window in my room, but it was taken when I got there, so slept next to this giant stain on the mattress... I don’t want to know.” She moved through her phone, trying to find a cute photo of her little angel back home. Finally, she settled on a photo of her and her cat in matching pink berets, moving the phone to show him. “This is my little Princess,” she said, motioning to the white cat. “She followed me home from the grocery store one day.” She moved the phone back, looking at her baby with a bright smile. She shook her head at his question. “Normally I get absolutely blasted in New Year’s, but I didn’t want to oversleep and miss the bus. You do anything?”

[tangodancerxmumu]

artxfsurvival·:

Alix stood leaning against a post outside the motel, absentmindedly picking at the already chipping white nail polish on her fingernails. “I can’t imagine I’d want a passed out drunk to be driving us halfway across the united states.” Sighing, she pushed away from the post, eyes moving across the street in search of any sign of movement other than the wave of the trees in the light breeze. “How much longer do we want to wait here before venturing off to find a worker or a washed up bus driver passed out on a dirty gas station bathroom?”

Candy groaned slightly, falling back against the motel’s wall, eyes shutting for a moment. This day was proving to be exhausting, confusing, and worst of all... oddly lonely, despite the people she’d found so far. “He can’t drive us anywhere with the bus in the state it’s in. I doubt anyone’s looked at it yet.” If they did find him, she was going to give the man a piece of her mind. She opened her eyes, glancing over at the woman next to her. She didn’t want to wait any longer than she had to before venturing out and trying to find anyone, but especially that bus driver. “I’m down to check now, if you want to.” She wouldn’t be going anywhere alone. “I think I saw a corner store, a bar... Not much else here beyond maybe a few restaurants to check, and honestly, I’m starved.”

[tangodancerxmumu]

Candy still couldn’t believe what was happening--there was, and she couldn’t stress this enough, almost no one to be found in this town. The only people she’d seen were the people from the bus, and as much as she wasn’t outwardly losing her shit, she was still processing what this might mean. Where had the people gone? They couldn’t have just vanished. Again, she pulled out her phone and tried to call her roommate back in Salt Lake. She sighed. No signal again. The sound of panting caught her attention, and a small corgi waddled over, happy and oblivious as ever. “Oh, hey, baby,” she greeted, offering a hand for the dog to sniff before petting him. “What a good boy you are,” she praised, hardly noticing the young man walking over behind him. “You know, at least you’re still around, right?” she asked the dog, again, with no answer.

starter for @nowhremumu​ ( jax & candy )

[tangodancerxmumu]

alltangledupxmumu·:

Charlie understood why businesses around them would be closed. It was New Years Day, and it was a very small town - and, besides, pizza places and bars usually weren’t open so early anyway. However, the motel’s lobby being unstaffed was weird, and the fact that their bus driver was nowhere to be found was even weirder. Trying not to worry, though, he sent his sister another text, letting her know every hour or so whether or not they had left. Her not having replied was really the weirdest part, since he knew she had to be up by now. When someone approached him, sitting on the curb, he glanced up from his phone to look at her. “I thought so too, but we can’t find the bus driver.” He explained. “And there’s no one at the front lobby, and the phones seem to be down. I think a line must have gone down somewhere.”

”Damn.” Candy moved to sit down next to the kid, not liking the fact she she towered over him like that. Long legs flopped out in front of her as she did, leaning into him a little bit. “I could’ve gotten a bit more sleep. Those mattresses were like rocks, I swear.” She noticed he had his phone out, and she reached for her own, checking for bars. Absolutely nothing. It made sense, she guessed. Middle of nowhere meant shoddy signals. “I’m guessing I shouldn’t call my roommate to check on my cat, right?” She glanced over at him, before her eyes moved over to the people wandering around, looking for people. “It’s New Years Day. He probably got a little too cozy with the locals. Holidays bring that out in people.” It was an easy enough explanation.

[tangodancerxmumu]

adastraxmumu·:

[ nell & candy ]

The nausea was passing finally, the cool tile below Nell’s hands grounding her as she breathed in and out, riding the last of the waves. She leaned back against the wall, eyes closed as her hand moved up to touch the cross she wore around her neck. What was she doing? After a moment she stood, flushing the toilet, washing her hands and rinsing out her mouth before making her way to the bag she had thoughtlessly dropped onto the bed in her rush to the bathroom. She rifled through it, taking inventory of everything. It was all there, except— “Oh rats.” She’d forgotten to pack a toothbrush. Looking up again, she was startled to find the other girl that the bus had assigned to her room staring at her. She wrapped the jacket she hadn’t had time to remove around herself tighter and stared back. How long had the other girl been there? “I- uh- didn’t realize you were here.” 

@tangodancerxmumu

Even though Candy wasn’t the biggest partier, she was no stranger to that feeling the morning after, throwing up a storm. The curse of being a lightweight, she figured. While she hadn’t seen her roommate walk out in the night, she figured she must have had some empties in her bag as she overheard that familiar sound coming from the bathroom. A small frown crossed her lips--she pitied anyone who had to sit in front of a toilet and get on a shaky bus the next morning. She’d fully intended to mind her business, but as she watched the blonde emerge from the bathroom, she couldn’t help herself. “Seltzer water usually helps me when I’m not feeling well. Or a good soup. Actually--” She looked down at her bag, rifling through it, muttering as she did until she found something and hummed gently, holding it out. “--Mints are a lifesaver. Take one, babe.”

[tangodancerxmumu]

Candy had been hoping to be able to sleep in as much as she wanted on this trip, but when the bus broke down the night before, she knew she’d have to be up bright and early to get back on. And while she’d taken three alarms to do so, she did manage to get out of bed, throw on clothes, and walked outside with her things at a decent hour. The bitter morning air bit at her nose, the air thicker than she was used to back home. Humidity, she found out, didn’t suit her well. She spotted a few people walking about, but as she approached one of the younger men from the trip, she noticed that the bus seat was empty. “I thought we’d be boarding about now, kid,” she told him, her expression warm. “You have any idea where everyone’s wandering off to?”

starter for @alltangledupxmumu​ ( candy & charlie )

[tangodancerxmumu]

”Okay, so this one might be weird,” Candy started, rambling again for the umpteenth time that day. While she wasn’t quite as panicked as some of the other people from the bus, but still, not being able to find anyone else, including their bus driver, was more than a little unsettling. “But have we checked that dive on the corner? Maybe he just had too much to drink. Hell, if I was the one driving through Bumfuck, Kansas, I’d want a stiff one.” The woman next to her, the unfortunate recipient of her newest idea, was the only one she could find at the moment. Her roommate and it seems the rest of the bus people had scattered to the winds, looking around. “I mean, he could just be in a bathroom stall or in a back room if he drank too much. I had a bartender do that with me one time. Nice guy.”

starter for @artxfsurvival​ ( candy & alix )

[xshayarsha]

“My head is magnificently empty, my heart dangerously full;”

— Marina Tsvetaeva, from Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems; Girlfriend.

[bisexualjumpol]

✰✰✰✰✰ Tantawan ✰✰✰✰✰