but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

[singmod]

JANUARY 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: NASCENCE: Following the strange dream at new year, a three-day Aurora takes place. During which, Interlopers discover a possible ally in the mysterious woman heard in the static and heard in the dream — potentially earning new abilities.

PROMPT TWO — ADUST: The Interlopers find out what happened to the owners of long-destroyed Milton House in the form of hauntings.

PROMPT THREE — THE VISITOR: Interlopers find themselves with an unwelcome visitor — a shadow doppelganger here to make everything absolutely worse.

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

WHEN: January 13th - 15th.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of being burned alive; some minor supernatural horror; some minor ‘ghost’ horror/hauntings; death of npcs in various ways including suicide, murder or exposure to elements.


In the middle of the month, it happens. A herald. The noise starts: faint at first, but then growing louder. An ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds difficult to place. There’s a kind of electrical buzzing with it all, a low, endless hum punctuated with cracks and pops. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night: The Aurora has come.

Much of what happened previously happens again: Streetlights, illuminating the town’s roads; lights in stores and homes will come alive, buzzing and flickering at times. Previously abandoned cars will turn on, their headlights blaring. Electronics that had previously seemed broken flick on — and whilst there are no broadcasts available on televisions, and the radio waves only drone on in static, both only occasionally blaring standard emergency broadcasts. Any computers and phones will turn on, but will have no internet or reception. Instead, Interlopers may find texts and emails — many of them unsent. The everyday lives of their users stored within, now readable.

There are still some instances of the ‘ghosts’ from the previous Auroras, but they are now only faint outlines, and far fewer in number. However, whilst the Aurora would usually only last until the next morning on sporadic nights over the month — this time it will last for a full three days. The world is plunged into darkness, a seemingly endless night with only the Aurora to light the skies.

On the second night of lights and noise, a voice calls out to you: static-like, and distant — as if someone speaks over a radio. A woman’s voice. It is the same one you’ve been hearing for a few weeks now, but finally it is far stronger than the scant whispers of name and the word ‘help’. She is far clearer now.

“You.” she says. She may whisper your name, too. “I see you.” You’re unable to speak back, the communication is only one way. She sounds upset, but there’s something more… a kind of wonder, perhaps.

”It’s not just a regular aurora borealis, but then you probably worked that out already, haven’t you? It’s so much more than that. Everything is… changing.”

”I don’t know how you can go back. But— but I can help. Maybe. Maybe I can make this place easier, somehow. I need help, but I’m stuck—” There’s frustration in her voice for a moment. ”It took from you. Took you away. It doesn’t always have to take. We can take, too. Sleep. I will help you take back. You will survive this. You will not go into the Dark. This is not the end.”

You have no idea what that means, for the most part. But you might just end up taking the chance and doing as the woman asked, even if it’s difficult with the noise and light with the Aurora. Sleep, and a dream may come to you.

FREE RUNNER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are a magnificent stag, galloping through the snowy woods with ease. You seem to go on and on, never tiring, never slowing. You feel like the wind, or perhaps the very wind itself carries you. Not once do you stumble or fall, even when the snow is thick and deep, or the ground is shaky and uneven beneath you. You feel free.

When you awaken, you feel the most refreshed you’ve ever felt since you first came here. For the final day of the Aurora, you are bursting with energy and even when the lights in the sky fade — that revitalised feeling within you remains. There’s something within you that understands: you are the Free Runner. The ground will yield beneath you, your energy will not desert you, the wind will carry you.

LIGHT BRINGER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of sitting by a lonely campfire in the mouth of a cave at night, warming your hands. As you sit, a strange feeling comes over you, a desire to reach out to the flames. And so you do, reaching with both hands into the fire — gripping at the white-hot embers. It burns you, and for a moment there is blinding hot pain as the fire suddenly explodes around you, consuming you whole. But the pain soon stops. The fire doesn’t burn you. No, you have become the blaze — your body warmed. You burn bright enough that the darkness around you turns into day.

When you awaken the next morning, you feel warmed and comfortable. As if even the coldest of winters couldn’t reach your bones. The warmth remains even when the Aurora ends, and you are left with the innate understanding:you are the Light Bringer. The power of flame is at your very fingertips. You master the light, life, warmth.

AURORA CALL: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are standing in the very sky itself, at the Aurora’s height. Colour and sound twirls around you, within you — and you feel it curl into your body. Your head fills with noise, a chorus of voices calling out, snippets of conversation echoing within you. A woman’s voice calls to you, it is the same voice that spoke to you before you slept: “Don’t you understand it now? We are all connected. The Aurora connects us.”

And you do, you do understand it.

When you awaken, you feel connected to the world around you. To the very people who live amongst you. You feel less lonely, a kind of kinship with others. You have heard the Aurora’s Call and you have answered it, unlocked a connection with your fellow Interlopers. You will be heard.

NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.

ADUST

WHEN: From mid-month to month end.
WHERE: Milton House.
CONTENT WARNINGS: fire; house fire; death of a child/children; hauntings; ghosts; mental manipulation; illusions of burning/being burned; potential injuries via falling/unstable building collapsing.

There is a reason why it is advised to avoid Milton House other than the simple fact that it’s a miracle the house is still standing. Once one of the largest buildings in the town of Milton, it is now a former shell of what was once a fine and grand house. It has lain in ruin for many years, dilapidated and host to a great deal of fire damage.

While he is in town, Methuselah will not speak of the place, but he often looks sad when it has been brought up in conversation. “A great tragedy.” he will say before falling into a pensive silence. “A blackened mark on the town’s memory.” He does not wish to say much more of what happened: sometimes there are things that are just too painful. He will continue to advise the ruin is left alone, out of respect, and the fact that the place is a danger.

Of course, advice will not stop anyone from attempting to get into the ruins and exploring the house, even if it is in fact highly dangerous.

The sounds of voices and whispers may be enough to pique anyone’s interest. You're sure you heard something, maybe you should go to check it out?

It is true in the fact that the house itself is incredibly dangerous structurally: floors and stairs may give way and you’ll find your foot (and half of you) falling right through the floorboards. Damp and rot that have long since set in, and it will be dangerous to breathe in. But you’ll find that the house itself is pretty ordinary: this was once a family home. Just about the entirety of the house and its contents aren't salvageable, but you’ll be able to find out a little about who once lived here.

There are faded, half-destroyed photos that show a family of five: a father, mother, and three young children all under the age of ten. The father with warm, beaming smiles, the mother has kind eyes, the two oldest boys with toothy grins much like their father, the younger girl looks shy, wanting to hide against her mother. They look happy. Just a typical family. In a world where so many strange things are happening, it feels so strange to look upon these family photos and around this home to realise that they simply lost their home in a house fire.

But as you hold a family picture, or some half-destroyed trinket: a toy, a shoe, a book, a vase, you’ll find the item will suddenly catch alight, bursting into flames in your very hands. The flames do not burn you, and as you discard the item, it will fall to the floor as if nothing had happened.

Then, it comes to you. Here and there. Different sensations that stop and start suddenly: the house groans and creaks around you; the smell of smoke enters your nose; the sound of fire cracking and popping with a roar fills your ears; the sensation of heat against your skin; the clawing and suffocating feeling in your lungs that makes you cough and choke; the sounds of terrified shrieks of children echoing above you. Feelings flood you: fear, panic. When you next turn around, the entire house is aflame around you, and you can’t tell if this is real or if you’re reliving some terrifying memory.

You need to leave, get out of here. For some, it will be what comes naturally. You’ll have to fight through the flames and escape the house before it burns down completely around you. You’ll have to fight your way out, find an exit not already consumed by flames — through a window, perhaps. Crashing out of the house and into the snow, you’ll look back and see Milton House just as you entered it: nothing more than a half-burned ruin.

But for others, there will be another pull. You are drawn upstairs, to the screams of children. You need to get to them, to help them, save them. You will battle through the flames, heading towards the ruins of what was a child’s bedroom, or towards the bathroom. Inside either, you will find a figure cowering, engulfed wholly in flames: one in the bathtub or one in the closet. You recognise them as the two sons from the family pictures.

Mom. They will call you. Or Dad. They weep, terrified of the flames. I’m scared, I’m scared. I want the fire to go away. Help me. Stay here.

The tragedy of Milton House is before you. More than just a fire. What is more tragic than the death of a child? What silences voices? Breaks spirits? Leaves one helpless to act in the wake of such a passing?

There is something to be done here. You are not so powerless. Calm the child. Offer gentle assurances. They will get out. They are safe. You are there for them. You will stay. Embracing them will set you alight. Too hot. Too bright. It will hurt, but you won’t burn. But don’t let go; holding them will eventually calm them down enough for the flames to grow dim, to slowly ease their spirits to rest.

Soon enough, the flames will go out and the child will disappear, leaving you alone in a decaying, dilapidated room.

In the churchyard of Milton, there is a family grave by the name of Barker. Three lie within it: Thomas it reads, and his beloved sons, Patrick and Christopher.

THE VISITOR

WHEN: The month of January.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: erything absolutely worse.
THE VISITOR — CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural beings; dream-related horror/disturbing dreams; doppelgangers; themes of depression; themes of self-harm; themes of isolation; potential themes of suicide.


It seems the dream of the New Year and the Aurora dreams are not the only odd sleep-related instances occurring this month. You first notice that something is off when a strange dream pulls you from sleep. The dream may feel like any particular dream you have, whether it be a usual nightmare or strange concoction your brain has conjured up for you this night. Maybe it’s a dream you’ve had before, maybe it’s a new dream entirely. But no matter the dream, there is one thing that is odd about it. In tiny moments within the dream, you notice that there is something different, something that feels out of place. Something is there that shouldn’t be.

A figure, tall and silent, entirely made of shadow stands lurking in the background. It looks human, but there is not much more that you can really describe further. It is a sad, unsettling presence.

When you awaken, eyes bleary from sleep, and you look about the room, to the bottom of your bed, for a half-moment you see that figure standing there silently. That unsettling sadness permeates the room, and after a few seconds of blinking and sitting up — the figure disappears. Perhaps it was just some trick of the mind, some half-awake illusion.

But the next time you sleep, it appears again. The same figure, the same emotions surrounding it. And when you awaken, it stands at the bottom of your bed once more. Only this time, it lingers, and you find yourself staring down the figure before it disappears once more.

Over the next several days, the presence continues to linger more and more. It stands silently in the corner of the room of your home; it hovers by the window, staring out into the snow; it stands in the middle of the road as you go about your business. More and more, it is there. Always standing, always watching — silent and sad.

No one else seems to notice it, only you. And over time, the shape of it seems to change — the vague, undefined shape of it slowly shifts into something you recognise. The same hair, the same height, the same way it holds itself: it is exactly like you. A perfect doppelganger, a second shadow. And with it, it exudes an oppressive sadness, a particular kind of loneliness. It is suffocating, bleeding into you.

It makes you withdraw from the world around you, from the people around you. Perhaps you stop spending time with others, retreating into solitude. You hide from others, keep to yourself. You find yourself not sleeping at all or perhaps sleeping too much. Perhaps what little you already eat becomes nothing. The shadowy doppelganger draws ever closer to you, close enough to touch you - ever hovering at your shoulder. Its presence bores down on you, making you feel small and more and more alone even with its ‘company’. No one else can seem to see it but you, mentioning it to others will earn odd looks, or even concern. It seems you and your double are alone together.

Hopefully, those around you will notice the change in you. How you stopped reaching out, how you’ve stopped taking care of yourself. Hopefully they will see something isn’t right and reach out. You are doomed to the doppelganger's company otherwise.

However, those around you can push the shadowy double away, and can break its influence and hold over you. Genuine care and concern for you will have it shrinking back. Perhaps it is a kind word, perhaps it is the gentle but insisting coaxing to eat. Perhaps it is an attentive ear to listen to your thoughts, to how the presence has made you feel. Maybe it is even the simplest of touches, an embrace or the holding of a hand, the grip of a shoulder. Continued connection with you will slowly have the visitor’s power diminish.

And hopefully it is done before it is too late, or it may be all too easy to fade into the Long Dark.

FAQs

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

1. Aurora Feats are now unlocked! Please see the following page for more information. Aurora Feats are completely optional.

2. Interlopers will only receive ONE Aurora Event. The only time this is available is this month. After January, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.

3. This Aurora will last a full three days. It will be a period of only night.

4. For more information on the ghostly loops seen during the Aurora, see this previous event, under 'The Aurora: Aftershocks' prompt.

5. For new players who would like a little extra context regarding the woman can look at December's Tales From The Northern Territories, under the 'New Happenings in December' section.

ADUST

1. Characters will not be physically burned in the fire, but only feel as if they have been. The effects of this illusion will last a short time after they're out the house before they will fade.

2. The only real injuries characters can sustain will be from fall damage, or if the floor gives way and their feet go through, etc. whilst in the house.

3. The children cannot leave the house. They will be too scared to leave. In addition, they are tethered to the house, given that this is where they died. Simply being calmed/comforted is the best way to help them and they will disappear after that.

THE VISITOR

1. An Interloper's Visitor can't be seen by anyone but the Interloper themselves.

2. The Visitor can be spoken to, but it will not speak back. It cannot be interacted with and is intangible.

PLOTTING POST

Comments

[pacificator]

His lost and wandering hand musses her already mussed hair, pushing snow-covered locks into her face. She tries to press her lips together, but that just means her next burst of giggles comes bubbling out after a breathless blown raspberry. It's all just so fucking funny. He's laughing, and she's laughing, and she can barely focus on the multiple swaying heads he's got through the ice crystals clinging to her eyelashes. "Maybe."

She almost purrs it as she mirrors his motion and rolls onto her side, snow caking her jeans and coat and sliding, ice-cold and startling, down along her bare belly and back. "What is it?"

Except it comes out slurred and loose: whadisit? Wynonna flicks a little snow at him and tries to swallow the next giggle that's already trying to let loose.

[questioningmermaids]

"Can you--I gotta--I'm gonna say something. Are you ready?"

March is looking at Wynonna very seriously, his hand still in her hair. He's less slurred but none of his words seem to be all over the place, brain flitting from one subject to another.

"We gotta go into the house."

A beat. March laughs.

"That's not what I was gonna say. I need you to do something but we house gotta in get."

[pacificator]

Wynonna laughs and pushes at him. "You're. You'rrreeee. Drunk."

Like she isn't? But he's not wrong. She's finally starting to feel the cold (she's been shivering for the last three minutes but hasn't noticed), and inside sounds great. Pushing up onto her knees, she wobbles, then carefully gets to her feet.

She's surprised and pleased to find a bottle of pine wine in her hand, and takes a swig.

"Okay. Inside. Favor." She stares owlishly at March. "Is the favor to tell you if that coat is too much? 'Cause that. That I can do."

[questioningmermaids]

"Snot too much," March slurs as he gets up halfway, his foot nearly sliding out from underneath him courtesy of his Californian weather-styled boots. He catches himself through some sort of miracle just before doing some splits too uncomfortable to come back from, uprights himself up entirely, and offers a hand to Wynonna to help.

"Ken said it had Kenergy. S'warm. You can put it on if you want. An' then I need you to smell me." No, that's not right.

"I need you to smell me."

That's the same sentence.

"I need you to smell for me."

Nailed it.

[pacificator]

She eyes him, swaying gently on her feet even as she lets him take her arm and starts stumbling toward the house he'd just come out of. "Smell... what?"

He smells like pine wine and smoke. Add in a dash of gunpowder and she'd almost think it was Doc she's with. Except it's not Doc, because she's nowhere near the Triangle. No Doc, no Dolls, no Waverly. Not even a Nedley around to give her disappointed looks. "You wanna smell me?"

Weird. But not the weirdest request she's ever gotten from a guy. "Fine, but I'm warning you now that I haven't gotten to the springs in a while."

Her boot hits the edge of a step and she goes down, slamming her knee on the wood, hard enough that she can feel it even through the muffling padding of the alcohol in her system. "Ow, fuck!"

[questioningmermaids]

Wynonna falls and March can't help the laugh, a high giggle that doesn't look like it should come from a 6'2" guy no matter how lanky he is. He should check if she's okay because she's swearing, but instead he just moves over, mink coat and all, to try to help her up. He's half helpful, at the very least.

"Yeah, I wanna smell you."

It's a miracle March hoists the two of them up given his shoes, the snow, and their inebriated state, but they're lucky enough for it to work for the most part, if sloppily. Finally something's going their way.

"I can't smell though," is the casual continuation. "So I just need you to check the house to smell gas."

There's no power. There's no gas. It's a neurotic thing that doesn't make sense, but he doesn't mind asking Wynonna. He never minds. Wynonna's cool. Wynonna gets him. He likes to think he gets Wynonna, too.

"Got more booze in there, too."

[pacificator]

Oh. Okay. That makes sense, kind of. "You can't smell?"

Her moonshine-soaked brain can't quite make sense of that, but two things are immediately clear: first, he's asking an extremely easy favor of her, and second, they've made it into the house. She goes stumbling through the door at his side, and once he's closed it behind them, she straightens, shakes her hair back, trying to take this seriously. "Okay. Okay. Lemme check."

Wynonna thrusts the bottle of pine wine into his hands, then closes her eyes and inhales through her nose. She can smell the shine, the remnants of cigarette smoke and coffee, the usual scents of a house where people have been living.

No gas, but he said check the house, and so when she cracks her eyes open she starts out with somewhat swaying steps, on a mission to sniff around until she's satisfied there's nothing here. "Do we even, even have gas here?"

Not that it really matters. He asked her to check, so she'll check.

[questioningmermaids]

"No," March says with absolute authortiy, they don't have gas, but he's had a Day and he doesn't want to discuss it, just wants to make sure. He has to make sure, somewhere in his alcohol addled and booze soaked brain there's an irrational fear of it happening again that's been kicked up thanks to the day's events.

It seems silly right now. It all seems silly. It's all bullshit, too, that he's here in this place, and Wynonna is here in this place, but Wynonna has gone and done a ridiculous request without a single moment of hesitation, just like that.

She's perfect.

"I can't smell. I got hit in the head a while back n' lost it--you wanna--you wa--you want--" Jesus.

"Cigarette for the missus?" There we go. March is walking to the carton on the counter. One foot is technically going in front of the other.

[pacificator]

"I'm good." She doesn't smoke, but she doesn't care if he does – men who smoke and drink and talk a big game all remind her of home.

That was never a good thing before she came here. She flips a loose hand at him and keeps on her determined, swaying walk around the first floor rooms, doing her best to sniff out gas they both know isn't there. Like she knows revenants aren't here, but when she gets back to the cabin each evening, she checks each trap and corner anyway, Peacemaker pulled and cocked.

Now, she stumbles sidelong into a doorway, slamming Peacemaker directly into her hip, which hurts like hell, but she plays it cool. Lounging against the doorframe, she gives March a lackadaisical, slightly wavery thumbs up. "No gas. Instenson... inspection complete."

Actually, hearing he got hit in the head maybe explains a lot of things about March, who's still wearing that ridiculous robe, which reminds her: "Who's Ken?"

[questioningmermaids]

"He's a doll," March says it casually because he's fairly certain if he doesn't he'll be hit with the 'dolls are real' thing again, and he doesn't have the heart to cycle through 'is thinking a mannequin is hot weird' line of thought whenever he looks at Barbie.

Besides. Why would he want to look at Barbie when Wynonna's there? That seems kind of stupid. Wynonna's gorgeous.

"He's gone now. Looks exactly like me." Ken was toned, and blonder, and had better posture, and looked almost nothing like March. He continues anyway, sticking a cigarette between his lips.

He takes it out almost immediately, waggling his fingers with the smoke in between them as he talks.

"Nope. Nope, actually, none of that. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna--this place--" Shit, he needs to sort his words out. March sits without looking and it's a miracle there's actually chair behind him, even if he lands a little too hard.

"--this place sucks and we? We do not. Because we? Are the bees knees. I've got another jar of pine wine and you're gonna share with me."

[pacificator]

She scoffs at him, sharp and amused, and comes sashaying off the doorframe with her thumbs in her back pockets. "Bee's knees? Are we suddenly in the Roaring Twenties?"

There's another chair at the table; she kicks it out with one booted foot as she lift Peacemaker out of the holster at her hip. Not for anything violent – the big gun goes right on the tabletop. Within reach, but again: not a threat. It's just so she's more comfortable when she slouches down into the chair and stretches out her leg, knocking the toe of her boot against March's California-sleek footwear. "Great. Love it. Bust out the pine wine and let's get this party started."

Because clearly they haven't had enough yet, despite the way she keeps blinking, trying to figure out which of March's three heads she should be looking at and talking to. "Knew you were the right man for the job."

What job? Who knows. He's the right man for this precise moment, at least, and that's more than she can say for almost anyone else.

[questioningmermaids]

He is the best man, thanks.

Wynonna puts her gun on the table, though, and March has a hard time not feeling suddenly emasculated. He stares at it, stares at Wynonna--realistically it's just sort of past her, given his inebriated state--and then back at the table.

He gets up, grabs his gun from the coffee table, plops it onto the kitchen table, realizes it's definitely smaller than the Peacemaker, looks at it and Wynonna and narrow his eyes.

"I don't care," he says, caring deeply. Best to just get more alcohol before he thinks about it too much. He still hasn't lit his cigarette, either, but he's letting it bop around his mouth as he slams down an extra mason jar. One for each of them. It's perfect.

"You wanna know somethin'?"

[pacificator]

Peacemaker has got to be at least five times bigger than his little snub-nosed pistol, which is hilarious on multiple levels. Wynonna sniggers at his brush-off and gives him a bland, knowing look as he sets down the jar. "Wanna open that for me?" she asks, sweet as honey. "You know, get your man card back?"

Whether he does or not is immaterial; either way, she's lounging back in the chair, putting her boots up on the rung of his, letting the world spin around her as he asks that question. "Maybe."

There are so many things she wishes she'd never come to know, like the faces of those boys from Milton House. "What is it?"

[questioningmermaids]

March's response to the man card comment is narrowed eyes and a lifted chin in protest even if his hands grab at the glass anyway, moving it towards him by dragging it on the table to make as much noise as possible.

"I think you're the only good part of this place," he's slurring but confident in his words as he unscrews the lid, nodding to himself. He pushes it forward and towards Wynonna with that same scraping motion.

"And I think you're way more suited to this shit than you wanna admit, maybe."

[pacificator]

It's a good thing he shoves that moonshine back over to her, because she needs it for what he says. March isn't the idiot everyone here thinks he is; yeah, he's goofy and accident-prone and he has no idea how to survive in the woods, but she thinks he was probably a pretty decent private dick. Hazy as those blue eyes are right now, they can be plenty incisive when it counts.

You're the only good part of this place falls into her hands and right back out again; she can't even try to look at it. She's never been the best part of anywhere for anyone and the very prospect of that lifelong truth suddenly reversing is unnerving as hell... and that's before he makes his actual observation.

So she reacts the only way she can; by arching her back and stretching, arms high above her head, lazy and lengthy and tugging her shirt up enough to show a pale expanse of midriff, in the hopes it'll distract him from making any more. "Which shit? Drinking in the woods? Hell yeah, I've been practicing that since I was thirteen."

[questioningmermaids]

"You're bullshitting a bullshitter," March points out, gaze intently watching the rise of that shirt, the way the fabric shifts upwards and exposes even more toned, perfect stomach, switching to the way her hair falls into her face and, jesus. Jesus Christ.

This is a problem. Wynonna is a problem. Trouble, capital T, the kind of hurricane March has no problems launching himself into head first. Maybe Wynonna doesn't mind a little chaos, either. They've known each other long enough. March has watched those hips come and go and the way her eyes turn up when she laughs and okay, shit, she's the prettiest girl in this whole place he's drunk and he doesn't care, so that's bad. This is bad.

But Wynonna's good.

"You know what I mean." He gets up. March shifts closer, sitting on the table itself to move into Wynonna's space, ignoring how the room is spinning, keeping his jar of shitty tasting pine wine on him. Just because he's mumbling his words, that's all. And maybe if he kisses her in a few seconds if she doesn't take a move to leave that'd be fine, too.

[pacificator]

March gets up and sits on the table, that ridiculous fluffy coat ballooning around him, and she keeps her boots hitched up on the rung of his chair, her eyes the only part of her that moves. At first, anyway. She follows him with a sliding glance, then tips her head back, tossing her hair over the back of her own chair. Her neck is sore where Louis sank his teeth into her flesh and her veins and she's dizzy with drink but –

How can she not feel it. The tug, like a finger reaching into her gut and curling there, beckoning. How when he moves and sits on the edge of the table, all long legs and hazy blue eyes and the smirk he gets when she's being a dick to him and he likes it and she knows he likes it. He likes her. Louis just had his mouth all over her throat and his body pressed up against hers, his hand curved at the angle of her jaw like a lover as he bit into her but this feels more dangerous.

Thank fucking God. "Do I?"

She gives him her best innocent look – never convincing, but then she never tries too hard – and sets her boots on the floor, gets up from her chair. The pine wine is there by his thigh and she reaches for it as she hip-checks one knee aside so she can position herself between that knee and the other one, eyes on him as she takes a long swallow of the shine. Wynonna sets the jar down, then reaches for the lapels of that ridiculous robe, her fingers sinking into the plush fur. "Aren't you getting hot in this thing?"

[questioningmermaids]

Wynonna Earp might actually kill him, but Holland is perfectly okay with that. Especially since she's close--way close--and giving him that look and yeah, it doesn't take a detective like Sherlock Holmes to put two and two together.

Were Wynonna's hands always elegantly strong? March looks down at them, at the way those fingers curl on the soft mink fur, and when he looks up his mouth is about as dry as a desert. He sits up a little straighter, taking the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and setting it behind him. It misses the table and lands on the floor next to it, but he's too busy moving that hand to cup her face, thumb running along her cheekbone.

"Little." It's mumbled. March doesn't care about the coat, the coat is stupid, fuck the coat, he cares about Wynonna, cares about leaning in so his face is near hers, cares about how gorgeous her skin is, the lovely expanse of her neck, the--

What the fuck?

"Did someone bite you?"

[pacificator]

"Yeah." She's too damn drunk to dissemble, when he's leaning so close and he's warm. He's warm, and he smells like smoke and pine wine and sweat and it is such a fucking shame he can't smell anything. She wants to press her face into the curve of his neck and just breathe him in.

But she's not drunk enough to throw Louis under the bus. "A mosquito. Big one."

There's an audible ribbon of confidence wrapping those words, turning her slow smile smug. He knows that's bullshit, but he's not gonna call her on it, and even if he did, she'd just serve up something equally ridiculous with this same lazy smile. She'd toss nonsense back and forth with him for hours, because he's the only one here who understands that sometimes, okay, sometimes she just wants to sink into easy words and innuendo and the touch of someone's hand on her cheek, fuck. He runs a thumb over her cheekbone and her whole stomach lurches, sharp and sidelong, with want. "Fuck, who cares?"

Three words that tumble off her tongue in a desperate rush as she fists her hands in that stupid coat and drags him forward to crash her mouth against his, solid as a punch.

cw gettin a lil spicy

[questioningmermaids]

Sure, a mosquito. Why not? March doesn't actually give a shit since it's clear Wynonna doesn't, and even if he did it's awful hard to concentrate when there's a pretty girl shoving him closer and kissing him. March can taste the alcohol and the desperation for some normalcy as he kisses back, too, tilting his head, moving that hand from her jaw to slide down to the base of her neck, weaving fingers into that hair like he's wanted to do since he first laid eyes on her.

Yeah. Who cares?

Because after a few moments instead of stopping and pulling away he finds himself sliding his hands down Wynonna, grabbing her by the hips in a surprisingly efficient manner despite his drunkenness: he hoists her right onto his lap from where he's sitting on the kitchen table and places a hand on small of her back to steady her as he continues the kiss.

cw: spicin it up

[pacificator]

She settles on his lap like a cowgirl into a saddle, easy and comfortable, and runs the fingers of both hands into that rumpled mass of dark gold hair, before one hand goes tracking down over his neck, his shoulder, his chest. Where her fingers tangle in the chain he wears and she pulls back for a second from his mouth and the drunken need in his kiss. Licks her lips as she glances down.

He wears this chain and that ring all the time. She's seen them both before, and never wanted to ask, because there's never a good story behind a ring someone wears around their neck. A cheater would slip it into his pocket; most married men would wear it on their finger.

She doesn't touch the ring – that's his, and he's still wearing it, and it's important – only slides her finger under the chain, her knuckle dragging over the thin material of his undershirt, before looking back up at him. She doesn't ask. He'll tell her if he wants.

What she wants is to get his mouth back on hers again, and she leans in to do just that, but it's a little different. A little sweeter. After all, she knows what it's like, missing someone.