green peppers; ota

[questioningmermaids]

Who: Holland March + anyone
What: March is not handling things very well and being a nuisance
When: Early arrival, throughout the day and also 2am
Where: Milton (town house, outside, the general 'all of it.')

Content Warnings: standard alcoholism warning for march

i. exploring;

[ This place sucks. It's a shit hole even without the added shittiness of it being a frozen wasteland in Canada, and that's a very strong opinion and the hill he wants to die on. March never shies away from telling people exactly what he thinks, oftentimes to the point of annoyance, and anyone who's talked to him for more than 20 seconds knows that he, like most people in this godforsaken tundra, would rather literally be anywhere else.

March's problem is that as much as he kicks up a stink and complains he's got that insatiable curiosity pumping through his veins. It's the whole PI thing, the whole detective business: you can't not be a little insane and want to check things out. Sure, there's a survival aspect but what wins March over in terms of going to explore is absolutely pure nosiness.

He's bundled himself up at least and can easily be found rifling around abandoned houses trying his best to ignore the important things like 'corpses' and 'the crushing and highly depressing feeling of being put in an insanely specific survival scenarios with absolutely no self preservation instincts whatsoever.' It's fairly easy to guess where he is: as he's rooting (looting) buildings, he's singing very loudly to the song in his head, only he can't remember the actual words. It's keeping him sane, even if it might be driving others up the wall. ]

ii. hot mess express;

[ There's no way this bottle of scotch isn't his. It's literally the same one he bought to congratulate himself, complete with the bag proudly displaying that it was purchased at Dale's Food Mart, EST 1955 and a price sticker. It's also right next to a framed school photo of his daughter; one of the few things that the fire spared.

So yeah, it's his bottle, so yeah, he's going to drink it, 'cause that photo is a little bit of a fuck you to him on cosmic level. It's been a tough day. Tough night, tough everything, and between the whole 'we're going to freeze to death' and general bone deep concern for everything and everyone he's met so far it doesn't take him long to finish off half the bottle. Probably he should save it. Probably. But he's treating the booze like the crumpled pack of cigarettes in his pocket: like it's normal, like he can continue to chain smoke and toss back his limited supplies. If anyone exploring comes across the little cabin he's found it in, be prepared for a very drunk and raucous welcome from where he's sitting on the floor, arms wide in delight like an old friend has just walked in for the first time in years, absolutely delighted and grinning a mile wide. ]

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!

iii. hot mess express (2am version);

[ The problem is that sometime between one am and two am that bottle is nearly empty and Holland March has consumed almost all of it. That's when he gets it: the best idea in the universe.

If he goes outside, he'll find more. It's probably not even that cold out anymore anyway, 'cause he's feeling warm. It's that nice little tickle in his chest that comes with a lot of booze and forgetting just how fucked they all are. March is smart, not stupid, obviously, so of course he brings a jacket. It's his suit jacket from home, all light linen, and his dress shirt is completely open exposing his tank top because yeah it's snowing or whatever but he's still, like, warm and shit.

He doesn't get very far in his mission to find more, but that's okay. One hand holding his flask from home, the other the almost empty bottle of scotch sans paper bag, March gasps loudly at the night sky. ]

I gotta show Healy this. The moon.

[ With absolutely no regard to any sensible people trying to sleep, March begins to shout as loudly as he possibly can, voice cracking and sounding rather girlish. ]

HEY HEALY! Healy! Healy!

[ He'll simmer down after no response or if no one stops him. Unfortunately, he still has that song in his head. Fellow interlopers: there is a very drunk, extremely loud man in the middle of the town square singing--slurring, more accurately--the words to an old 70s funk tune. ]

iv. hangover;

[ How he's managed to somehow wake after the previous nights events is beyond even his comprehension, but he's here. Alert isn't accurate, but March is technically awake and alive, staring miserably at the wall in the Town Hall, a cigarette dangling between his lips that hasn't been lit despite the gold lighter literally in his hand.

Possibly, he may be dying. Or just incredibly hungover. could go either way. ]

v. wildcard;

Feel free to DM me if you'd like a personalized starter, etc!

Comments

hot mess express (2 am) | cw: alcohol abuse, opiate withdrawal

[missionem]

[ Thomas was trying to sleep. He'd even been managing it, in gin-assisted fits and starts, each groggy swim back up to consciousness met with a hard pull from the mouth of the frigid bottle.

When the cacophony drags him back to awareness, Thomas lies still in his nest of soaked sheets on his stolen bed and wishes, very earnestly, for whoever is the owner of the appalling voice to be mauled by wolves as swiftly as possible. When that deliverance fails to manifest, he drags himself upright and begins the arduous process of struggling into his clothes.

It's not much longer after that before a hunched over man emerges from a house down the street from the square. He weaves a more or less direct route towards March with his bulky winter coat unzipped over his sodden undershirt, his eyes bright and burning in his pale, furious face.

When he sees the contents of March's hand and the state of his dress Thomas slows, early fury overtaken by greater exasperation. The headache he's been nursing for the better part of two days throbs against his skull. His tongue is a fat, woollen thing as he tries to loosen it for speech. ]

Be quiet. [ He manages, in a burst of juniper and alcohol. ] You great, bawling lunatic.

Sorry for the lateness!

[questioningmermaids]

[ March is vaguely aware of a looming figure in the same way that fish can tell there’s shadows on the surface of the water: there’s something there, sure, but it’s not really his business, is it?

Oh, shit, except the figure's moving. It’s not really serpentine but it’s not straight either and March stops what he’s doing to watch the not-really-zig-zag with complete and utter fascination, mostly because it’s how stumbles around when he’s about as drunk as this. Has he seen the other guy before? Maybe. His brows knit in complete confusion, the other’s exasperation not registering whatsoever despite the volume which which it's said. Thomas’ rightful annoyance and justified complaints are met with a single blink. ]

Yeah, but look at the moon.

[ Clearly that’s the best answer, right? For visual illustration, he points a thumb at the sky. ]

absolutely no worries!

[missionem]

The moon?

[ Thomas hisses, even as he tilts his head back and looks at the moon as prompted. He feels like a fool as soon as he does, which only compounds his irritation. ]

Is that what brought this on?

[ Etymologically it does follow, which is the sort of useless trivia Thomas would rather not have pop into his thoughts at any time. He jerks his chin down and glares at the man again, bristling with annoyance. ]

It calls to you, does it? Commands you to bay at it like a dog?

2am order of hot mess

[solitarysoul]

[Levi rarely sleeps well, so he was only barely asleep when he heard Holland shouting about something. It didn't sound like someone in trouble...in fact it sounded like singing? What the hell. He steps out of the house he was napping in (he hadn't claimed it, he just kept resting in different houses), rifle in hand but not aimed at anyone.]

What are you doing?

[questioningmermaids]

[ There’s a kid with a rifle, and March doesn’t seem too shocked about it–-it’s a miracle it even registers given his state. Mostly, he’s just sort of gazing in the kid's direction completely unfocused. He points in the vague direction of up. ]

Looking at the moon.

[solitarysoul]

[He looks up at the sky as well and frowns.]

Fuck the moon.

[There's true hate in his voice as he says that.]

exploring

[friendsfordinner]

[ Hickey's also been poking around the houses, mostly so he can steal as many useful items possible for the abandoned house he's claimed as his own. Soap, buckets, warm clothes, towels, anything possibly useful is getting stolen.

And it's as he approaches one of those houses that he hears March's loud, kind of ridiculous singing. He can't help but raise an eyebrow as he points out, ]

Want to let the whole town know you're here?

[questioningmermaids]

[ March’s face pops up almost instantly in the window next to the door--the building’s glass panes have long since been shattered-–and he answers smoothly: ] Yeah, why not?

Maybe scare off a couple’a wolves. I’m very intimidating. [ He smiles boyishly and disappears from view for a split second to open the door–-not broken–-and wander away. An invitation for the other to pick over the place, too. ]

Slim pickings, but help yourself. Find a pack of ciggies and they’re mine, though.

[friendsfordinner]

Fine by me, [ he shrugs. ] I roll my own, anyway.

[ Says the man who is keeping very quiet about that tobacco of his he arrived with. ]

Managed to find a few spirits. But honestly, it looks like there's not much in the way of fun in this place. No idea how old said spirits are, but one or two of them looked off.

2 AM

[satanicpanics]

[ Eddie hasn’t had many particularly restful nights of sleep since arriving. Between bad dreams, the physical pain and itching of his still-healing injuries and stitches, and the frankly super upsetting fact that Steve Harrington barely has a clue who he is—it’s a little hard to silence his thoughts for long.

So every night, he scrapes together the few hours of sleep that he can, but he usually ends up outside. It’s not all bad. When he’s in pain, the cold helps to numb it for awhile, and he’s found his guitar and his jacket, and in the pocket of that jacket, a cigarette lighter. No cigarettes, but he’s uncovered a half pack or two while looting. There aren’t many, and as much as he’d love to wallow and have a nice chain-smoking session, he’s been doing his best to ration them, so that means he usually ends up wandering while he smokes as slowly as possible to savor the moment.

He doesn’t come across loud drunk dudes every evening, though, and this guy is so drunk, messing with him is bound to be easy. So Eddie presses himself against one of the abandoned homes, just out of view. He lowers his voice into what can best be described as “stereotypical creepy demon voice”, and hollers back to March: ]

WHO DARES DISRUPT MY SLUMBER?

[questioningmermaids]

[ March has eclipsed the drunk stage and has absolutely reached near blackout, body fueled by the bottle of scotch and sheer determination not to fall asleep. How he’s upright is a miracle, but to say he’s pliant would be a gross underestimate: as soon as he hears an insanely demonic voice he jumps about five feet and lets out an insanely girlish, high-pitched little yelp that’s usually reserved for 13 year old girls holding a seance during a slumber party. ]

Jesus--what–who?!

[ He's currently reaching for the gun he doesn’t have on his person, his pistol and harness still in the house he’d claimed. Which sucks, because he’s pretty sure there’s a fucking demon here. ]

[satanicpanics]

[ Well, that reaction was everything he’d hoped for and more. He has to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from totally collapsing into giggles and giving himself away. It takes a moment, but he composes himself, clears his throat quietly, and revs up for another round. In that same demonic voice, he hisses: ]

You’ll regret this.

[ And then, he lets out a blood-curdling scream, like something is being horribly murdered. Honestly, Eddie should just count himself really lucky that March deosn't have his pistol on him. ]

hangover.

[rescapee]

[ Sleep hasn't come easily since arriving in this strange frozen land that has failed to provide any answers to her seemingly endless questions. Perhaps it's the knowledge of the predators waiting beyond Milton's borders, or the very real possibility of running out of food or freezing to death. Or perhaps it's simply that La'an rarely sleeps well due to her nights often being filled with trauma-induced nightmares. It's probably a combination of all of the above most nights.

This morning, however, her sleep deprivation can be solely attributed to whatever drunk idiot decided to serenade the town's unwilling residents in the middle of the night. There had been some shouting, some singing, more shouting... Honestly, she'd been tempted to do something about it herself until she'd heard someone else attempting to take care of things. But sleep had been difficult to come by after that, and La'an has come to the Town Hall in hopeful search of coffee.

It takes all of one glance in the man's direction to put two and two together to get one idiot. With a sigh, she walks over to him, crossing her arms when she stops beside him. ]

Regretting your middle-of-the-night concert? [ She doesn't intend to let so much irritation into her voice, but she's still pre-caffeine and this whole place is really starting to get to her. ]

[questioningmermaids]

Can’t feel bad for what you don’t remember.

[ Through sheer talent and the fact that he’s been smoking since he's been about 12, when he speaks the unlit cigarette doesn’t fall from his mouth. He does set the lighter down to actually look at who’s talking, though.

Then the cigarette falls from his mouth. Pretty. A little irritated, but March is very, very used to people being irritated at him. He offers a smile that’s not much of a smile and instead is a solid grimace, and snatches the cigarette back up, keeping it between his fingers as he talks. ]

Regret the headache, though.

[rescapee]

[ Not remembering means he'd gone hard at the alcohol — or he had a ridiculously low tolerance. Either way, there was a reason for his antics, her internalized psychologist advising that most people past their school days don't get blindly drunk just for the fun of it. There's something they're trying to avoid, and instinct tells her it's something he brought with him to this place.

She's not sure if she's curious enough to try to figure it out, though. That depends entirely on if it's anything more than a simple pain in the ass. ]

I'd say you earned that headache. [ She feels like she's talking to a misbehaving ensign. ] And I think most people here would appreciate it if you kept any future performances to the daylight hours, if at all possible.

Hot Mess 2 AM

[moralabsolutism]

[It had been a curious thing to see how long it would be before Rorschach had to tamp down the urge to possibly kill anyone here. For the most part, he'd just been minding his own business and gathering supplies. But now the time had come for his patience to be tested.

Being a vigilante who operated almost exclusively at night, being awake at 2 A.M. was normal for him. He couldn't sleep, so he'd been out exploring the town to get the lay of it. But what wasn't normal was hearing some loud, obnoxious lunatic yelling and singing at the top of his lungs. Rorschach followed the sounds to where they were coming from in the town square.

He just stopped a few feet away from March and stared at him with a judgmental expression on his face beneath the mask he wore, the spots of which were still slowly moving even in the cold. Was this guy for real? Rorschach wasn't sure what was weirder, the fact that he'd clearly found the village idiot or that the tune he was trying to sing sounded vaguely familiar.]

Apologies for the lateness!

[questioningmermaids]

[ March hadn’t been dancing per se, but there’s a certain shuffle he’s gotten very well versed in when it comes to drinking entirely too much. It’s a half-step and a lurch, and when March whips around he executes it with the wobbly precision that only truly denotes a master. ]

There’s something on your face.

[ Yeah, that’s the takeaway, isn’t it? Not the fact that March is actively pissing half the little town off because he can’t control himself. ]

[moralabsolutism]

[Yep, definitely the village idiot. Or maybe the village drunk. Perhaps both? He wasn't inclined to get close to tell if the man reeked of booze or not.]

Be quiet.

[He said shortly in that deep, growling voice that sounded like rock chunks being broken up with a hammer. He was of no desire to have to look out for such a waste of space, but given how few of them were here, everyone was going to be needed if the entire group was to survive. Even idiots like this fellow.]

exploring

[bigbaddy]

[ Driving others up the wall sounds about right.

After all, Bigby sure isn't going to fault anyone for wanting to explore this place. He's pretty sure that there's no clues as to where they are or how they get back home, considering he's already looked all over the place for those, but maybe some people believe there's still something out there - or they're just looking for supplies. Valid, considering their very shitty situation.

But the singing? God, the singing. It happens that March is exploring the place right next to the house Bigby has been trying to clear out, and the singing is absolutely driving him mad. He does his best to ignore it for a few moments, but it doesn't take very long before it makes him annoyed anyway. The downside to having a quick temper.

So it's inevitable that he opens the door to the house he was in, moving over to the next one, and finding March in there while singing--

And for Bigby to speak up, bushy eyebrows knitting together into a frown. ]

Knock it off already. You're going to drive the whole place crazy.

So sorry for the delay!

[questioningmermaids]

Me? My singing is what’s going to do it? [ March is bent over a pile of books, a musty and extremely dank looking tome in his hands–an old Agatha Christie book–and doesn’t move so much as swerve his head towards the sound of the noise. ]

Not the fact that we’re all absolutely fucked in here, it’s gonna be my singing that’s gonna do civilization in as we know it?

[ He doesn’t sound particularly upset someone’s called him out, despite his defensive language: it’s nearly deadpan, March still doubled over. The guy probably has a right to be pissy. March is fully aware he has a natural way of irritating people, and while he's not in the business of apologizing he knocks it off. No harm no foul. Finally, he straightens completely. ]

Place should have some records or a radio, that's all I'm saying. Solve the problem immediately. Get some Earth Wind and Fire over here. Donna Summer. C'mon, man.

it's totally fine, no worries! <3

[bigbaddy]

Yeah, because I'm clearly the guy in charge of making things appear out of thin air here.

[ Apparently deadpan can meet deadpan here - because if the other guy is dishing it out, then surely he can take it as well, especially when he's just meeting Bigby's own grumbling from a moment ago with that deadpan in the first place. ]

All I'm saying is that the least we can do is not annoy the hell out of each other. [ Because bad things come from that.

He's got a little too much experience with it. ]

We're all stuck in the same shitty situation. No need to make it worse.

hangover

[dr_unconscious]

[A cup of water, freshly melted from several handfuls of snow, is held out in front of March's languid face as Clayton invites himself to sit next to him. He's pretty sure he knows what's going on here - he can smell the booze on this guy from across the hall, and based on the noise from outside the night before, Clayton suspected someone was out there making the best of their time in this frozen hellscape. Seems he found at least one of the culprits.

[Not that he's judging him for it or--well, okay, he is a little bit, but Clayton's expression is more sympathetic than accusing.]

I'll trade you.

Apologies for the delay c:

[questioningmermaids]

[ March’s whole body doesn’t move, even if his eyes are immediately drawn to the water like a small child who’s just found something incredibly shiny and new swim across his vision, only instead of a pair of car keys it’s a beautiful, incredible cup of water.

The lighter is set down and March takes the cup with both hands, holy and reverent, finally leaning back and looking at the person who’s offered to trade. Does he mean the cigarette in between his lips? The lighter? March is too laser focused on the fact that someone’s brought him water. He feels like shit. ]

No lecture?

[ He’s a bit surprised at that, fully aware from a few glares–and a few conversations–he may not have been the coolest person the previous night. ]

iii

[myfavoritemurder]

[Callisto is not trying to sleep. Her sleep schedule is erratic, and not bound by such mundane things as "night" and "day"; therefore, when he starts calling for Healy, he doesn't disturb her as much as he might other people.

Does this stop her from making her way to the door of the abandoned building she's reluctantly squatting in, pulling it open, and screaming out just as loudly:]

Shut up!

[No. It absolutely does not.]

[questioningmermaids]

No! [ It’s shouted back, matching tone with absolutely no regard for anyone else from the little town of Milton. It’s an immediate shrill sort of sound, a little high in that his voice seems like it’s going to crack, but March is extremely serious about the inflection. ]