singillatim | open & closed | if I get too close and I'm not how you hoped

Location is everything... or so people probably thought back before this world did its best to end. Wynonna shoulders open the front door of the third cabin they've looked at today, and coughs as a rain of dust showers down over her, stumbling slightly as the door gives way in a sudden lurch. "What're we gonna do if we even manage to find a decent spot? Build a bar?"

Well, maybe they can get one of the handier Interlopers to help them out with it. She looks around at the room, waving away dust motes, and lifts her eyebrows. "This one isn't bad."

Whoever lived here had gone all in on the 'open floor' concept, and the front room is a large, mostly empty space broken up by a large fireplace. "Kind of 'old-style' pub vibes."

Edited 2025-03-10 18:40 (UTC)

It's nice to have something to focus on, a stable goal in the rapidly changing environmental parameters that this place throws at people. Wynonna's a stability, too, in the sense that their little string talk hasn't changed a single iota of their behaviour, so when the two things align--a goal outside of themselves and a chance to hang with Wynonna--he jumps at it a little too desperately.

Beggars can't be choosers, but March definitely wants a dive bar feel, or at least something groovy. He's not sure he can afford to be picky, but as Wynonna shoves one of the buildings open (and March thanks God Wynonna is proactive because he'd probably just throw his damn shoulder out) and he enters closely after, he can't help but thinking she's right.

"We can get one of the other Interlopers do to it, I bet. One of the weird altruistic ones." Making his way to the mantle to crouch down, he pokes at old embers with a single pinky finger.

"If it's an English pub feel we're going for, we gotta name it appropriately. Cock and Hog or something."

"Careful. You're getting pretty close to being weirdly altruistic yourself, these days." She knows she's not the only one March does nice things for, no matter how much he might bitch about it. Looking into a corner, she nudges at a dried-up bundle of fur and grass that was probably some animal's nest not that long ago. "And I dunno if that's what we're going for. Just saying it's what we've got, because this place weirdly doesn't have a bar already."

And yet it desperately needs one, some dive of a watering hole like Shorty's, someplace people can come and drink and have a place to be that isn't the Community Hall, their own homes, or the woods.

She straightens and sets her hands on her hips, pushing back her coat in a mirror image of March's usual stance. "I'd give a lot for a mechanical bull."

March freezes completely, face frozen until he restarts himself with two long, hard blinks at the phrase 'mechanical bull' and being said by Wynonna Earp. It's a very, very lovely mental image.

"I would also give a lot for a mechanical bull," he says in rapt agreement. "Put it on the boar list. And a jukebox. Proper. All the hits."

"And how're we gonna power them when there's no Aurora, genius?" she wants to know, heading to the chimney to check for any major cracks or problems.

Honestly, it might be worth it even to use only during Auroras. She'd had the same discussion with Raylan Givens at that party where they danced, and she feels the same way now: she wants a jukebox. And beer. And a sign they can light up to let people know they're open. "We'd do better asking the boar for a generator and some gasoline to power it."

"No." March is immediately shutting down the boar idea, head whipping up to look at Wynonna, mildly horrified.

"Absolutely not. Not until we grow tobacco and I can get actual smokes."

Probably, he should quit. Just like booze, which is technically scarce. Is he going to? absolutely not. He's still on the floor, looking up at Wynonna. She's gorgeous, and very distracting.

"Has anyone timed the auroras yet? We could have boogie nights when they hit. Everybody getting groovy would be just what this place needs." He means himself, mostly.

"I can't believe you already burned through all the ones I got you and the ones you got from the boar," she says, and comes to sit next to him, knees up and her arms loosely resting on them. She shrugs at the question; it's not like the damn things are on a timer. "Maybe Methuselah's keeping track, I don't know. But we could at least get a boombox in here or something."

Fuck, she misses streaming music and Bluetooth speakers. She leans to nudge her shoulder against his, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the relief of having him there, that things haven't totally changed between them. They're just a lot less likely to have sex on the floor of this abandoned cabin, that's all. "We can get Raylan to come host a poker night here or something. Get people together."

"The cowboy? Yeah. That's a pretty good idea." March knows of Raylan--has played poker with him--but they're not nearly as close as they should be. He really needs to get more male friends.

He really needs to get more friends.

"Thing we can rope anyone into making this a cat house?"

Worth a shot.

She squints at him, a native expression to her face that has nonetheless skewed distinctly March-ian the longer she's known him.

"A what?"

"Cat house?"

Wynonna, in turn, gets the exact same squint.

"C'mon, man. Don't do this to me."

Her eyebrows push upward and she shakes her head at him. "March, I am too young and too cool to know 70s dad slang."

"Where you can get kittens?"

March's brows lift, then lower, then lift again.

"A strip club, Wynonna. I was trying to be gentlemanly about it."

"Like I don't have to deal with enough gentlemanliness as it is."

She says it like it's a bad word, and honestly? It's kind of starting to feel that way. What's it going to take for Little to relax some of his propriety and put a hand down her pants. "But hey, if you give me enough booze, I'm happy to do my old Aphrodite routine."

None of that's really what's been on her mind lately, though. Wynonna shifts, leaning to bump shoulders with him. "Hey. I need to tell you something... It's about the strings."

March glances over with a slight Look--brief and quick, telegraphed only in a way that Wynonna knows. He's willing to listen and intrigued despite the words coming out of his mouth sounding like a complaint.

"Yeah, why not? We can add more to the pile."

She looks down for a minute at the hands that hang loosely between her knees, and her fingers twitch, reflexive. It's another moment before she says: "I think Willa might still be alive."

The thought no longer fills her with the howling desperation that had sent her out into the night and in range of the bear, but it's only because she's found a way to tamp it ruthlessly down. She watches her hands for a moment longer, then finally looks over at him before realizing she doesn't know what the fuck else she can possibly say. He saw that night, the way it's always playing back in her memory; he knows what this would mean.

"What?" March's voice is a little higher than it should be, any trace of his smarmy veneer or pointed affectations completely gone, mouth half-open. His heart is beating wildly at the mere thought.

This is what it's like when you care about someone and aren't afraid to show it, he realizes. Not a single shred of this emotion is for him, just Wynonna.

"Winnie, that's fantastic." It is. Enough that he moves towards her, as if the closer he is the quicker he'll hear the rest of it.

"How? What the hell happened? How'd you figure it out--Jesus Christ, how long have you known?"

She lifts a hand and wiggles her fingers. "You said you had a thread for Holly, right? Well, I had some going back home, too. I didn't really think too much of it until focused on it, and then..."

And then it was clear that it was, somehow after all this time, Willa. But the thing she can't get out of her head is the dampening feeling of fog she couldn't shake every time she touched the string.

She looks over at him, and wishes she could be as happy as he is for her right now. "Is it fantastic? Because I'm pretty sure it means she's been alone for sixteen years, probably getting tortured by a bunch of demons."

Wynonna trails off and March is already putting his hands on his hips, tilting his head slightly downwards so he has a good view of Wynonna and all of her body and facial language, refusing to be distracted by his usual shit. This is serious.

Really, really serious, he realizes. He presses his lips into a thin line as he listens, following closely, remembering a dinner table and the breaking of glass.

"Yeah, but it also means when you get outta here you can get her out." A little short-sighted, maybe. Willfull ignorance.

"I get not wanting to celebrate, but it means you can do something, right?"

"When I get back, yeah." If she gets back. If their more optimistic interpretation of how the Aurora works — who fucking knows? — is right, then yeah: she can do something.

Wynonna lifts her eyebrows at him, willfully shifting her thoughts away from the morose path they always try to head down whenever she thinks about Willa. "But I'll need a pretty good detective to help find wherever they stashed her. Know anybody?"

March can't help the grin that spreads across his face, mostly because he knows exactly what Wynonna's doing and is perfectly content on following along. He's fishing out a toothpick from his breast pocket, making a show about hemming and hawwing.

"I might know a guy. He's pretty cool." He glances over, slipping the toothpick in his mouth, rising his brows.

"Attractive, too."

"Oh, good." She leans back on her hands, crosses one booted foot over the other, jean-clad legs long against the floor.

"I was worried I'd have to go with you."

March inhales sharply, air hissing through his teeth.

"Okay. I might have deserved that," he secedes. There's a glimmer of good humour in his face as he shoots the other a side-ways glance.

"I mean it, though. Not that you'd need my help, but..." A half-shrug. "I'd do it. Might even charge you half my rate."

Edited 2025-05-19 21:11 (UTC)

She squints at him. "So, ten bucks and half a pack of smokes?"

But she relents in the next moment, knocking her booted foot against his. "I know. Thanks."

open & closed | if I get too close and I'm not how you hoped

—March

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