autumnshowell

[autumnshowell]

Watching Daniella as she sits, Autumn smiles to her, nodding along, but there's a glint, or some trick of the light in her eyes, and she feels like she can't look away, or that she shouldn't, mind wrapped in the tones of Ella's voice. "Yeah." She says, a short, simple nod to Daniella's command, "of course." Really, she's not sure why Ella even felt the need to say it. The tension seems to melt off of her shoulders, and for her part, she can't even think of why she was so on edge. She sheds her flannel over-shirt, settling into the couch. "Ohhh. That's fine, whatever you need." She's not sure what Ella means by feed off of her, but that's fine. "Just let me know how to help." Her eyes go back to the bookshelf. "Oh, yeah, no, it's fine. Just, curiosity is all, you know?" She laughs quietly. "It's just really cool to see. "What are we watching? Your call."

She can see the wonder in Autumn’s gaze as she takes in the bookshelves, can practically feel the urge to go and slip a tome off a shelf and bury her face in them. She has to wonder which she’d pick first. What language. Wonders if it’d be a journal or more. But she’s glad when instead the girl settles on a couch.

“You’re driving, of course. Probably best, yes.” she agrees about the settling of water. As she sits she shifts to face Autumn, eyes catching with her own. She focuses, words taking on a soothing tone as she keeps the connection.

“Whatever is shared here will seem completely normal,” she starts hoping it takes well. “and when you leave all you’ll remember is having a good time and watching a movie. After that you can form your own opinions. Okay Autumn?” she waits thinking of how she really does hope this takes. They would hopefully have a good time and this really was just so that she could feed without freaking her out. When she nods, Daniella breaks eye contact and relaxes into her spot.

“That is what your food is for. I’m going to feed on you and I want to make sure you don��t get sick or dizzy after.” she tells her nonchalantly. “I promise I won’t take too much, just enough to satisfy. I noticed you looking at the books like it was a toy shop window. It’s cute. They’re just very old and from a lot of friends I’ve made. I hope you understand.”

[autumnshowell]

Autumn doesn't really know hot to respond to this - Aria had been the first to float the idea - and, at the time, in the moment, it had sounded plausible — logical even. But in the few days since, the idea of it has set in, taken root in Autumn's mind. Every breath since, she's not stopped thinking about it. She has to sit there and pretend she's fine - drive AJ around, eat food, talk to people, with this looming threat hovering in the back of her mind and ahead in her future. Will it hurt? Will she still be herself? It's not like Aria, who, for all the frightening capacity she has, remains, at her core, a logical person. Will she be logical? Will she be aware? Is somebody going to have to put her down? It's too many questions. Aria doesn't know the answer to any of them. This woman seems like she does, but that scares Autumn even more - the confirmation, the knowledge. It makes her angry. It makes her jealous. Because how can this woman be so... chill about this, so certain. It's like her brain laminates itself against the obvious, and Autumn, foolish or not, just shakes her head at Theo's tips, at her answers. Her phone starts ringing again and she feels her brain growling at her to throw it onto one of the rooftops lining the small street-side alcove. Autumn shuts her phone down instead, trying to think of something to say - some gacha that will reveal that this is all just somebody being weird or pranking her or something, but she has nothing but denial. It's served her well enough in the past, so as Theo passes sentence on her - next full moon - twenty six days if Aria's math was right, she deploys it one more time, shaking her head one last set of times before she shoves her hands in the pocket of er hoodie and turns to storm through the alley towards her car.

Theo agrees with the girl even if she also knows better. Normally, she wouldn't give up after only a year, knowing that she's resigning herself to a lifetime of fucked up pain and partial wolfhood. But the waitress wants this girl to have at least a chance to prepare herself -- otherwise, she's going to end up hurting people she cares about. It's an accident that Rafael wasn't bitten or killed that first night in their apartment.

"If you do find a way, call me first," she says. "But I haven't found anything yet. Plenty of people who want to take advantage of desperate cursed fools, though."

Theo would mention the talisman, but the one she gave her son is broken, and it didn't really stop much in the grand scheme of things. "No one wants this, no one deserves it," she says, ignoring the born wolves who seemed to get a kick out of their strength and powers. Sure, there were even some who were bitten later who made peace with the tradeoffs every month. But whether you liked it or loathed it, that didn't change how dangerous things were under the light of the moon. For you, for everyone around. She just shakes her head apologetically.

"No, silver's a big no. Take out any precious metal piercings you might have and just... find a place to hunker down for the pain. I'm really sorry -- whoever did this to you... I'm sure they didn't mean to, but it doesn't make it any easier. For better or worse, it's just one night a month." If she hadn't already just ruined this girl's entire day, Theo would offer her number. Maybe the chick would follow up on visiting Nic, join the Cerberus pack or something. The supernatural circle of Port Leiry was smaller than most would think, they'd probably cross paths again before long...

"You've got until the next full moon. I'm sorry. But... me and my son will be out there too if... if you need others to stay with."

[autumnshowell]

There's a face in the back of Autumn Howell's mind - one that she doesn't remember ever seeing. It's familiar and unfamiliar, but all she knows is that when she chances to dream about it, it's only ever accompanied by fear and disquiet. She's not alone in this; Port Leiry is a hive of vicious, night-stalking manipulators, but not many of them can hold a candle to the spiteful machinations of Svetlana, the First Lomidze.

[autumnshowell]

Keeping a spreadsheet for a video game sounds anxiety inducing to her. "A spreadsheet? I just kind of wing it." The second comment makes her feel a little sad, mostly because she can't imagine exposing herself like that - she has enough misplaced hangups looking in the mirror without worrying about hundreds of strange eyes on her out in the aether. She thinks about inquiring if the girl has ever entertained just not streaming in her underwear - but she doesn't - she knows the internet is what it is and wants what it wants, and if she's comfortable with that, that's a sort of confidence Autumn can only envy. "I played Clarinet in Highschool but uh, stopped." She adds, somewhat uselessly. "You're a night owl - that's fine, and normal." She pulls into the diner's parkway and stops. "We're here!" She turns back to Madison. "...You okay? Seemed to kind of bum out there at the last minute."

They look up with a smile and actually turn off the stream and game to focus on the girl in the front seat. It wasn’t often that people took an interest in what they did. She laughs along with Autumn shaking their head a little. “I’m not going to lie, it was really fucking hard and I had a lot of mistakes along the way. I had to read like three libraries' worth of coding books and was completely lost. But I just kept fucking around with it and watching masterclasses until it finally stuck. I just lived under other people’s thumbs long enough. I wanted to cut the middle man out of things.” she explains, nodding at the mention of the Xbox and the game of choice.

“If we ever run into one another again I can show you my Stardew spreadsheet. I play a lot of Minecraft too. On stream, I’m usually in my underwear, so I doubt anyone cares really about what I’m actually playing.” She adds with a laugh, smiling as Autumn lists off her other hobbies.

“I wish I could read some, I like to read poetry when my mind gets too loud. I mean I read a lot in general. My girlfriend was pretty impressed the first time she got to peruse my apartment and shuffle through my stacks of books.” there is a soft smile that crosses their lips at the mention of Mila. “I paint sometimes and play piano, that’s a newer hobby. I don’t…sleep much. If that wasn’t apparent.”

[autumnshowell]

"Uh... sure!" She says, taking the blunt when offered. Maybe not the smartest idea, given that the last time she smoked somebody's home-grown she forgot pretty much everything that went on past the first drag (and, apparently, some of what happened before it). But, well, socializing makes her nervous and being nervous makes her antsy and if it's half the magic she says it is, it'll chill her just enough. Autumn takes a drag and holds it in and, when she lets it all stream back out, it's smooth and she almost instantly feels it start to fuzz up her face. "My uh, girlfriend's got some photography on exhibit here," she says - Aria Boughton? And another friend has some paintings in the gallery to, uh, they go by... Elysium." She tucks the lighter back. "I'm Autumn, by the way. Who're your friends?"

“God, you’re a lifesaver” she offers her thanks enthusiastically, wasting no time in flicking the lighter on and twisting the blunt between her fingers so it burns nice and even. She hands the lighter back to the girl and takes a few even hits as she lets her companion talk. 

“Oh no, not me. Art is not my talent, though I love to support and have a few friends who are artists so I am trying to get out more and see what they are working on. The turn out is really impressive, and there’s a good variety I feel like, not that I really know what I am talking about.” She can’t help but laugh, inside she felt a level of pressure to pretend she was just as aware just as in touch as everyone else. But out here with the fresh air she is infinitely more comfortable feeling all the plants around her. “You want some? I grew it myself so it’s fresh, with some lavender, marshmallow leaf and rose in there too, also from my garden. Though I will warn you, once you smoke girl blunts it’s hard to go back to just weed” the blunt is one of her favorite strains, carefully bred for a relaxing but not sedating high and no shitty cotton mouth. Magic was definitely used in the cultivation of all the herbs but that wouldn’t cause any harm and there was no real reason to explain or disclose, not when she isn’t entirely sure the others place within the city’s complex ecosystem of the supernatural. 

[autumnshowell]

Autumn slips off her high-tops one after the other and follows Daniella's words over to the shelves full of old books, her eyes wide with wonder - they look old, and she can't help but stare at them, wondering if they're novels or encyclopedias or something else - she has an affinity for books, and for reading, and her stare and her thoughts linger on the books a bit longer before she moves to follow Daniella as she moves around. "Water's fine, I don't need to be drinking anyways." "They're all really cool - I uh, I love old books - if my apartment wasn't such a shoebox I'd make a go at collecting them I think sometimes." She sits down on a couch, looking around the place, feeling ill-at-ease. "I uh, thanks." She's not feeling hungry, really. She watches Daniella sit down. "What'd you order, for you?"

She doesn’t bite back and Daniella doesn’t push at her more. She wants Autumn to feel comfortable. Sure she’s going to bite her, feed, but she wants it all to be a comfortable and friendly exchange. Swiping around on her phone she pays for the ride and leaves a twenty percent tip just for the hell of it. “Got it,” she replies back, nodding with the girl’s taste.

“I have Shudder, they have some real classic horror on there.” she wants to comment about some of the really old films, talk about remembering seeing them when they’d first been on the silver screen. Maybe while they’re watching, she’ll make it seem normal for her, so it doesn’t scare her just how old the woman in her car actually is despite them looking around the same age.

When the car is parked she climbs out as well, walking up to unlock the door and giving Autumn a friendly smile. “Thank you, you should see my place in Belgium,” she says as if it’s a joke and not an actual place that exists. Opening the door, she reaches in and flicks the switch beside the door.

“After you, please if you touch anything, leave the books alone. They hold a lot of sentimental value. Family relics.” she comments about the grimoires, stepping in after the girl to close the door and slip off her boots. “I’m a bust and only have water and liquor,” she adds with a soft laugh. “Like I said I don’t tend to have company.” the fridge is bare, for obvious reasons, maybe something Allie left behind at most. “But really, make yourself comfortable, your noodles will be here in a few.”

[autumnshowell]

"God, I wish that were me..." she grumbles, voice still raspy with sleep "...I feel like I could go back to sleep." Her heart skips - joyfully - at Aria pulling her close, still learning what it's like to be touched so much - it's new territory, feeling loved the way Aria makes her feel loved. Feeling treasured that way. For every few awful things, lately, there's at least been a bright spot. Aria is one of them, and when she pulls Autumn close, and then closer, she can't help but crack a smile through her still snoozy expression. The kiss helps wake her up more, even if it doesn't help her open her eyes — or stay out of bed. God, the taste of her lips, the smell of her skin, though again there's something under it that she can't place.

She looks to Aria's screen here she's working on photos. The way she so casually talks about being killed makes her heart skip a beat a different way , and she steals a look at Aria for a second, expression sorrowful. Being confronted with her own reality as quickly as she is gives her a little bit of whiplash, though, and she pulls a face. "What kind of research... did you ask somebody?" She snakes her fingers under the collar of her shirt, scratching at an itch in the angry marks circling the skin of her shoulder. There's already a word camping in her mind from their talk yesterday, and she's too afraid to say it herself.

While Autumn slept, Aria researched - away from prying eyes and away from anxieties that might seep into her from her girlfriend. What she found was a whole bunch of nothing confirmed. It was eerily reminiscent of when she first got turned herself. She'd hid away from the burning sunlight and looked through all number of myth and legend.

Some stories sound like what Autumn had described to her, but Aria knew from her own experience that nothing was exactly right. Mirrors, running water, and garlic come to mind - all things that give her no trouble whatsoever.

She did, however, make herself a list of movies that deal with lycanthropy for them to watch together, compare notes, and hopefully stave off the worst of it.

When she hears Autumn start to move around in the other room, she switches over to continuing to work on some of her photos-- and looks up when she approaches. Turning in her seat, she snakes her arms around her waist to tug her into a hug.

"I can if I want to." She murmurs, looking up at her. "I haven't in a few weeks, though. Too much to do and think about." Another tug and she pulls Autumn down so she can actually kiss her - some semblance of normalcy in the anxiety of it all.

"I was doing some research last night. When I first woke up after being killed, all I did was watch vampire movies and read legends for a few weeks. It didn't really help but it gave me an idea of things to try."

[autumnshowell]

If Daniella's wanting more bite the bark from Autumn, disappointment's in store; the girl's reserves of it are shallow on the best days, usually fueled only by frustration, and even then her nature is to retreat with a whimper rather than growl out anything defiant. Regardless of snark, though, she laughs all the same. She's getting mixed signals; either this is the most perfectly innocuous and normal thing, or it's awkward and tense - Autumn knows which one she thinks it is, but she can't quite figure Daniella out. "All gratuity is accepted," she says with a chirp and a nod, though her eyes bug wide again at the pet name; she's not used to it from people, more accustomed to feeling fairly unremarkable and below comment. "Not really big on historical dramas unless there's a specific draw, so no worries," she answers with a shrug, "but I like thrillers, scary stuff - really picky about comedies and action movies though - I don't hate them or anything but a lot of action makes my eyes glaze over a little." Her phone chirps a notification out as she pulls into the driveway and, unlike usual, Autumn shuts the engine off. It's the second time in two days she's followed a weirdly affluent drive client into their home. She tries not to feel as if she's pushing her look as the door shuts behind her. She thinks about texting somebody, just in case, but she's already shoved her phone into her back pocket. Something about this is setting some tiny little alarm in the back of her mind off. "Wow, nice place," she compliments, looking around as she follows Daniella.

She laughs at the snark, she hadn’t expected Autumn to have any bite herself, the words honestly had taken her a bit by surprise. But she’s glad to see that she wasn’t just a pushover. “Fair enough. We can both be on edge while you eat your noodles and we watch a movie. And pretend we didn’t just meet.” she evens with her, ordering the food to be delivered and resting back in her seat, sighing as if the other had suggested the most agonizing request.

“Fine, I won’t pay you more. Am I allowed to add a tip? Or would that be weird too? You hold all the power here, baby.” she teases lightly, adding the petname just to get a rise out of her again. She wants to see more of the sarcasm, the snark. It was fun and looked good on the other.

“What kind of movies are you into? I always find period dramas more like comedy so if that’s your go to I can’t be held accountable for any amusement or laughter that may happen.” glancing out the window she sees the familiar sight of her street and motions towards her place. “Number thirty-three. You can park in the driveway. I live alone.” she lets her know as she fiddles with the app to pay for the ride.

[autumnshowell]

Aria's hands on either side of her face give weight and make her feel safe, held - in the same way that she'd hug herself as a child to self-soothe after any number of episodes that would see her mind uncouple from the rest of her. What doesn't offer comfort is that Aria doesn't have an answer, either one that's simple and quick and certain or something looser or murkier. She doesn't know. And Autumn finds, for the first time in a long time, that her mind is very much coupled to the rest of her. She feels like she can't retreat, that she can't mute everything and bottle it up - it's static on her skin. So she tries to mimic Aria's breathing, lets her eyes rest on Aria's. It takes a few moments, maybe more, but her hyperventilating slows, and she nods, wordless. Tomorrow. Rest. tired. The rest of the evening passes. Aria cooks food, Autumn devours it. Won't let her help clean up until She lies with her on the couch, tangled up in her arms, telling her about the fight with her mother, about what she knows happened in the wreck, and when it gets too much, she just lays there, letting herself be quiet, be held. The emotions ebb and flow. She even manages to smile once she's let herself stop thinking about the unknown, about the monstrous. Once she's snacked her way into oblivion. it's a dead sleep she finds. dreamless, or if she does dream, they're silent and invisible when she opens her eyes, and the sun's already low.

When the weight of the covers on her feel light enough that she can escape them, she wanders out into Aria's apartment, following sounds that flood her skull. She finds Aria working at a computer, and her eyes cast to the dying light outside, lets herself watch Aria, wonders if she already knows she's here - if she can hear her heart, or her breath, or if she heard her the second she'd stirred from bed. Autumn paws sleepy sand from her eyes. "So you really... don't sleep?"

Autumn sounds exactly like Aria's thoughts sounded the night she woke up from having her neck snapped with an intense craving for blood-- googling it, panicking, bargaining. She can't answer any of the questions Autumn's asking with what she wants to hear. All she can do is shake her head -

"I.. I don't.. Autumn, I don't know."

She wishes she was an expert on all things supernatural, but she's still learning, too. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she chews on it until it bloodies. The sound of Autumn's heart beat rising, and her panicked breaths knock her out of her thinking and she immediately goes to cup her face.

"Easy. Easy, baby. Breathe. Slow just like this." She mimics the type of breathing she needs to do to calm down. "We don't know what it is. But we can do some figuring out, yeah? I can - I can reach out to my therapist or.. or Laure, or something."

She keeps her hands on her face, hoping to ground her. "Tomorrow, we'll start looking into stuff tomorrow. Tonight, you're going to rest."

[autumnshowell]

Monday, December 2nd

where: AlleyCatz Bowling who: this fucking guy.

Autumn wakes up angry, viciously hungry, covered in sweat. Another night with a solid three hours of sleep interrupted by nightmares. A big dog, blue-eyed, mangey, staring at her. Sometimes she's the dog. Other times the dog is eating her while she watches. Sometimes its Olivier, rotten-skinned and smiling, telling her that something's coming. Other times, its her father - standing behind her, because she can't remember his face. Aria's learned to calm her down when she wakes up this way - it hasn't been kind. It's been getting worse, too, ever since she and Miss Moss had had it out with her mother in front of the whole neighborhood. This morning she's pouring coffee and staring at the tiny dry-erase board stuck to her own apartment's fridge. She never did get her last check from the bowling alley. With AJ, with Aria, with the wreck? She'd forgotten about it, about Tate, her douchebag manager, who'd canned her and made it out like a kiss by the back door was the equivalent of spreading eagle on the ball return, as if she hadn't caught him more than once over the years flirting with a statutory charge with some of the part-timers that passed through AlleyCatz.

It's frustration and anger at just how many people she's let jerk her around, feelings usually camped out in the back of her mind that have, in the past few days, worked their way closer and closer to the front - tearing at her skin, that has her grab the keys to her rust-bucket and haul ass to the bowling alley.

She pushes through the door, wades through the small lobby and makes her way to the counter.

"Hey, I need to talk to Tate." she says, tone short, sharp, preemptively annoyed. "He's in the back." The girl at the counter says, eying Autumn up and down. "You look like shit." "Thanks, you too!" she says, turning on a squeaking heel and padding towards the back room.

"Hey, Autumn, you can't go back there-!" she says, slightly stunned. "It's employee's on-" "Dont care," Autumn calls back, shoving her way through the swinging door. In the back, Tate is down the hall, past the bibs for the soda machine, in the little shoebox office, flirting with yet another girl, who looks new, and Autumn peeks her head in the office, looking over the scene for a moment until they notice her, the girl hurrying to untangle herself from her manager. "Hey, Tate. Sorry to interrupt but, uh, need my last check, it's been like a month and a half." "A-autumn," he says, surprised, the new girl looks a little surprised too, and Autumn watches her nervously eject herself, sliding by. She smells like... citrus, shea butter. Under that, sweatstink. Meat, blood. What? The fuck, Autumn "Tate, check, please. I'd like to never come here again." "I thought I'd mailed it to you?" He says, tapping his hands on his thighs in his chair. "Last time we talked?" "Well, you told me to come get it, three separate times I came and you hadn't printed it, and then I told you to just mail it, but that was.... four weeks ago? And I kind of need my money. Because, you, know, you fired me." She doesn't need the money. She has more money sitting in her savings this week than she's had over the course of her whole life, probably. AJ pays her well, so long as she promises not to cash out a second Porsche.

"U-uh... lemme see if its here." He says, making a mock-show of rifling through his unorganized desk, and Autumn slips into the room more, and all the frustration of the past few weeks, all the anxiety of things mounting to a spite-filled head in her life are starting to fester and pull at the edges of her because fuck, this guy is just as incompetent as he's always been, it's just he doesn't have her to pick up his slack now. "Second drawer," She says, stepping her way in and grabbing the drawer handle, leaning over Tate, practically shoving her way past his bullshit. He tries to block her. "Autumn, you're not allowed back here, and especially not in the office." Autumn's brows furrow tightly and her eyes roll loosely, and she steps back from him, out of the shoebox office hands in surrender. "Fine. Second drawer, that's where you keep checks."

"Oh, y-yeah." He says, opening it, going through it. "I mean, it's not here, you sure you didn't get it in the mail and lose it or something? I can probably reprint it but I don't know if I can do it today." Autumn's fingers are wrapped around the trim of the door, and she hangs inside, feet still outside the office, but she's closer to him, and her expression is what can only be called amused. "I think you can, Tate." she growls. "I've done the payroll here. For you. Just print my fucking check again."

"Uh... uh, yeah, I think I can." He says.

She watches him, almost unblinking, as he navigates the payroll program, fumbling through menus and finding what he needs. Her eyes dart, briefly, from him to the monitor, and back to him, and when the printer, ancient and haggard, screeches to life, he tries not to watch her watching him while it takes its agonizing time to spit out the paper check. "H...here." he says, pulling it free, folding it up and handing it over to her, and Autumn snatches it up, looks it over briefly. "Thanks, Tate. Don't know why this took eight weeks but it is what it is, yeah?" "Y-yeah." Autumn shoulders her way out, past the new girl, who can't even be out of high school yet, turning to her for a second. "He's a cherry hound, by the way, he doesn't actually think you're mature for your age, and he definitely isn't going to show you anything magical." Outside the alley, she slams the door of her car shut, grateful she hung onto her old faithful instead of junking it like AJ was insisting. At this point, having a backup can't hurt. She shoves the paycheck into the glove box and turns the key in the ignition before catching movement in her periphery. When she checks the rear-view, there's something there, something big and blue-eyed, mangy and immense and slathering and... When she turns, it's nothing. Empty. Engine running, she pulls her phone free, looking down at the date on it, figuring the math. She thinks of the waitress in the alley. If her math is right, if what everything is pointing to is what everything is pointing to, she has... thirteen days to figure this out. To stop it. Whatever the fuck it is.

[autumnshowell]

"That's cool!" Autumn says. "I never could get my head around stuff like that. Websites and stuff. I was trying to skin a blog page one time with code I bought off of somebody and I had to have my friend come in and fix it." She snuffs out a laugh at herself. Madison continues, and Autumn can feel herself calming down a bit from the near miss; the woman's voice is soothing to listen to, and she's sure that kind of thing helps when it comes to buildin the kind of audience somebody needs to keep that kind of career viable. "I don't game much - I have an old Xbox... one I think, and it has a total of like three games on it, and the only one I play is uh, Stardew Valley." She says, nodding. "It's fun but I haven't had time to play it in a while - when its nicer weather, I like hiking... I uh, I write, too, like as a hobby. Poetry mostly - I don't have the head for fiction I don't think."

“No need to apologize for a slip-up. We all make them,” she says non-judgmentally. Because it was true and they were safe. Nothing bad had happened. Just a jostle. She can hear the way Autumn’s pulse hiccups, a sign of nerves, she wasn’t being truthful. Madison won’t push, it isn’t their place. Even if sometimes, at least with this, they can be useful. Everyone saw the now, they didn’t see the past. What the redhead had struggled and dragged themself from. The way at twelve they were supporting a family and two adults’ drug addictions. But that was neither here nor there. No one needed to know about the sob story.

At the slight joke, they chuckle. “I built my own site, so technically I’m not tied to any one type of content. I game a lot. Sometimes, I just film myself doing mundane things. I know I’m attractive and some people will sacrifice everything to see what a hot person gets up to. I had sort of a cult following already so it wasn’t terribly hard to build a mini empire out of it. My favorite time to game though, between us, is when it’s just with friends I’ve made who don’t care about what I look like.” they smile at her through the rear view mirror then look back down to the screen. "What about you, what do you do for fun?"

[autumnshowell]

"I've never actually watched Buffy." Autumn says. "It's on this like, big list, big big list of things." She smiles. "I'd a friend who, he was a little older than me - we met when i was a Freshman in highschool and he was a senior , so like, my mom hated us hanging out, but... he got me into like, horror - movies and stuff but then I found out about authors and stuff and rabbit-holed for like, a while, so I've read a lot but only seen a little." She leaves out what ultimately became of Olivier, even if now she has new context that makes her wonder if what happened to her happened to him, and she's just lucky.But, well... if Theo the Waitress is right- maybe Olivier was the lucky one. Autumn shakes her head at the internal line of questioning - she can't think like that. Autumn shrugs, trying to brighten her thoughts. "I don't know, maybe one day I'll watch Buffy and like, the eighty other things on the list. I think I'm scared enough lately though - could do with, I don't know... a rom-com or something." Looking down at the box in her lap, she drums on it, the smell of the basement thick on it - dust griming the edges, a spot at one corner succumbing to something mold or a gnawing mouse or who-knows what; rescued today, just in the nick of time. It makes her wonder if that's her right now - mostly fine, save for something gnawing at her corners, sight-unseen.

"It doesn't have to be fine. Take it from me," Morgan adds softly, not pressing the point much further on that one.

Truly, who can understand what motivates Amanda Howell to be like that? The widow can understand the thought that maybe someone grieving hard deserves a bit of cruelty. Especially when things aren't fair, aren't fine. Isn't that also what Laure, and Kiri in her own way, had been going through? But in Morgan's experience with kids, with business, with life, has taught her that cruelty never feels as good as you think it does. Not even in the moment, and never in the long run. It's a hard knot to untangle, once you start going down that path.

That doesn't mean she isn't trying to learn to stand up for herself a bit more. There's a difference between setting boundaries and being callous and unkind. Even if the wrong people will mistake one for the other.

"Well, then I'm glad she didn't get what she wanted, whatever it was she wanted," she says, tossing a quick glance over to the girl. "Thanks for listening. I know it's kind of annoying when adults seem to have a story for every occasion. Kinda comes with the years on this earth. But I hope you know that all I mean to say is that you're never as alone as you might think you are. The world is vast and confusing and life is long if we're lucky enough, but there is always something to hold onto. And a lot of times that's other people."

As they cruise out of Autumn's neighborhood, Morgan listens and nods. It seems like the girl understands a lot more than she wants to admit -- it's hard to verbalize or truly understand those things sometimes. The fears that feel silly, the thought that everything is changing too fast and out of your control. The things you know because that's how they are, but still sometimes you can't wrap your brain around them.

A grin breaks out over Morgan's face at Autumn's inclusion of her with the others. The name... Her chest feels warm and her eyes get a little misty as she says, "Arcade Crew? Awh, sweetie, of course we care. Arcade Crew, that's so cute -- Oh my god, you're like my little Scoobies! Er, y'know, from Buffy?"

[autumnshowell]

Not play the game... Autumn shakes her head and issues a weak chuckle at the notion. "Well, that part just got a whole lot easier, actually." She says.

It does help, though, to have somebody tell her that she isn't being stupid, or that she is entitled to her feelings - its not something she hears enough to believe it. Her eyes travel to Morgan's hand, follow it back to the wheel. "It's fine." Autumn drags her hand around her face to wipe away the upset, worrying teeth into her lips while she listens; it's nice to have somebody older than her, who, while their problems are from from one-to-one, isn't afraid to share without measuring. "I feel like my mom didn't... Idonno, didn't want a kid or something. Or I don't know, maybe she didn't want a daughter or whatever. Or she just wanted a copy of herself or... who knows." It feels useless to guess, with everything hanging over her head right now, family drama seems the least pressing, and yet its the one that's eating her up right now. "I try," she adds to Morgan's light encouragement, and to the rest she clicks her tongue, sitting herself up a little straighter in the passenger's seat before she laughs. "... either way, ." Turning to look at the neighborhood speeding by, she realizes that she's always kind of hated this neighborhood. Nobody talks to eachother. She couldn't name a single neighbor. She's never felt like she really fit in, either at home or in these weird little cul-de-sacs. She sighs out loud. "Thanks for sharing, Miss Moss." She says, turning back. "It kind of means a lot. Everything's kind of meant a lot." "Stuff's changing, out of nowhere it's all changing and... it's too fast to stop it, like a runaway train kind of, and it's hard to sort of... keep steady. I feel like I don't deserve things a lot of the time, and I know that's... just me getting in my head about things- but it's nice to feel like people care. You, Aria... Kevin... you know, the uh, I guess, like, the Arcade Crew, or whatever."

"Oh, no, I don't think you mentioned it. Or if you did, I must have forgotten. But that's really great, Autumn," Morgan offers. She'd never really had a creative outlet herself outside of games. Bradley loved working on his car and other small tech projects. But she's surprised to know so many artists; between Aria, Laure, and Autumn they seem to run the creative gamut. "I bet Aria will love seeing that."

The older woman waits another moment before backing her car up and out of the driveway, putting the home (and its hawkish occupant) in the rearview mirror shortly thereafter. She's listening to Autumn, heart heavy. It's not hard to understand exactly how this incident with her mother isn't a rare occurrence. Morgan sighs.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. Of course, the best option is to not play the game with her, but... I know that's easier said than done. But you're not dumb, and you're not a mind reader either. We all have our little things -- you're allowed to be indecisive or stubborn when you need to be," she says, putting a hand on the girl's thigh as she drives. A momentary reassuring pat and then it's both hands back on the wheel. "And I'm sorry to hear about your dad. It's never easy, and it sounds like your mother... didn't know how to ask for the help she needed and let it fester inside of her. But it was never your responsibility to fix it."

Autumn is probably tired of hearing the old lady overshare. Morgan's trying to create a bridge, show her sympathy isn't just some adult saying, "I hear you, I hear you." She nods a moment and then says, "I had a pretty good relationship with my parents. Brad with his too. But they all had some unspoken rules in the game of life too. Theirs was a quiet disappointment, when we told them we weren't going to be having any kids. For a while, my mother-in-law made me feel like I wasn't trying hard enough... and no one on either side thought the arcade was a good use of our money. They came out for the funeral, but... I can't think of the last time we spent a holiday with my folks before that." She sighs, and then adds.

"But for what it's worth, I'd say you've 'winged it' pretty well for yourself. Wung it? Whatever. Recent accident notwithstanding, you've got a sweet girlfriend, you're safe and healthy, and you've got so much life ahead of you on your own terms."

[autumnshowell]

"No." Autumn says, head shaking in stout refusal. Disbelief, even. "no, there has to be a way."

Since day one, she's had this idea lingering in the back of her mind. It's obvious, really. What isn't obvious is what to do about it. But she knows, she has to know, has to believe that there's something to be done. Something that isn't just letting it happen.

Head still pounding, she squints at Theo. "There has to be something."

Autumn's pacing has carried her closer to Theo, arms still crossed, thumb tapping at her elbows, counting beats of her own heart. "Something to... I don't know, stop it or give me more time or something, I don't want this."

No shit. They call it a curse, she'd said. "Look, there has to be something. I can't have this - I didn't do anything!, it's not... there's got to be a way, like, I don't know, wolfsbane or a silver earring or moonstone or somethin - just because this... Nicole person doesn't know how to stop it doesn't mean there isn't one."

She's trying to measure how afraid she is of what this means. How angry she is that a few months ago she could have just denied this, called this waitress crazy. Autumn's phone starts chiming and she sees AJ's name scrawled across the screen. "I... I can't do this right now." She says, not sure if she's talking about this or her employer.

She just wants to go home. She wants to go call Aria and go hide under her bed and not come out ever.

"Y... you can... keep the... sand. Here." She says, awkwardly taking the takeout box on offer from Theo. "I have to go, I'm already on thin ice."

Insane, she feels insane worrying about work right now. "If I can't stop it... how long do I have?"

Theo watches a lifetime of emotions pass across the girl's face as the contemplates the words, the accusation. She gets it, because a lifetime has gone by for the girl -- if this happened like Theo thinks it happened, then her normal human life is gone. Well, mostly. The wolf thing isn't every day and yet, it's always. Forever. Even if the curse is limited to an excruciatingly miserable twelve hours a month, mostly.

"Uh, yeah... yeah, we just had a full moon and -- well, there are some wolves who can change before the moon, but the rest of us -- them -- oh, fuck it, us, it's just on the full moon. It... it takes some time, uh, for the curse to take effect but..." Oh, Theo is fumbling this so hard. Nic should be here, should be doing this instead of her. "I mean, you smell like a werewolf but not like a werewolf, you know? I'm so fucking sorry, if it's evident I've never really done this before. The explaining part, not the wolf... part."

Jokes about being taken out back and shot are a whole lot less funny from Old Yeller's perspective.

The girl is walking the same steps Theo remembers taking -- again, at the time, all chalked up to her pregnancy. Sensitive nose, the hearing, the hair growth, the cravings, the headaches. And even if someone had said the word 'werewolf' to her in Seattle, she'd laugh and ask them where they got their weed from. So this chick has no reason to believe her either and that's just fine. Even worse, if she does believe her, Theo has to tell her the truth. (Well, she doesn't have to, but it's not nice to lie to someone who's about to get very angry and bitey in a few weeks time.)

"You... you don't. It's not Walking Dead rules or anything, cut off the bite before the infection spreads. Here in Port Leiry, it's... they call it a curse. And everyone laughs at me when I try to ask if there's a cure. At this point, I don't even want it for me, I want it for my son, but... God, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be the one breaking this to you -- if you need to talk to who's lived this shit longer, stop by the Heron Club and ask for Nicole Stueck. She's a godsend. Took me and my baby in when I first got to town."

[autumnshowell]

She leans into Aria's kiss, grips at her hand. She really needs to center herself, because her head is pounding, from both the accident and the fact that she's been crying off and on for twenty four hours now. But Aria's questions make it hard. "No, it was fast and it had me from the back. It was... big. Like an big animal big."

She's thinking something, something that scares her, because it seems simultaneously obvious and impossible. But... Aria's a vampire. And Vampires tend to go hand in hand with something else, at least in the movies.

And she's tried to maintain calm, because she doesn't want to scare Morgan with this stuff, with Vampires and shit. But Aria isn't Morgan. Aria's a fucking vampire. And she says this doesn't look like a Vampire, and that tips her cup a little too far.

"It itches, and I guess it burns a little, and..." her mind races; "Aria I think it was, like, a fucking wolf and we're in Oregon and there aren't fucking wolves in Oregon, I fucking googled it and like... I need you to tell me that what I think I'm thinking isn't a thing. That it stops at... I need you to tell me that it was the Sofia Coppola sexy wolf Dracula or something, and not like... you know..." she cranes her head to look at the scars; her first time seeing them herself, and the sight of it turns her stomach, because she remembers the blood and the torn flesh and the heat in the wounds as she crawled through the dirt and mud. "Oh, fuck, please tell me people like you can fucking turn into a hairy monster please. That I just need to like, drink some... some fucking Ocean Spray or something and... I don't know, walk it off."

Even though Autumn answers in the negative, Aria can't shake the feeling that there's something off about her scent - she's spent much of the last year memorizing it, tasting it, savoring her - And now there's something so off about it that she can't quite place. It's when Autumn finally starts speaking again, that Aria tries to pay more attention to her words than her own confusion.

She doesn't stop touching her face, trying to comfort her as best she can.

"You're here. I'm here with you." She answers simply, hoping that helps, but knowing it might not.

Autumn ducks her head, and Aria takes both of her hands and noses into her with a gentle kiss. "You're alive." She squeezes her hands tight enough to make sure she feels it but not so hard that it's painful. "Do you remember anything about what it was?"

She moves one hand, gentle, to the collar of Autumn's shirt, to try and pull it down and take a look. Aria waits a moment to see if she'll pull away or not allow it, and when that doesn't come, she looks over what's left of the wound.

There's a sharp inhale at seeing it - the shape of a large.. what, bite? in her shoulder, pink and healed over makes her swallow hard. She knows for a fact that was not there a couple of days prior. Her fingertips trace the markings - "This looks.. I was worried you were describing a vampire, but this doesn't look like that.. It looks like, a uhm.. I don't actually know. Does it hurt?"

[autumnshowell]

"Yeah..." she says, looking at the shoebox on her lap. "Kind of." She flips the lid up, and its filled with a mishmash of things; a couple composition books, some old album bound in ugly argyle fabric. "I wanted to show Aria some stuff, from like, you know, just old writing and stuff. I write, I don't know if I told you that - or I used to, I haven't wanted to, or really... felt like I could, not for a long time." She's looking through some of the other things in the box, all stuff from her old desk."When I moved out, she emptied my room out, shoved it all down in the basement, after college I asked if I could come back in but she said no, then after a while, it was like she..." Autumn sighs. "I don't know, like she was mad I was okay living on my own, so then it started to 'move back move back'." Autumn looks at Morgan. "You can't win with her, because she's just always... making up new rules, and not telling you they're there, and then deciding you're the worst person on Earth if you break them. And I know I'm not perfect, that I can be dumb sometimes, or like, I don't know, difficult or indecisive or whatever." She shuts the box. "But it's because I never know the rules with her, or even what game we're playing or... she treats me like I'm a little kid, too stupid to know how the world works - and if I am it's because she never... taught me anything, I was like eleven when my dad died. She never really... everything I know, I had to just wing it."

She's quietly relieved that Amanda doesn't go in for a dig about the dead husband. Of all the things that Morgan can let roll off her back, Bradley's passing and judgments of his character aren't among them. And still, she's a bit surprised by herself -- there is some small truth to the other woman's words, that the arcade owner has formed her own conclusions about what happens in the Howell household. But Autumn has no reason to lie, and Morgan is firm in her beliefs that adults always have the power in those sorts of situations, for better or worse.

"And when was the last time you asked her what she wanted, huh? Even if it doesn't work, even if it's not the solution, at least let her feel heard. Sometimes, that's enough," Morgan says, her tone lowered to match the other woman's. She doesn't want to kick up a fuss in front of the neighbors, especially to spare Autumn the embarrassment. More of the fire in her chest dies down when the girl pokes her head out of the car, and the woman nods. "Yeah. Sorry, Autumn, we'll get out of here in a sec, get out of your mom's hair."

But before they go, she turns once again to Amanda, steeling herself against the woman's vulture-like features and the sheer hatred emanating from her eyes.

"You're right, I don't know what you've done to get to this point. And I'm sorry to hear about your husband. But what I do know is that you two had each other if you had nothing else. And Autumn needed you. You treating your daughter like she's nothing? You're going to get nothing in return. You're an adult, Amanda -- you've always had the power in the situation. And you know what they say about great power."

Actually, Morgan very much doubts Amanda knows that one. Doesn't seem the type to enjoy a story about a teenager making his own mistakes and learning from them, super powers or not. With her piece having been said, Morgan taps the hood of her car, the warm of its engine swallowed mostly by the cold air hitting the metal. Within moments, she's nestled back in the driver's seat, cranking up the window to cut the chill. Soberish has looped back around to its start, Spanish Doors. The woman lets out one big shiver and then buckles herself back in.

"Brrrrrh! I've been in Port Leiry almost 15 years and I'm still a California girl by blood," she says, kicking up the engine and looking over at Autumn. Morgan chews her lower lip for a moment, watching Amanda through the windshield, waiting for her retreat. "I'm... you alright, Autumn? Got what you needed?"

[autumnshowell]

At the mention of a dead husband, Amanda's vision seems to narrow, and her head tilts forward in that same hawkish way. She can, in her way, commiserate with the death of a husband, and clearly, this woman's left her with her own hole to fill in. "How magnanimous and noble of you - " She says, faltering a bit, but before she can kick up into further retort, Morgan interrupts, and whenever Amanda tries to interject her way back into the argument, she's meant with another surge of the woman's resolve. When it seems she's finished. Amanda steps closer, and her voice goes low, quiet, until she's sure that it's just the two of them now. "For what it's worth? She's not the innocent little doe. I offer her guidance, I offer her help, but it's not the help she wants, or the guidance she wants, and so its nothing, and she's the victim, and the whole world is out to get her." She turns back to Autumn, hunched in the car, looking anywhere but at the two of them, and then back to Morgan. "You've decided that I'm the selfish little monster here, but you have no idea what I have done for that child since her father left us both with nothing." "Mom." Autumn says, half out of the car, hanging on the door. "Miss Moss. Can we just... can we just go? I can come the rest of my stuff later," she looks back to her mom, "and we can stop bothering each other."

Amanda stares towards Autumn for a moment, and her expression seems to almost quaver for a second or two, but when she turns back to Morgan, it twists back into something resentful and vindictive once again. "Hrmph. Well. Good luck with her, I suppose." Amanda whispers, taking a step back, daring Morgan to continue before she starts up the front walk.

"How miserable your life must be that you're so much more worried what other people think of you than what your daughter is actually going through!" Morgan spits out, the anger rising in her chest and bringing her words to boil. "Do you even have a heart to follow if you had the chance?"

She can't leave well enough alone, knowing that even after she takes Autumn home, this woman will still be out there ready to dig her hooks back into the girl. And she knows it's indulgent of her, selfish even, to draw this argument out. Morgan knows she's doing it for herself as much as she's doing it for Autumn -- this year has been full of incomprehensible horrors and tragedies that she can't do jack shit about, so it feels nice to have a decidedly human (if in name only) enemy for a change.

Morgan steps up to meet Amanda, glaring up at her while she balls her fists at her sides. The 'assumption' doesn't hurt her, it's the fact that all this woman can do is make up these notions of why everyone's out to get her. She clearly hasn't had a reality check herself, because if she'd ever really feared for her reputation, or worse still, her life, she wouldn't be acting like this.

"You're right -- I don't have children. I wish to God we'd had the privilege. But the fact is, I've got nothing but fucking reality to spare. The pretty, happy daisies are on my husband's grave. I've lost so much in just one year, but you know what I didn't lose? My ability to care for others. My belief that there is good in this world, and that includes people like Autumn," she says, words tumbling out until nothing feels like it's making much sense anymore. But it's coming from a place deep in her chest, the heat of her breath making little clouds in the air as she tries her best not to let salty silver tears form in her eyes.

"And I've spent twelve years meeting the most interesting, vibrant children at our arcade. I see the ones whose families really don't have a lot to spare but they always manage to find a few extra quarters on a rainy day. The ones who get dropped off with a kiss and a hug and the ones who have to find their own way home at closing time. I know the ones whose parents aren't interested in getting to know them -- or the ones who hate them for who they are. And I am so goddamn tired of adults like you acting like what they have is a burden instead of a responsibility and an opportunity. It's not easy, life isn't fucking easy. But that doesn't mean you have to go and make things harder for someone who just wants guidance and acceptance!"