lifesver

[lifesver]

sorry another ask because i’m really curious about the mckinney family. how did all of his sisters react to him going missing?

thank u again for the qs and giving me the oppoortunity to yap!

so leland has his older sister, april. who at that time had moved out with her fiance, and was expecting her first child. for her, it was just. a lot? like as kids i think april was his protector in a lot of ways. like that’s her sensitive baby brother, who cried getting mud on his church clothes bc he didn’t want their parents to get mad at him. that’s her baby brother who she stood up to the mean older kids for. and now he’s gone and the family is kind of falling apart. and it’s just hard to be there for her mother and sisters the way she normally would be. so i think she copes by avoidance. it’s really too hard for her to watch her mother cling to these slivers of hope that leland is still alive when there’s just no evidence of that. while their dad is just as insufferable as he always is if not worse. she tried to support their mom at first, but at some point she had to step back i think with the baby and everything. i haven’t fully thought about april during this, but i do know i have a small side verse of dusk/dawn where she and connie (fcused) go looking for leland, though!

sadie is leland’s middle younger sister. she’s in highschool while this is going on, and like. she was already on a rebellious teenage girl streak with sneaking out and partying and all that, but this happening just made her spiral pretty hard. just truly making it harder on her parents on purpose because no one told her how to handle her grief. i think she is someone who deals with grief with… anger. about the situation, about how unfair it is that something like should happen to someone as good-hearted as her stupid big brother, and how stupid and useless she thinks the cops and the journalists and just Everyone is. (she has for sure flipped off a reporter at least once for asking about leland) she hates being in the house most days because it’s highkey miserable with everyone grieving. i think she lashes out at the dinner table a fair bit. especially at her dad. but sometimes at april and their mom. she’s very like. why aren’t you doing something more!! why are we burying an empty casket!!! but on the flipside, sadie i think gains more patience for willa during this time. where she wouldn’t want to be seen with her little sister much before, now she’s much more protective, and makes an effort to take her places. because leland would be doing that if he was here.

and lastly there’s willa, leland’s youngest sister. she’s in middle school, and she really really looked up to her big brother. he was always good with her and always made time to hang out with her when he was home. willa is also the most similar to both their mother lorelai, and leland. she’s a sensitive kid with a big heart, and i think she follows her mother’s lead with the grieving process — in just kind of clinging to the hope that leland is alive somewhere? she has no reason to doubt how her mother feels. she has a lot of conflict about everything, but she rarely voices any of it, because it seems to her like everyone is going through a lot already. so she starts spending a lot more time alone. in her room, or leland’s, usually kind of listening to music over whatever argument is happening downstairs, yk? i think sometimes she can be found sitting in the grass in front of leland’s headstone at the cemetery. even if he’s not there, he’s sometimes still the only person she wants to talk to.

[lifesver]

not to take the happiness away from the peanuts christmas special, but do you think leland’s sisters had to abandon the tradition because it got too painful to keep going or did they keep going despite how awful it was to have a crucial part of it missing

this is still making me laugh but also like cry a little bit. i will take that you mean in either bluejay (dying at the house) or dusk/nosy (kept at the house by johnny/the family) verses, but yeah definitely i think… especially that first christmas without him, it was pretty hard for everyone. quiet christmas. mama mckinney not sure whether she puts up a stocking for her boy with the girls that year.

fwiw in some versions of dusk, danny (t4mpered) is kind of there for the mckinneys, who he had come to know from dating leland before. anyhow, knowing the silly tradition and what it meant to leland, and how much willa misses her big brother, danny watched it with her that year instead. so at least it’s kind of, missing him together. (and it would mean a lot to leland to know someone was there for his little sister when he couldn’t be).

[lifesver]

i go into my inbox and see there is an anon in there committing emotional warfare— (i love it and will try to answer these qs soon!)

[lifesver]

my bad everyone

i think that leland is normally a boy who calls his mother ‘mom’ but when he’s scared or hurt or apologetic it’s ‘mama ):’

[lifesver]

i think that leland is normally a boy who calls his mother ‘mom’ but when he’s scared or hurt or apologetic it’s ‘mama ):’

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sorry also im a bit quiet rn and will be for the next week-ish bc i’m visiting family! mwah mwah

[lifesver]

also i’ll have u know peanuts christmas special is serious business. to leland. he watches it every year with his little sister (willa bc sadie is 2 cool for hanging out with her dumb brother). also it’s bc his big sister watched it with him when he was younger so it’s tradition now. thanks.

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desperation sits heavy on my tongue

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not to also post mr gallner but scout posting him reminded me of these shots and how they are extremely. the drag urself off the ground for the hundredth time but this time ur a bit pissed off and unhinged about it

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quotes i think about normally all the time

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are you enough of a tough dude to make up for your adorably long eyelashes?

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bro is always dissociating

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i know it's not realistic to The Canon but truly imagine the friend group including maria gets kidnapped in their summer fits like everyone was just on a roadtrip stopping at a lake or quarry or smth and then bam. ur in the stupid graveyard in the pouring rain in ur stupid shorts and croptop or ur stupid bikini

[lifesver]

yeah — leland's getting used to miserable. the kind you find in sticky bar floorboards and stained motel wallpaper. it’s a miserable fucking town, and anyone coming to a dive like this is looking to forget about something. newt isn't good for much else. an unmarked rest stop on a trip to somewhere better. dusty backwoods nothingness hiding a gorey set of jaws, prised to snap shut on anyone that didn't know to stay the hell away. that particular irony isn’t lost on him. hindsight is 20/20, or whatever.

leland gives a startled laugh, at the brazen disinterest. shit, okay. this guy has his wits about him, at least.

❝ … ouch, ❞ leland murmurs, with a feigned wince. he tries not to take it too personally; it's almost better when they're assholes, anyway. as if it makes what he's doing more right. or easier to rationalize. easier to swallow. but right now, leland feels his guilt in his throat. knows damn well he doesn't deserve easy. and imagining a day any of this stops hurting so much — that should probably scare him more than anything else.

with quiet interest; leland keeps watching through peripherals. watches where scar tissue pulls across the sharp points of the man's knuckles. looked like burns of some kind. like leland had gotten, once, from trying to step between the cattle grid bars on the property.

❝ i could, ❞ he agrees, slowly. then he shifts to turn himself around. leans over his elbows on the counter. he can see his stranger a little better, this way. bravely, leland continues; ❝ — but, you're the only interesting thing here, ❞ and laurel smiles at him, playfully warm. because leland wouldn't ever be so bold.

he gives a low, curious hum, pressing for some kind of reaction; ❝ c'mon, tell me you didn't come here just to sulk in the corner all night. ❞ lighthearted teasing that he hopes sounds casual, enough — as if his heart isn’t pounding badly against his ribs. he can't tell if that line was any better, honestly. johnny makes the charming, mysterious thing look easy. it fucking isn’t.

trying to kill his nerves outright, leland downs the remnants of his own drink, and glass thunks down on the wood counter. still — as little as leland's getting in return, this is kind of nice, in a way. the normalcy.

he guesses that's a little sad, too.

his eyes flicker sidelong, tracing out dimly illuminated features with more clarity — and his mouth goes a little dry. under the shaggy hair obscuring the guy's face, shit — leland could almost convince himself of something really stupid, right now.

... from this angle, it could be him, couldn't it? if leland pretended it enough.

he could be danny.

the last time he heard danny's voice was the night he snuck off to the payphone booth.

the last time he saw danny was —

( across rows of submerged graves. you're not going to make it across, now, and you know it. and now they know it. your friends. now he knows it. because you're not there like you said you would be. and there's a death knell from the rickety church tower above the tree line. all there is is river water. river water and mud and blood and did you say it last time? did you tell him— )

leland blinks, staring into the middle-distance. the red-yellow-red of the dart board rings on the opposite wall. the face he tries summoning to the forefront of his mind comes up smudged, like raindrops on ink. blurry on the edges — he’s pulling at his memory in a numb kind of panic. blank. blank — why is it blank?

the guy who could be danny but isn't, hasn't bothered to look his way again. nothing.

( invisible. you’re invisible. haven’t you learned that by now? )

laurel fades back behind leland, half-there enough to feel the acute sting of rejection — as stupid as that was. it comes like it always does. in a familiar, horrible little voice inside his head; begging for it, like a dog hoping for an absent pat on the head; look at me, please just —

just for a second. please.

— he feels gross. it feels disgusting to so desperately want something this fucking insignificant. the brush of fingertips or shoulders or elbows or the meeting of eyes or — the fleeting connection to something, anything. anything at all, outside his cramped bubble of existence. he hears his pulse in his skull, pounding, pounding away behind his eyes. cruel thought persists; this guy looks like danny, and it's a rotten joke for the universe to play on him. he can't even trust his own memory.

stomach turning, leland realizes he's white knuckling his empty glass. jesus — maybe he needs to get the hell out of here. but — he can’t. not without johnny. leland glances sharply over his shoulder, searching, again, for the familiar shadow of his captor, for some kind of anchor.

unbidden, his eyes return to would-be target. like a moth to a cold flame.

despite a screaming prey-animal instinct to run, leland clings to his slipping mask. tries to shuffle aside the heavy stone in the middle of him. his hands itch in a way the alcohol can’t dull down, and leland presses his fingernails harshly into his wrist. confirmation he’s awake — that’s almost worse. maybe johnny had been wrong. maybe he isn’t fucking ready for this.

mask finally slips, and he lets it. his eyes burn with unshed tears, and he blinks rapidly.

❝ — sorry, i... should go, actually. ❞ leland all but chokes on the words. smile has watered down to something threadbare, and he's afraid that if he speaks any more, his voice is going to fail him entirely. ❝ ... sorry, ❞ he repeats, more softly. too soft for the person he’s pretending to be, tonight. sorry. always sorry. he's come to hate himself for the impulse.

leland clears his throat, which doesn't help. gives the bar a gentle rap of his knuckles to finalize his departure, and pushes off. hopes to god the guy doesn't pick now to take notice. leland risks one more glance, though. with that same nauseous pang in his chest. ❝ i didn't, um — didn't mean to bother you. enjoy your night. ❞

there's life happening all around him — singing, laughter, music, all things that feel so far away but aren't, but they settle against his skin like needles and rattle his already razor thin nerves — and once again danny's found himself at the epicenter. everything orbiting around him and pushing on. life moves on. people keep living. he's stagnant, stuck. frozen in time, in a place where half of him is buried in some basement somewhere and the other half is cold in an otherwise empty grave. maybe he died that night and this is his form of hell. long stretches of nothing with a hope that refuses to snuff out against all odds. it flickers, just an ember tonight. remnants of something bright. tonight, he doesn't feel real. he doesn't feel the warmth of the people around him. he doesn't catch the glow of the dim lights. the music doesn't bring a skip to the heart that thuds with a dull ache at the center of his chest, nestled in its cage. tonight, he's forgotten he's even alive until a stranger brushes his elbow and abruptly forces him back into his own body.

instinctively, he grunts and draws back. a kid with his hand on the lit burner of a stove. the hiss that follows is inaudible, but his lip curls all the same. how dare someone remind him he's alive. how fucking dare someone remind he isn't the ghost he feels like. danny doesn't look up, content to leave the ramifications of coincidental contact gone unnoticed. until he, the stranger, speaks.

small talk has never been danny gaines' forte and perhaps that holds true even more these days. what patience he'd learned to have for social events is gone when the anchor has been lost at sea. once upon a time he might've found himself caught up in an amusing conversation. waiting. glancing up to see a pair of big brown eyes gazing at him from a doorway with one of those soft expressions that knit danny's heart into crumpled mess. and then he'd be rescued from having to keep talking because leland's always been better at it.

once upon a time.

"...yeah, sure." is all he replies with when the details of the conversation catch up to him. when the sound of the voice registers. somewhere in his heart, a moth lands in a neglected dust-filled room. a sign of life. yeah, they look like they're lost in their own little world. yeah, he'd rather be anywhere but here. grey eyes lift, but not to take in the unwanted company. instead, he glances over his shoulder in the direction of said couple. there's no rhythm to the way they're clinging to one another and swaying in time to a beat that seems to play for only them.

socks sliding on a worn out carpet floor, danny jumping over the couch so he can grab leland and swing him into a dip. laughter. laughter and a flurry of warm kisses. of weak-willed protests that die beneath the weight of content sighs and hums.

danny blinks, clears his throat, urges the amber liquor in his smudgy bar glass to be something strong, and downs half of it in one gulp.

this shithole feels like the five others he'd stepped into the past week. he's not going to find leland at the bottom of these cheap glasses, on the scuffed wood floors of dive bars, in the curve of strangers' smiles. he isn't going to find him unless he's out there looking, but he's already started to forget the sound of leland's breathing on the end of that phone call. another thread pulled from the rapidly fraying collection of his memories. sometimes, he isn't sure if what he reminds is made up or honest anymore. sometimes, he's terrified he's forgotten what he looks like. what he sounded like. surely danny hadn't made it up; the phone call. if he made it up, then lorelai had to have heard what she wanted, too.

right?

he'll drown tonight, stitch himself back together in the morning and keep on. he always does.

old habits ( too hyperaware of the space he's in, of the proximity of people around him, of the exits, of the sounds; death's whisper that he escaped a situation he shouldn't have ) die hard. the guy's still there. an aura that penetrates through the fog of thoughts he continues to mull over. misery doesn't love company tonight. finally, danny glances up through an array of his own shaggy hair. from this angle, he makes out only a sharp jaw and fluffy hair. something snags in his chest again. something angry. something hurt. not again, he can't do this again. he can't keep looking for him in these people. they're not him.

"you can fuck off now," he says, unbidden, killing what's left in his glass and waving the pretty bartender over for the unspoken signal to bring him another. he leaves it at that. it's a simple request. he can't do this. he can't. he refuses. he won't even look up again, just in case his heart is stupid enough to grasp at paper thin straws of familiarity that aren't there. reaffirming his position, danny's shoulder nearest to the other man draws up in a shrug that allows him to settle further into the walls he's so meticulously built.

[lifesver]

new patch is good if you think about it

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me remembering i haven't updated my carrd in a while but not actually doing anything except changing a couple pics around

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he's like having an entire panic attack

i'm in tears i keep hearing new lines. leland whenever he sees something gross audibly gagging about to be sick and having a terrible time overall