rcnford

[rcnford]

just before sunset, ren’s apartment, with @blythelandry​

ren does not startle when he unlocks the door to his apartment after a shift at the garage and finds someone already inside--it isn't exactly like he’s drowning in friends, so there’s a finite number of people that would both know where he lives, and have enough of a desire to see him that they would go through the trouble of letting themselves in. he’s even less surprised when he sees that it’s blythe who’s laying there, sprawled across his shitty couch like she owns it, disinterestedly scrolling through her phone without even sparing him a glance--this is how they function. they show up in each other’s lives without really asking permission, never once having to speak any kind of reason--he’d actually be more worried if he heard her say that she needed to be around someone, or that she just felt lonely. 

the steps of this particular song and dance are familiar after a year and a half, familiar in a way that he resolutely doesn’t think about. he just throws his keys down on the kitchen table, washes the remaining grease from his hands, and grabs two beers out of his fridge. individual actions devoid of real meaning, or maybe its all just a necessity--a way to keep his thoughts from eating him alive while he’s stuck here. either way, he nudges her legs in an effort to make her move them, and he wordlessly hands her the second beer. it isn’t until a few long minutes pass that he decides to speak, that he rests a hand on her ankle and raises an eyebrow. 

“something happen?” 

[rcnford]

MEET REN,

FULL NAME › Ren Ford AGE › twenty three GENDER › Cis male (He/Him/His) FROM › Sante Fe, New Mexico RESIDENCE › Stagecoach Apartments (Outskirts) OCCUPATION › Mechanic at Chuy’s Autio Service NOW PLAYING › High Lonesome by The Gaslight Anthem

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger/content warnings: fire, death, injury, motorcycle crash

Ren ford was not brought into a world engulfed in flame, but that is where his life begins, where his memory crystalizes into some kind of recognizable form. He remembers a building, engulfed in brilliant orange flame, beautiful to the eyes of someone too young to recognize it for what it was, to understand exactly the consequences it would bring to his life. He remembers a man rushing towards the smoke, calling out a name. He remembers a hand on his tiny shoulder as the sun came up over the horizon, accompanied by someone who sounded like they were standing a thousand miles away from him saying, “you’re so brave, son.” what he does not remember, are the faces of his parents, who were both taken from him that night.

He tried to piece them together, after that, from the particular mixture of traits on his own face, from the words of every person that felt the need to take a bereft child under their arm and mutter some words of vague pity, before they had to return to their home, to their real families and children. His father had been a fireman, someone explains to him, in some kind of sick twist of fate. His mother had run an inn downtown. He decides that one of them must have had dark hair, as he does now, one of them must have had blue eyes, a straight nose. Someone says,“Your father was a good man,” and since they knew him better than Ren had ever gotten the chance to, that must be the truth. “Your mother helped me once,” someone else sobs, and therefore, he decides, she must have been a good person as well. None if it really mattered, in the end–the people he constructed in his mind, Frankenstein creatures held together by the thin sinews of memory and filled with the good words of other people, were no longer with him. Ren ford was alone in the world, a mere five years after being brought into it.

Of course, a child of only five years old could not be left alone in a literal sense–he was passed off to a foster family, a young couple who could not have children of their own, who were reassured that he was probably young enough that the memory of what he had lost would fade, leave a space that they could fill with their love. They could try, but the resilience of young children is so often underestimated, and Ren would always be left with the sense that the world would keep removing people from his life, that the world wanted him to be alone. it had taken the lives of two good people, why would it care about new good people put in their places? Besides, it wasn’t like they were his real family–they were talkative, they pushed him to speak when he had to words to articulate the things that they wanted to hear, they put their hands on his shoulder in the same way that everyone else did and told him how brave he was–he didn’t exactly feel bad about pushing away from them, about the way he dreamed of distance, about the silence he kept.

Dreams about putting miles in between himself and what he had lost were what first lead him into the garage–keeping his hands busy felt like a way of negotiating with the pain, like if for a couple hours a day if he could just keep his mind occupied, he could think about something else. If he was working, he could go hours without having to utter a word, without having to justify his silence in the way that he did when he was home–he didn’t have to listen to the way his foster mother would rasp in to the phone, wondering if there was something wrong with her parenting and if that was why he hardly ever spoke to them. So he bought the rusted out frame of a cafe racer with the money he kept tucked underneath his mattress, with the money specifically dedicated to getting him to somewhere else (it never had a name in his mind, it never even really had a landscape–it was always just somewhere else), and he spent hours bringing it back to life. it felt good, to play at resurrectionist.

It felt like he could finally breathe again when the thing was finished, when the few things that were of value to him could be packed away and strapped down, when he could finally close his eyes and pick a direction to ride in. It didn’t matter which, as long as he was moving away.

He rode for a couple of weeks before he started to run out of money, before he started having to stop in odd towns to pick up jobs. People always whispered among themselves about the man who drifted into town, and then out just as quickly without ever muttering an unnecessary word–but he found it hard to care. What precisely, would they have liked him to say? How does one begin to talk about pain, about the lengths people go to to put distance between themselves and the source of their pain? He didn’t owe them his words, he didn’t owe them explanations. They could continue to use rumor to supplement the scant facts they had about him–it wasn’t like he was going to be around long enough to make an impression.

Boot Hill was supposed to be another odd town, another job that he would work for a few weeks before he moved again.

He did what he had done in every town just like it–he worked at Chuy’s for a couple of weeks, spent a couple of weeks sleeping at the motel, tried to speed off towards the horizon once he felt like he had enough to get him to the next spot on the map. Only he didn’t leave–or rather, he couldn’t leave. Something had gone wrong with his bike–he couldn’t really remember exactly what had happened, only that he had gone flying, that both he and the bike had gone skidding across the pavement. The injuries had been just bad enough to keep him for another month, to keep him from trying to ride out again.

He tried again when he was healed, but somehow he lost his way in the desert and was forced to turn back around when night fell. After that it was a part on his bike that blew only a couple miles out from town on the highway.

He’s careful not to call it settling, when he takes a place on the the outskirts of town, on the invisible and liminal border between Boot Hill and whatever it was that made those sounds that filtered in on the wind at night. He has every intention of leaving one day, of putting even more miles between the past and the present–but, he figures, if this town wants to keep him here so damn much, he might as well meet it half way, see what exactly it wants from him.

❝ forgive me. i’d grown so used to being lonely. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Cody Christian AUTHOR › Kylie

[rcnford]

[rcnford]

hey all!!! i’m kylie and i'm psyched to be here with this feral child!! I'm 25 and studying to teach english to the youths, and my favorite tv show currently is the terror :) ren is much more interesting than i am, so I'll get to the point and introduce you to him!!! feel free to hit me up on here for anything at all, I'll be around today and tomorrow!! 

--his mom and dad were killed in the same fire when he was five, so he grew up in a foster home. they loved him, but he pretty much shut down as far as communication went. they talked and talked, but he did not. he spoke only when spoken to, and his answers tended to be short--traits he still holds to this very day. 

--so he’s basically a cryptid!! he’d much prefer to be left alone and to not have to speak to anyone--you can basically only see for extended periods of time if he’s at his job, or if you know where he lives. he’s not really mean, if you can get him to talk he’s perfectly civil, he just doesn’t really care for it.

--he’s a mechanic by trade, and built his beloved cafe racer motorcycle from the ground up when he was in high school. he then proceeded to pack up everything he owned and hit the road--he wanted distance between himself and the tragedy that began his life. 

--he’s been in boot hill for about a year and a half, and in that year he’s tried to leave three different times, so he’s not really interested in setting up shop long term. settling was never part of his plan. its his interest in the town itself that keeps him here, more than anything else.

those are the basics, let me know if you have any questions and I can’t wait to start writing with all of you!!