#nightcars

[enginire]

@nightcars.

day thirty eight. they are not coming back for me.

the shiver rocks her in and out of consciousness as she tucks herself down into the nest of blankets. there's a chill that runs a cold drip at the end of her nose, and a burrowing warmth from the small stack of hard-drives tucked neatly away in a bundle of tinfoil blankets and thermals — protect the data, at all costs. (this is all costs.)

wiIford comes, every so often — full furs and garish grins. poor meIanie. you should've known you couldn't take my train and get away with it. (it's cartoonish. like a fucking mobster out of an old black and white movie that audrey'd made her watch a few thousand times. badda-bing, badda-bum. you fuck wit' my train, i fuck wit' your life, capische? shit. he's not italian. jesus, even her hallucinations are starting to mutate.)

she's a ball in the corner, hidden under a mound of blankets in the cot, and her eyes close, then open, then close with residual energy gnawing away at the inside of her gut. nothing left. no more rats, no more food, no more heat. the solar panels are now buried in at least a foot of drift snow, and this is it. day thirty eight. if i don't get up soon, i won't get up again.

that doesn't sound so bad, all things considered — snowpiercer is a far-off dream. (ayup, poor meIanie. all that clever and you're going to rot like the fucking traitor you ar— shut up, joseph.) the door creaks open, and she figures it's wiIford finally taking his leave. the mumble in her lips is something close to thought you'd never leave but sounds more like thoyounelee, and her eyes stay cinched closed.

[geniuscorp]

— when the exxon valdez hits the reef and pisses millions of gallons of oil into the water, you drop everything you're doing and you fly to alaska. and you don't leave until you make sure every last salmon and sea otter is scraped clean. — are you implying something about mr. wilford, mr. luthor? — of course not, miss audrey. i'm outright saying it.

feat. @nightcars

[archetekt]

@nightcars

she is as captivating as she has always been — for a moment, he is helpless against the current and the powerful tidal drift yanks him into her orbit. "miss audrey." her name a prayer on the back of an exhale. released into the wind like a lovers kiss blown from the centre of a palm and given out into the ether: love me, love you as simple as the beck and call of the waves on the cliff face. unstoppable force meet immovable object.

joseph has the good grace to button his suit jacket. "it has been quite some time since we last saw one another."

[halechief]

i just wanna make you feel okay .

don't smile at me : @nightcars

"that's a tall order." claire smiles, because it's what she knows. she knows how to break tension, soften blows, provide surface comforts to put another person at ease. her own discomfort is held in the tightness of her shoulders, the clasp of her hands resting atop her pressed knees as she breaks from miss audrey's gaze to glance down at how her fingers thread, at the sparkling line of diamonds adorning the ring finger of her left hand. she keeps waiting for the mourning to start.

the blue in her gaze is somehow amplified in the slight dim of the room when she looks back to catch those of her opposite, and her smile lessens to a fraction of itself, slightly pinched for her effort. "i don't know how to begin. i've never done something like this before."

[bengineering]

i get tired just watching you. / ya work hard benny

ben rotates in the chair and fixes audrey with a look: you shouldn't be in here. it's laced with only a slightly felt endearment. after all, it's not as if he doesn't see what's going on between her and melanie, and as happy as he is for these crazy kids, there is an element of the professional to be upheld.

(at least that's what he tells himself and what he'd tell melanie if she asked. if she happened to notice the discomfort that crawls across him; what's odd to him is that she seems too know almost everything about him, even the little things he hides from just about everybody else. a voice that sounds too much like wilford for his liking echoes in his head we see what we want to see.)

"someone's got to keep this place ticking along, and when the boss is...occupied," he raises an eyebrow. "you've got to keep on your toes. have a good evening, miss audrey."

[wormheamer]

self-post because this took me like ... many hours

[nightly-nightcat]

day 138 - hi sorry for the radio silence

[uefiser]

one speedpaint of mine is now available on ko-fi ! !!!! !! ! ! !!! !!!! ! ! ! !!!

[meouwuw]

Happy birthday Rain World :3

[sunflowertoonz]

LETS GO NIGHTCAR!! FINALLY GETS SOME TIME IN THE SPOTLIGHT I’M SO HYPED!!

GO GO WISHLIST IT GOGOGO

[enginire]

@nightcars: you really think i can be an engineer?

the cabin is dark when the phone rings. a furrowed brow answers it, tells javi to stand down, offers quickly to take over his post, and before long, mel is hopping one leg after the other into a jumpsuit and a tanktop, tying the arms around her waist and tucking her hair out from the sides of her face. the surprising turn of events is when audrey follows, padding quietly out of bed and grabbing the nearest hoodie and sweats.

(there's something rare in seeing her like this — tousled hair and light. they leave the nightcar behind and shuffle through the cars in second before heavy hands and fingertip bruises leave them both breathless and sated. but now, squinting through the darkness with burning eyes and discontented groans, it feels different.)

it's a false alarm — the track is particularly hungry at on this stretch, midway through the mount süphan peak, and it wanes ever so slightly beneath the weight of the train. she keeps the speed at 96% and eases the torque behind the heavier cars in the back.

when she relinquishes the seat, audrey hops into it, swivelling back to face her with that grin on her face. that grin. the signature miss audrey grin. mel wonders how many secrets lace the line between her lips, but figures it's best not to dwell on it as she folds her arms and leans back against the wall.

"looks good on you."

— you really think i can be an engineer? it's a coveted role. and she can admit, it doesn't seem so bad to spend her days and nights with audrey wrapped up in her clothes like that. mel takes the moment of pause to take it in, before pushing off from the wall and pressing between the other's knees.

"okay, now you're putting words in my mouth. i think you've earned the right to be whoever you want to be, audrey."

[geniuscorp]

you keep something a secret for this long, it takes a little while to untangle it.

melanie sure has got herself into one sticky situation. the kind you cannot pull the ripcord on and be done with, the kind you've got to close your eyes and believe, believe, believe in until either your knees are bleeding from sucking off the right people or your praying hands chafe right to the bone. prostrate and repent, friends, we're all going to fucking hell.

audrey is a nice key to a titan level lock: but now he knows the who's who. the skinny. the four-one-one. (i'm a nineties baby, don't look at me like that!) wilford is actually milford - melanie is running this show and audrey is still singing for her supper, just crooning in a different ear to keep up the meal ticket. he's no stranger to whoring oneself out, lord knows he did enough of it before the freeze, and he's entertaining himself with the power problem for now. but therein lies the rub. for now.

"i've never understood that weakness, y'know. even before we dry-iced the earth. prison was the same — do you let her fuck you because you can't get through this without somebody to touch? somebody to love?" he asks without a shred of self-consciousness. the martini is vodka and dirty and he fishes the olive out and he looks her over as he chews. contemplative. genuine. (the human condition isn't suffering, it's curiosity.)

a beat. in the corner of the room, lena leans up against the wall and toasts with her ever present glass of scotch; her expression is annoyed and begging for his attention — bored of being ignored. isn't that why you're in the isolation room in the first place?

"or is it because sex numbs the pain and you're both just evil fuck monsters, hellbent on sucking the last shred of dignity out of the only person left who will tolerate you?"

[chiimiraa]

in light of recent rainworld news,,, >:]

[halechief]

@nightcars liked for a problem!

"i had heard you were a beautiful singer . . ." they will leave it unspoken, for now, how out of place claire appears to be here. at least, she hopes they will. she's wrapped in the vestiges of an old life, appearing more fit to sit down for negotiations than to have a drink in the night car. ( it does beg the question, doesn't it? of what she is doing here. ) she doesn't mind the distinction she's drawing against the sparkling relief of miss audrey's attire, though. if anything, it amuses her further.

"i'm afraid the reviews don't quite do it justice."

[dieselpvnk]

hi

what is this pest

[therat-stash]

hello Nightcat, welcome to rain world