#retrograderesemblance: willie loomis

[widowshill]

THINGS TO DO ON A NIGHT IN. WILLIE LOOMIS. @retrograderesemblance said: [ BUILD ]:     sender and receiver embark upon a DIY building project together. // for vicki and willie or any muse of your choice and willie

SHE DOES NOT DOUBT HIS ARTISTRY –– she knows Mr. Loomis' capabilities much too well for that –– but the smell of sharp-edged plywood in the otherwise pristine musty perfume of the Old House puts her out. the unstained, new-purchased pile is out of place in the preserved antiquity, violently bright against rich green and red velvets. ( they might have worked in the basement, it would have been the more logical choice, but Barnabas wouldn't hear of her going down there –– for some reason she couldn't discern ) SO THE DUO MUST CONTENT THEMSELVES WITH THE PARLOR, and a floor of newspapers to protect the priceless carpet beneath.

❝ it'll be nice, to have some birdsong at this house. ❞

something, anything, besides the relentless howling of the dogs. Vicki busies herself with sorting ––  sandpaper, glue, stain, screws ––  but a sudden jolt of thunder startles her, and sends the metal pieces scattering across yesterday's headlines. one day, she'll be used to it. weather here isn't quite like New York: never those days of slow, steady mist to warn you, or clouds that tease HOT AND COLD. only lightning that creeps out as if from no place to pounce.

❝ oh, sorry. ❞ she can, at least, laugh at herself now. ❝ every time I think I'm used to the thunder here... ❞

[terrorpenned]

WILLIE LOOMIS. @retrograderesemblance

❝    BARNABAS COLLINS is a fine, upstanding gentleman. I refuse to hear you speak ill of him.   ❞

those well-bred brows of hers draw together in stubborn consternation. for a STRANGER to say such things of her fiancé ! ( if indeed he is a stranger, which is not what he seems to believe ) no, no it must be so, for she CANNOT believe that Barnabas would associate himself with such a person, much less to the point of familiarity. and there is that quieter voice, too, that whispers low at her ear: if he is a scoundrel, a villain, what does that make you ?

the young heiress busies herself with picking up her abandoned embroidery, but in her distraction the needle goes astray and PIERCES a fine, delicate finger. Josette brings the bead of blood to her lips before it can stain the fine linen ––  a pillowcase destined for the marriage bed.

❝    you think you know the man I am to marry better than I ?   ❞

[brooklynislandgirl]

Spirits don’t tend to open new wounds in the people they haunt. It’s more in their nature to gouge at old ones, or so she'd heard tell. And if she's right, if this is whom she thinks it is, then the wound stretches decades back to her childhood, when the man was a young boy who often played with her in the park across the street of her Brooklyn brownstone home. What stroke of fate would it be if he were, and they are both now in Collinsport as adults? She because the family have purchased the manor so very near Collinwood, and he....he because maybe he was also staying at the Inn for business. I'm...I'm sorry. I don't smoke...but maybe we could get you a book of matches inside. Tell me, you wouldn't happen to... you're name isn't... Are you....Willie Loomis?"

@brooklynislandgirl

"Will you quit lookin' at me like you've just seen a ghost," talking around the cigarette balanced between his lips, "Now do ya have a light or don'tcha?"

[musicboxmemories]

Five Character Poll (tag game)

Rules: Make a poll with five of your all-time favorite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite!

Tagged by: @retrograderesemblance ~ thank ya! <3

Tagging: YOU! <3 AKA whoever's reading this.

[emcads]

SWEARING LIKE A SAILOR / accepting ! @retrograderesemblance said : "why are you so pissed?" from willie. you can pick where in the timeline this goes.

❛❛   that is none of your concern. ❜❜

TOO SHARPLY: it was an honest question, after all, the night had begun well, Loomis' keeper in a splendid mood with a fresh meal supplicant and ready and practically steaming, the moon nearly full, the stars in an array of diamonds as though the sky itself were her throat. IDLY, Esmeralda picked out the dried blood from where it clumped beneath her fingernails and avoided looking at him. she wasn't used to men struggling –– to a BOTCHED KILL. perhaps she had grown too comfortable in her powers of entrancement, such that she had lapsed ELSEWHERE in her preferred style of execution. she felt ... weak. predators do not GRAPPLE with their prey at the dinner table. they do not waste precious blood and become SOAKED in it.

is that all, Miss Esmeralda ? or perhaps it reminds you that you are no more than an ANIMAL, when you see the fear in their eyes instead of the darkness of WANT ? when your slaughter is resisted as the lamb to the BUTCHER ? she swallowed that thought down with a neat pat of the SERVIETTE at the corner of her lip. her hair would need washed, too, and her rings ... oh what a wretched mess. the creature sighed, and laid the ( once ) neat white linen down. no use pretending, with William.

❛❛   he ... well, he STAINED MY GOWN. it's antique silk. ❜❜

[widowshill]

willie’s card. for clarification, he’ll bUILD her a house.

well ...  newly built doesn’t have Quite the same charm as a spooky old place with literal skeletons in the walls, but it’s too endearing to refuse.

[terrorpenned]

SWEARING LIKE A SAILOR. WILLIE LOOMIS. @retrograderesemblance said: "would you just fucking stop for a second?" from willie to vicki

❛❛ IT HAPPENED ! you of all people have no right to call me –– . ❜❜

CRAZY. the word dies on her tongue but it swells in the air between them, even unsaid. Julia alleges that Mister Loomis is perfectly sane ; and Barnabas, too, seems to find him in fine working condition after his long stay at Windcliff. who is she to doubt them ? in ordinary circumstances, it wouldn't feel right welcoming him back to the grounds, not after Carolyn, after Maggie ( and welcoming, still, is perhaps not the right word for the prevailing mood at the old Collins estate ). but desperate minds ask for UNCERTAIN ALLIES. if she tells the story enough times, the next time she'll be believed. she's certain. she must be, she must be.

her throat begins to throb in her panic, and Victoria reaches up to touch at the centuries-old rope burn, the pain just as vivid as though she were back there on the gallows again, the air in the burlap sack hot and stale with her own breath. not just a memory, but happening to her again, now. is this what madness feels like ? he ought to know.

❛❛ Willie, I'm sorry. you've got to know how it feels. ❜❜

They'll send me there too. They'll send me there if no one believes me. You've got to.

[emcads]

@retrograderesemblance: WILLIE LOOMIS.

❝  I heated you up some leftovers. Italian.  ❞

AT 7:30 SHARP she arrives with a steaming mug in hand, questionably red: the reheat value is low, but even microwaved beats eating it cold and congealed out of Tupperware ( not that either of them would know... not that they'd admit to, anyway. ) Esmeralda's own medium-sized sip leaves a joyful stain on her upper lip as she settles herself in beside him, as comforted by Type AB on her tongue as she is by the familiar face of Pat Sajak on their humming television screen. she's not entirely convinced he's not one of them. time will tell.

but within moments a scowl darkens a once-utterly serene expression. God forbid two vampires enjoy a moment with AMERICA'S GAME in peace.

❝  turn it up. I can hear that idiot Televangelist next door again.  ❞

[widowshill]

OL' LIZ. Vicki bristles at the name –– too disparaging and comfortable by half ; her tongue has never known anything other than the honorable Mrs. Stoddard, and it never will. the rest of them, oh, Roger, Barnabas, Carolyn, to refer to them so informally is one thing, but the LADY OF THE MANOR ? the little governess owes her more than her fealty. she owes her everything. a life. a home. a family. difficult to see, perhaps, from her vantage point WITHIN THE TOWER why anyone would think of Elizabeth Stoddard with anything less than entire admiration, but Willie doesn't leave her any room for her protests.

practical. it she is to admire anything about him, it is that. even living in the house –– the palace ! ––  with Barnabas Collins, the very walls and its elegant occupant DRIPPING with the myth and mist of history, Mr. Loomis retains his head firmly on his shoulders. she's not so sure she could, in the same circumstances : the big house is temptation enough to the wanderings of ghosts and ancestors, to the glamour of an era gone by. WILLIAM LOOMIS, though, is all 20th century ––  all Brooklyn, will the little Manhattanite note with a smile. in that city their loyalties would make such a collaborative task all but impossible. not here, though, where they are likewise strangers.

❝ you'll have to show me. I've never sawed anything before. ❞

she does as she asks, fetching the sawhorse and very prettily concealing any reluctance ––  she has no wish to seem only the prissy governess, unaccustomed to any hard labor ( though she is ).

❝ I think Mrs. Stoddard has as much reason to want signs of life around here as anyone. ❞ the emphasis is just so slightly pointed. she picks up a board to examine it, and pushes up the drooping sleeves of an old, old cardigan. ❝ I guess it counts as another house on the Collins property. for its avian residents. ❞

The echo of thunder is sharp, reminding him more of the dash of a cane calling upon his back rather than harmless rain splashed on the windowpanes. The bruises littering his middle ache at the sudden remembrance; rolling his shoulders to mask his shudder, all he can do is remind himself to be grateful he wasn't struck across the face this time. It was harder to explain away the purplish-green welts when they painted his lips, his cheeks, his brow.

Willie blinks fiercely, trying to make sense of the hieroglyphic directions he hastily scrawled earlier that day. The Collins' library, it seemed, was freshly out of books upon carpentry; he'd had to make do with what he could find at the poorly stocked library in town.

❝ It'll be nice, to have some birdsong at this house. ❞

He scoffs, not lifting his eyes from the directions. A part of him wonders why he bothered with directions in the first place; he just has to make a box, sure with a few extra bits for a roof, but it's just a box. "And what makes you think ol' Liz will put up with birds in the living room?"

He only says Elizabeth's name so disparagingly because she isn't present. She was always more Jason's acquaintance than his; some days, he wonders if she'd be the first to take up a cane against him too, if given the chance.

The soft clatter of metal upon floorboards causes him to tense. His eyes following the path of one of the fallen screws as it spins aimlessly in a circle.

He does a better job ignoring the next bout of thunder. ❝ Oh, sorry. Every time I think I'm used to the thunder here… ❞

She doesn't need to explain herself. "I know what you mean." He sobers enough to abandon his crude directions, instead jutting out his elbows, leaving his hands palm-down on the thighs of his trousers, where he's still stooped beside the plywood sheets.

"You better get that sawhorse over here. You're not getting out of this." He means she isn't getting out of the work of this little suggested hobby; if anyone is going to saw the plywood into the proper shape and size, it's going to be her.