bad moon rising ❂ quinn&luke

[Deleted]

l u k e    s e a r l e y

As he tends to do, Luke woke up finding himself curled on the floor in the old home's garage, boots and belt still on. Wearing his good jeans, oil smeared on his thighs in hand prints of his own, he's filthy. Ain't he always? Dust clears beneath him like a chalk outline, proof that he was here once again instead of with his siblings, or with his mom. She threatens to sell this old house daily, but Luke haunts the grounds as if that's stopping anybody. Genesis in the gallows, he can't quite give it up yet. 

It's as if everything has to change at once. Wake up, wake up, wake up - it was becoming tedious how overwhelming it all was. Wearing down on him like a sanding belt, the only thing keeping him from fighting with Lena for another day is for him to stop existing at this point. I don't care a mantra well versed in his bible, I just don't care. Everything's better when he's gone, just like everything got worse when Andal left. 

But thankfully, he always had his favorite family member. 

His car. 

Luke rubbed his eyes as he opened the garage port, that familiar black and purple darkness almost bleached in the onslaught of sunshine. You'd have thought the sun rose just to him hear crow once he cranked his car on, heavy rock immediately blasting through the second gen radio he managed to install drunk last night. If he ain't at the car shop then he's in his own, tinkering away at that cherry red vehicle until there's nothing left to work on. There's no place safer than collapsing in his front seat, pushed as far back as he can manage without reaching for any pedals. 

Fumbling around the compartments of his center console, he searches high and low for his box of cigarettes and comes up short. Instead, he fixates on the green tone clock, groaning out an "aw, shit," to himself. Sunday afternoon, 3:26 -- his mom's going to kill him. There ain't no repenting for missing church, and Ripred ain't listening after hours. For a moment, he leans back and accepts his fate: I fucked up. Again. 

And then he does what he does best: leave. 

Instead of the church, he heads to the Victor Village, tapping his hand on the hood of the car through a rolled down window as he drives. These roads weren't built with him in mind, reckless sixteen year old that he is, but all he does is drive back and forth the same old gravel trail. The sun always sets over the Village, he just only notices it on the drive there. It don't feel like home yet, and that's partly because it isn't. 

It isn't their home, but Andal's, and he only feels in the way again. The front door's locked and he's yet to get a copy of the key; he ain't the brightest, but he isn't 'break into a victor's house' dumb. That's property of the big dog, so Luke quit before he ever really tried. Instead, he sat in his car again, windows down with rock yelling from its radio, thinking and thinking of what comes next. Realistically, his mother comes home, finds him, rings his neck and bakes him into a pie. Cool.

I better get the hell out of here, find an excuse along the way. 

He gets a much, much better idea - I need a cigarette. So he steps back out of the car, keys still in the ignition as he stomps down to the neighbor's houses. That one zealot freak never leaves his house, stopping there's just a waste of time. He passes right by it, the drowning of rock music dying down ever so slightly as he continues to the first house and knocks once.

Twice. 

And then the door opens, bringing forward a girl with orange hair. Country bumpkin, probably still reapable just like him, "hey there, pumpkin," he says, monotone as can be. Always sounding as if the life just got snatched out of him, "I'm one of the Searley's, think I can bum a smoke? Lost mine somewhere in my car," long story, but the credentials check out at least. 

[✨ zozo.]

↳ QUINN EMBERSTATT 

She's still in the pigsty from Storm's victory tour.

Never mind that it was a year ago now, grounded until further notice. Ma said she had to lay down the law now before Quinn got outta hand. Quinn had argued that the time for reversing her getting outta hand was long gone, so that earned her no dinner that night. Saffron had made a point of cooking her favourite - barbeque ribs, extra sauce, salt in the wound. 

Didn't realise she got her pettiness from her mother until that night, the sting of it bringing tears to her eyes.

A whole summer of mucking out the paddocks of the cows she and Storm Adroxis had tipped that beautiful evening had taught her a lesson - what that lesson was, Quinn wasn't too sure. But the moral of the story had just made her mad as hell. She craved that night, even in the blistering heat and cow shit stinking her nostrils so bad she got a headache - she missed her friend. Hollering with laughter, mischief like electricity in the air. Kindred spirits, rebel children, forgetting about their surnames and what they meant for a few beautiful hours.

Sixteen years old, Grandma Lowe slipped her a cupcake when Pa wasn't looking. A $10 bill had been scrunched up in the middle of the batter, the sweetest treat of all. She soon traded it in for a lighter at school off one of the seniors who actually stuck around for an education, sitting out where her bedroom window met peaked roof and flickering the thing on, off, on, off. As her parents went about their evening there she was, in all of her sad rebellion, right above their heads. 

The flame caught, died, caught, died - lonely girl. Quinn had been right about one thing: she's long gone. Nowhere child, stuck between wanting to cause a scene and wanting to feel invisible. Enzo's off, living his life, two best friends and a dog to keep him company. Puberty blues bring her down and she sits on the roof until the sun disappears, no real friends in this District beyond the stars in the sky.  

Searley's had moved in a few weeks back, catching sight of them hauling their belongings into one of many vacant houses in the Village as she sat upon the roof. Normally Quinn would feel a pang of territorialism, threatened by the presence of another prominent family larger than her own. But instead she just felt curious - and... shy, ducking her red head down to peer around the chimney whenever she thought one of them might have seen her. 

Andal had come around for dinner, of course. Ma's new project, Quinn cast aside as a too-late, a failure, a maybe-the-next-one-will-be-alright. The distance between Quinn and her mother grows with every year she ages, and sometimes she wonders if Saffron is doing it subconsciously. Putting her child at arms length, bracing herself for impact - god forbid they call her name. Her mother has always said being a Victor is selfish, but being a parent the most selfish thing you can be in this country. Enzo was out, Andal immune, Quinn ready to detonate. 

She doesn't blame her Ma for not wanting to be within impact. Deep down, not really - but the scowl on her face every time she speaks to Saffron sure as hell convinces everyone else otherwise. 

So when some redneck Searley kid who she probably bullied in pre-k shows up on her doorstep she scowls, trademark, and hisses at him to keep his damn voice down. 

"Howdy neighbour! Of course you can borrow some eggs!" she sing-songs in a too-loud voice to nobody in particular, aiming her words down the hallway behind her. Pa's home, she knows that much, and Quinn has never liked it when he raised his voice. Reminds her that he's killed people, and all she's done is psychologically manipulate a couple of kids in grade school. 

And that one kid who she pushed out of a tree once, but that's another story. 

She turns back, quizzical look - wait, wasn't him was it? No, the other kid had darker hair. She chews on her cheek for a moment as she assesses him. Looks scruffy enough to be a townie, nose busted enough to be Andal's relative (there's just some things the Capitol can't fix). Cute enough, she supposes.

Quinn shrugs, weighing her options, and steps back inside - "Give me a second," she whispers to one of the Searley's, then disappears. 

Then, two seconds later, her head pops 'round the door again.

"Did you say car?!"

[ coding by griffin ]

[Deleted]

l u k e    s e a r l e y

Living amongst legends takes some time to adjust to, much more than the few run ins he had stumbled into the past few weeks. Every glimpse he gets of one of the other victors makes him feel like he's living in a cemetery - freaky. Ghosts walk these streets and no one bats an eye, but he's always been too dense to give into social cues. In a way, they're just people who hate other people, right? How different could they really be from Luke himself? 

Still, it's hard to shake that these people are real sometimes. Casually greeting a district hero feels sacrilegious in a way, as if it's bad manners to look them in the eyes. Every time he spots Ansgar Todd he has to remind himself not to stare; it'd be oddly fascinating if he didn't hate staying here.  

"Of course you can borrow some eggs!"

"...Huh?" Is she hard a hearin' or something? It goes straight over his head sky high, and so he's left scratching his head as the red head talks to the hall way behind her. Eggs? He had half the heart to tell her no thanks, eggs was all he knew how to cook so they always had 'em. "I guess that works...?" If she was offering, who was he to say no, really. It somehow seemed rude to decline so he stands by on the porch, stuffing his hands in his pockets and waiting awkwardly. 

She looks him over and he gives a small wave. She's pretty as a peach but kinda weird - apple can't fall too far from the tree. Her family's practically owned this district for decades, so it's strange to be interacting with 'em when he's just the son of a baker. Luke tries to drop his expectations as he shuffles in his cowboy boots. "Give me a second," she whispers to him, but she only takes two before returning. 

"Did you say car?!"

Here we go! His ears perk up and his eyes brighten, a part of him coming alive every chance he has to talk about his beauty. "Yeah!" He says through a quick grin, lighting up with the acknowledgement. Everyone he knew was sick and tired of hearing about it so he just stopped talking as much, if Gwen's asking he sure isn't going to shy away. 

...

Gwen? No way, that doesn't sound right... Lauren? He only really heard about her around reaping time, girl from a different school and all. Everyone would pass rumors around that this was the year, like victor kids were ticking time bombs just waiting for the right circumstances. He couldn't disagree; what does that mean for me? 

That's a thought he'd rather not go down, so instead he focuses on his car again, simple thing that she is. "Look," he motions her over towards the porch railing, pointing at the vivid red stallion he'd been putting together the past year and a half. Faint rock music still blares from its radio, shit, I left it running? "She's all mine, too, I call her Cherry," and she meant more to him than Lena did. If he could only save one from falling off a bridge, carpooling to her funeral would be on him. 

Luke already yearned to be back behind the wheel, itching to get away from this godforsaken village the second he could. He felt so highfalutin every time he tried to accept that this is where he lives now, aching to get back to the grim and gears of his old life. Call him ungrateful, all he ever wanted was Andal back, the rest of this is just a pain.

"And I'm Luke, by the way," his mama always refers to him as Canyon Luke but that's just getting embarrassing. "I'll trade ya a joy ride if you can get me those-" he stops himself as he sees her eyes widen, and then it clicks a little bit, "eggs? Riiight." 

[✨ zozo.]

↳ QUINN EMBERSTATT 

"Luke," she tries his name on for size. "Huh."

Simple. Strong. She decided that she likes it.

Hands on her hips she follows him over the porch to a rumbling vehicle, music she imagines comes from District Nine a disruption in the usually peaceful Victor's Village. It sounds like the stuff from here, from Ten - but louder. Angrier. Quinn grins, "nice," notices the tiny little scratches against red paint, the worn material on the front seats, ancient dashboard with a light blinking on-off, on-off, fluttering like a bee's wings.

Quinn digs the heels of her boots into the dirt and eyes the steering wheel hungrily. She could ride the wildest horse from town all the way home and back age six - how hard is it to drive?

"Do you one better," she counter-offers, always a saleswoman. Making deals, she's something of the devil around these parts. "Trade you a whole pack if you let me drive?"

Yeah, he's simple alright. But if he can teach her how to drive this thing he's worth something to her - at least, for now.

Quinn doesn't give him time to answer, raising her eyebrows and dashing back to the house tongue-in-cheek. She races up the stairs two at a time, yells at her Pa about going to town with the new neighbours for an hour or two (there's one exception in Ten to being grounded until further notice, and that's being kind to thy neighbour). Digging through her jacket thrown lazily across her unmade bed, greedy hands finds her contraband and she swears under hear breath.

Shit, there's two missing - a memory of two nights ago on the roof, three weeks behind the sheds at school, Quinn improvises and takes another two out, stuffs them in a crumpled sock into an old pair of boots in her cupboard, shakes the cardboard carton around until the remaining cigarettes line up nicely. Throws the lighter in her back of her jean pocket for good measure, just in case - this sawdust head won't know the difference, right?

She glances out the window and spots him still standing there, red car like a sore thumb against the green-brown-orange of District Ten. N'aww, he won't know shit - so Quinn climbs out of the window, shimmies down the drain, and lands on her feet with a flourish.

Show-off, she can't help herself, checking the coast is clear before she takes the carton out of her pocket and shakes it like candy.

"Cluck cluck!"

All limbs, she clambers into the front seat and settles in with a sigh, grabbing her lighter and leaning out the window to offer Luke a cigarette. 

 "One for the road?"

[ coding by griffin ]

[Deleted]

l u k e    s e a r l e y

She likes his music taste. Nice. 

There's a bit of pride that swells in him, little miss Emberstatt validating his clamorous defiance. He couldn't play it in the house, mama would yell and bang on the garage door demanding he turn off that devil music, but jokes on her - that's the best part. Something about knowing he shouldn't listen to it piques his interest further, always chasing what feels so unobtainable. He's always fancied that which was forbidden, even if it settles in the form of bad habits. 

While she checks out his ride, Luke digs around the back seat looking for that lost pack. It's got to be here somewhere. It'll bother him until he figures it out, five good cigarettes lost out there somewhere with his name on it. Menthols at that, he normally smoked reds but Andal brought him a pack from 8, stocking up at a smoke stack store just for him. Sweet of him, if only Luke could keep his head screwed on. 

"Do you one better," red head starts, mischief in her tone. 

"Oh?"

"Trade you a whole pack if you let me drive?"

"A whole pack?" He weighs his options quickly - surely she can't wreck anything driving down these old town roads, yeah? She takes off before he comes to a verdict, biting his tongue and leaning against his car door wondering what he just got signed up for. Well, free cigarettes. She's got some quirks, but it can't be worse than another hellacious church day with his family, nodding off as he checks who would be crushed if the lights fell from the ceiling. 

The hell? The sound of a drain pipe rattling catches his attention, switching his focus from the street to the side of the Emberstatt home, and there she is, straddling her way down until she takes the leap to the ground. 

Luke's almost stunned, his only reaction to look back to the street inconspicuously until she starts making her way back over to him. She clucks and he turns back to her, "ha," because the eggs, right? ... Never mind, he still doesn't get it. He opens the door for her as she takes up the helm, trying to ignore how nervous the sight makes him. Please now Heavenly Father, I know I ain't been the best - he starts to himself as he actively skips Church - but please get my baby through this in one piece. If something happens to Cherry, lord, he'd be a train wreck.

"One for the road?"

"Hell yea," like the way you think. He leans into the window as she fumbles with the cart, pulling out one for him and one for her. Luke puts it between his lips, sticking the cigarette out for her to light it. It takes a second for the fire to catch and he makes his way around the car once it does, billowing smoke out into the Victor Village air like one last fuck you before getting into the passenger seat. Menthol, nice. 

She might just know what she's doin'. 

"Aight, you know how to read an analog clock?" He says, turning to her with a raised brow. Luke mimics as if he's got a wheel in front of him, "left hand 10, right hand 2." Speaking with the cigarette between his lips, he reclines back into his seat after the demonstration, pushing back until he's properly lounging. He glances at the fuel gauge, taking note of how the gas has ran a tick down as he's left it running the past few minutes. Still, enough to run away at midday and not return until tomorrow. 

That was the plan, anyways, before Emberstatt came along. "Now, Cherry's a stick shift, you'll have to use the clutch down there to change gears and back up," he tries to read her face as he goes along, but he must be illiterate or something. "Clutch is on the left, brakes in the middle, gas on the right."

Easy 'nuff, you'd think. 

[✨ zozo.]

↳ QUINN EMBERSTATT 

Luke Searly asks if she can read analogue and Quinn almost rolls her eyes. She might be the first daughter of District Ten, but she's still Ten through-and-through. Big hand, little hand, second hand, roman numerals - duh!

Even if she did wear a digital watch most of her childhood, a present from Guncle Klaus on her sixth birthday - she's not going to admit that to Luke. Her boots might be squeaky clean now but they're still made of leather slaughtered down the road, and three nights ago muddied soles trekked footprints through the hallway of her Victor's Village home. She'd got the shit end of the stick from Ma about that one - like Ma even cleans. Quinn knows it's Grandma Lowe when nobody's looking.

Ten and two, her palms wrap around the wheel and she's fizzing in her seat, grinning somethin' stupid. Pedals like a tractor, like a ride-own lawnmower, squeeze her toes like stirrups. How hard can this be? Her foot goes down, hard -

and her pretty little orange head smacks the back of the driver seat headrest as the car lurches forward with a jolt, the crack of clay flower pots hitting paved stone. Quinn's heart is in her throat as her feet shift - break, right - right? Left?! - and suddenly they're going back and she's yelling, slamming those muddy soles against something else.

The car finally stops, adrenaline returning as an old friend. Quinn sits there wide-eyed, lets the vehicle rock her body until it stills - and bursts out laughing.

Luke probably isn't impressed - but right now she doesn't really care. Her eyes crinkle under her joy and she grips the wheel once more, "let's try that again," doesn't even give Luke a minute to process before her foot's on the gas again and they're moving - forward, this time. 

Sure, they're bumping over a flower bed or two and the tires protest as she curbs the edge of the pavement, but Quinn's a fast learner. She's got this. 

Even faster still, she dares herself on and pushes her foot further down. One more camellia plant massacre later and they're trundling out of the Victor's Village 'til she stalls again, engine glugging an unhappy protest. The dash ticker twitches between first and second gear but all the stomping on the accelerator in the world won't get it to budge.

"Aw, stupid dang thing, go- damn it!" only now she turns to Luke, wholly unimpressed that she can't command this thing to do her bidding so easy. Bullying tactics worked so well on her peers!

"How'd I make it go faster?"

She plucks the cigarette out of his mouth, takes a drag, swallows down a cough. Puts it right back between his teeth - Quinn tax, for good measure.

[ coding by griffin ]

[Deleted]

l u k e    s e a r l e y

"Watch the curb-" his last words before witnessing his car hit the curb.

This is okay, everything is fine. Luke sits wide eyed and closed lip as Quinn destroys everything in her path trying to get out onto the road. One way or another they'll get there, that's for sure. At some point, instinctively, he grabs the roof handle and waits for it all to be over. Luke quintessentially plays dead as the car jolts backwards and forwards, his head slamming into the car seat behind him before glancing at Quinn through a side eye. "What..." in the world, he doesn't want to discourage her but maybe this was a bad plan.

He shuts his mouth when he remembers the cigarettes on the line - a whole pack, right? Maybe it'll be worth it, and he can make a project out of fixing all the scratches his car'll endure by the end of this. As long as she doesn't wreck it, it's fine! And she won't do that, right? 

Right? 

Quinn's laughin' like a maniac and he follows along purely out of confusion before readjusting and getting comfortable in his seat. "Let's try that again," she says, and he nods along. "Yup, just breathe, alright?" She might just be overthinking things; she talks a big game but this has to be her first time behind a car, right? It ain't like a tractor, it takes skill. He would know. 

Luke grips the door as they run clear over a flower bed and finally hit the road. He tries to hide it in his face, but his body's been tense ever since the first time they hit them cameillas. She calls his car stupid and it breaks his heart a little bit - Cherry's not stupid! Call it a user error, she asks how to go faster and then takes his cigarettes straight from his mouth. What's crazier is she hits it once and puts it right back between his teeth, wow. For a second he doesn't know how to respond, only to hit the cigarette himself before blowing the smoke out the window. 

"Here, hit the clutch for me," Luke says, pointing to the floorboard before shifting the gears from first to third, then from third to fourth, and then he thinks about it a bit and moves the stick shift into fifth gear. What's the worst that can happen? "Now put some gas in it- and don't hit anything," he feels the need to tack it on. They'll be fine if she takes the backroad, driving through the pasture there's almost nothin' to hit but chain fences. Still, he shutters thinking about Quinn driving his car face first into something. 

Just smoke your cigarette and chill out, Luke! 

"Take us wherever."