Event - Appalachia: Into the Pines

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Appalachia: Into the Pines

Footage plays on the television as a new story comes on, showing a series of sweeping vistas, intercut with clips of wolves that have clearly been filmed at some local wildlife sanctuary. "As far as anyone knows it, the last wolf to ever freely roam the Allegheny Mountains was slain in West Virginia in 1897. Daniel Stoffer Hamrick saw to the beast's passing, and the woods in our part of the world have gone quieter ever since. Appalachia does not forget its history, though. It buries it beneath coal and flyash, debts and white powder and pills. And the blood of people taken before their time, by the mines, by the mountain, by things we don't have names for, just hurt. But Appalachia does not forget.

"This is Cindy Parsons with Channel 5, Wolf News." Footage cuts to a newscaster standing outside a gated apartment complex with FYRE's logo emblazoned on it. "As we know, our beloved Wolf Pen is home to one of the biggest FYRE worker housing complexes in Wyoming County. It is a monument to the history of our town, and this week, we'll be on the lookout for visitors from all over the country, coming to see the grand re-opening of the historic Bluestone Mine as a museum."

Footage cuts to a nondescript businessman, identified by the news footage as Carl Watts, CEO of FYRE. He's smiling blandly as he stands at a podium and gestures to the entrance of the mining tunnel behind him. "The Wolf Pen community has been a partner to us for decades now, and we knew it was finally time to give something back to all y’all. We'll have our soft opening on Monday with a full Rumble Down Under party in the old mines scheduled for June 15th. We'll have a live bluegrass concert and anticipate a huge influx of tourists to the area to help out our neighbors itching for a few more pocketbooks to tend to." A wink.

The footage returns to Cindy. "FYRE has stated that this new museum will provide an educational tool and tourist attraction for those wanting to learn about West Virginia, Wolf Pen, and the hard-working men and women who have made this beautiful part of our nation their home. Time will tell. Time is always telling when it comes to the promises of people who have used our land and our bodies to line their pocketbooks. They fill our blood and our lungs with black tar and-"

Cindy cuts out and is replaced by in-studio anchors. "Thank you, Cindy!" a blonde woman says, smile just a little strained. "I think we're all looking forward to seeing the big opening by FYRE on Sunday and that rocking good party next month. It should be a gneiss one! Now to Tim with the weather. Tim?"

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Comments

[abrightboy]

Malcolm takes one hand from Neal to place it on his own chest.

"Inside me," he whispers. "People know. They feel it. They can tell."

[conning]

Neal frees his own hands so he can frame Malcolm's face gently with both, kissing him, briefly, then drawing back a little with guilt at the memory of the liquor on his breath.

"Maybe you're a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of darkness will find banks full of roses under the cypresses.” He traces his fingertips through the hair at one of Malcolm's temples. "You are darkness looking for light within. Dreaming is nursed in darkness."

Yes, the Nietzsche is paraphrased a bit, and no, none of his chosen quotations are from a single source, but the message of them is the important thing anyway.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's expression creases, then crumples as Neal talks, his eyes welling.

"...Do you think so?" he asks quietly, hopefully, like Neal had suggested they might be able to fit the opera in after dinner rather than uprooted his deepest held fears.

[conning]

Neal breathes out a laugh that’s more pained than amused. That look on Malcolm’s face breaks his heart.

Again with the cadence of recitation, Neal says, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”

[abrightboy]

"I am a box of darkness," Malcolm whispers.

[conning]

Neal pulls him close. “Well, maybe those other people haven’t seen the gift of you, yet.”

[abrightboy]

“It’s different here,” he tells Neal’s shoulder. “I don’t know why. Promise you’ll stay here with me.” Gil’s gone now and maybe he felt like that was okay because Malcolm has Neal.

[conning]

Here. Here in general? Here in Wolf Pen, here in Gloucester, here in this world?

"Would you come home with me?" The words are still slick with intoxication, and on some level Neal realizes this is the worst possible way to ask. The worst possible moment. "When we figure all this out. When we find a way back."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm lifts his head to look at Neal’s face.

“Come… come to your home with you?” he confirms. “You want me there? When you have your friends back in your life?”

[conning]

Back in his life where he's living under an assumed name in Paris, his friends unaware he's alive. Waiting to see the verdict on the trial against the Pink Panthers, waiting to see if he ever has a chance of letting them know he's still out there.

None of which Malcolm actually knows.

"It would be complicated," Neal slurs, wishing he was more alert. He should have kept his mouth shut until he was sober. "But it would be complicated anyway. Ainsley said she wanted to come if you did."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s eyebrows lift in surprise, but then fall and he tilts his head while that calculates.

“You… talked to my sister about it before you talked to me?”

[conning]

"I..." He messed up, didn't he? He did. Neal fights the tide of exhaustion that rises up at the thought of a fight. As soon as he realizes he's made a mistake, he accepts that he's about to be in trouble. "Not exactly. It was a theoretical. She was worried about you, about me and you, and the fact that you liked it here, and I mentioned it to her. That I'd been thinking about it."

[abrightboy]

“…Oh. And… she’d rather go with me than go back to mom and dad and her career?” Malcolm puzzles out.

[conning]

“Yes.” He teases his hand through Malcolm’s hair. “You’re not mad at me?”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm frowns in faint confusion.

“For what?”

[conning]

"For bringing it up with her first." He draws Malcolm down on the bed, which is a tight fit with the two of them, but he's determined to make it work.

[abrightboy]

“You explained that,” Malcolm points out gently, easily drawn to curl up in the crook of his shoulder.

[conning]

Neal starts to say yes, but, caught off-guard, and then stops himself. Was he really about to try and argue Malcolm into being mad at him?

He turns his head a little to breathe in the smell of Malcolm's hair, the cheap hotel soap mixing with the expensive shampoo Neal got him back in Gloucester.

"I'm glad you're here," he murmurs. Here, in Wolf Pen, here in the hotel room, here in an existential sense. He's not sure what he'd do if he didn't have this space to retreat to right now.

[abrightboy]

"Do you think we'll get back to Gloucester alive?" Malcolm asks quietly. "You wouldn't die on me..."

[conning]

“No,” Neal says firmly, or as firmly as he can when his vowels still feel elastic. He’s starting to feel a little more sober and is torn over whether or not that’s a good thing. “I mean no, I’m not dying, and yes, we are getting back.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm lifts his head to look up at him.

"Meredith is gone now," he blurts out. "For a while now. Come live with me."

[conning]

A natural consequence of Neal's life as a thief is that he loses track of people. They pop in and out of his life regularly, his news of them coming from second-hand sources or an unexpected face-to-face. He doesn't make a habit of keeping tabs.

That's changing, here. Quickly. He stares at Malcolm, shocked and worried.

"She is? I--" He's not sure what to say to that announcement, but to the request, well. "I'll have to tell Katrina and Bruno. But yeah. I will."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm tucks his head back against Neal's shoulder and breathes relief into it.

"I'm glad. I'm glad I'll... be able to find you if anything happens like the snowstorm again." He tilts his head to glance up. "I was out of my mind. I know we talked on the phone but. It's not the same."

[conning]

"I know." Neal kisses Malcolm's temple. "Me too."

He holds on a little tighter. "I'll be glad knowing when you come home."

[abrightboy]

"How late can you stay?" Malcolm asks softly. His bed is certainly not big enough for someone to sleep in it with him, if he falls asleep. "Can you at least stay until my roommate gets back?"