[color=gray][right][sub][b]TIMESTAMP: Flashback, Sophomore Year FT.[/b] [color=FE6F5E][b]Penelope James[/b][/color], [color=D3D3D3][b]Charlie Decker[/b][/color] & [color=A4C0CF][b]Rhonda Decker[/b][/color][/sub][/right] [center][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/users/brutalbx][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/b5878257bfbd9cdd76a67a003c983966.png[/img][/url] [img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/52f6860b6ef04523593be20b787cf5af.png[/img] [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/users/lovelycomplex][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/211015/450efa6a0ce5a6f0235bac836bcc1708.png[/img][/url] ____________________________________________________________________ [img]https://i.imgur.com/eCZ1JDe.gif[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/LKBESUz.gif[/img] [img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220624/1fabe9739519ce7444f86a124754e72d.png[/img] ____________________________________________________________________[/center] [indent][indent]Charlie and his books. In typical Hard Times fashion, the lanky teen had decided to raid the Edenridge Public Library for the tomes of the ancients to unlock the secrets of the great and mythical past; a phrase which here means he grabbed a load of books pertaining to Eden history and family trees for a class assignment. Beau had been feeling especially Beau-ish in their literature class and had assigned the students the task of finding their own story to present to the class, one pertaining to their own kin somewhere amongst the annals of Edenridge lore and folk tale. This would not be a difficult task for some, Edenridge had its fair share of ghost stories and a third of the class was descended from the men and women that founded their sleepy hamlet. One quick Google and that’s a passing grade for some people. Not for Charlie and Poppy though, if they were going to it, they were going to do it right. Charlie himself was a story. The events of the previous winter and his poisoning of Allison Davies meant that he would go down in infamy the same way that his father had; murderer. Edenridge locals had done well to make sure that he and even his poor mother would never forget that fact. Charlie Decker, killer of innocence. James Strongbow, the preacher who burned down his own church with parrishers and choir boys inside. Charlie wasn’t going to give those people that looked down on him the satisfaction of talking about his own history. He would go further back and find a story that would honour his name rather than spit on it and he was most certainly going to avoid bringing [i]her[/i] into this. That wound was still very fresh, Mitena or Tena as she preferred was the sister Charlie never knew that he had. Around the time of Allison’s death, they had been assigned a genealogy task and he was shocked to find that his father had borne a daughter back home on the Blue Hill Reservation. He had only discovered her existence when the town was rocked by Ally’s death and Charlie was blamed. He didn’t really know what to do, so he held it secret, even from Poppy. She was his everything but a lot was happening and Charlie the wordsmith just didn’t know how to articulate himself. Finally, after an age, he wrote the girl a letter and to his surprise, Tena responded. After a short while, they decided to meet up in Boston with Ronnie and the tribal Chief Christian Coldwind as chaperones. For all intents and purposes the meeting went well and the newly discovered siblings held a lot in common. However Charlie was cautious about exploring more, he was already a target on multiple fronts and he really didn’t want to drag this poor innocent young girl into his dark world. Thus he kept her at a distance, still writing her letters but keeping her safe. And was where he found himself on this fine day, writing his sister a letter whilst Poppy James sat on his bed, her head buried in the books that Charlie brought her so that she could research her family history. [color=D3D3D3]“That little blonde girl was in the library again,”[/color] Charlie didn’t look up from his writings as he spoke. [color=D3D3D3]“That girl gives me the creeps. Very pretty but very creepy. Eyes like a snake just watching you as you move around the stacks. Shudder.”[/color] [color=fe6f5e]“Jane?”[/color] Penelope glanced in her binder where she printed out articles about those in her family, on both sides of her family. James and Mooney. She was finding out quickly why her parents were no longer on talking terms with any of their living relatives. They both were crime infested but to different extents. [color=fe6f5e]“That’s what her name tag says. She doesn’t look like a Jane. She’s pretty sweet, heavy accent though.”[/color] The past week Penelope focused on her James side. She found out her father has a dead brother, a living brother still at the trailer park not too far off from the orphanage, and a brother on death row. From what she gathered, they were patriotic and all served the military at one point in time, her father was an exception and chose to become a police officer instead. Sadly, their service was drowned out by all their bad deeds. Before and after their service they all had an extensive history of legal problems and multiple arrests. She didn’t have access to the police database but based on the articles she found, she was sure there was detailed information there about each James man, including her father. All she had was new articles about each James boy, a couple instances revolving around all of them (theft). It was becoming clearer and clearer why her father leaned on the serpents. Hell, the brother on death row committed murder and the people that were killed were her grandparents. This brought to light why her father talked so highly about the good times and the memory of his three friends: Reaper, Rusty, and Rooster. It started to feel like he filled a void with the SSS because his own family was beyond saving. His family thought they were cursed and played the white trash role given to them by the town. Beyond that? The James family were a poor family that had always been around but following the breadcrumbs past her father’s immediate family was near impossible. Hard to track the history of a family that never mattered. The books she had opened were the yearbooks between the years of 1950 and 1954 and a book written in 1964 by Cadence Robinson called [i]Sinking Soul[/i], a ‘based on a true story’ romance-horror novel. A fantastical account on the murder of Karen Nowinski and an analysis of the mind of Gregory Mooney. Turns out Cadence was Karen’s best friend and was haunted by her best friend’s ghost. Without her consent, Cadence’s mother published the story which was originally a homework assignment. While it didn’t go beyond New England, it was a cherished cult classic in Massachusetts. [color=fe6f5e]“Did you find anything interesting, Charlie? I might need a goddamn shot after all this. I want to find one good thing! Not some psycho killer bullshit or money laundering scandal.”[/color] There was that too. Her mom’s parents laundered money for the cartel. Was she doomed like the rest of her family? Lifting his head up from his private letter, Charlie leaned back in his chair. [color=D3D3D3]“Well,”[/color] He began. [color=D3D3D3]“I apparently had a great great grand uncle on my Mom’s side that may or may not have been on the Titanic, no one really knows actually. Wonder if he was Leo or Billy Zayne?”[/color] He put down his pencil just after finishing the final sentence [i][color=D3D3D3]She is the Captain of mine[/color][/i] and slipped the note into his bag. [color=D3D3D3]“Oh and turns out I’ve got some family on my dad’s side on a reservation somewhere. Doubt they know I exist though, I imagine he was made Craven by the tribe for what he did.”[/color] It was a cold fact that even if James Winters hadn’t started the fire that killed six people at St Paul’s he was still at fault. He couldn’t save them and he took his own life. It was dishonourable and it was cowardly and it was not becoming of a member of the tribe. It was never made clear to Charlie whether James knew that Rhonda was pregnant with him when he put that gun to his head. He had broached the subject a few times but his mother always had the same response: had he known, he wouldn’t have done it. Charlie, of course, had his doubts. Ronnie poked her head around the slightly ajar door with a plate of steaming cookies and a big grin on her face. [color=A4C0CF]“Hey guys, I got some peanut butter cookies. Freshly maaade,”[/color] She sang. [color=A4C0CF]“Your favourite baby.”[/color] The beautiful older woman placed them on the desk next to her son as she glanced over at Poppy with her big green eyes. [color=A4C0CF]“And make sure to take some in a bag for your Mom, Poppy. Oh and take some for Mordechai too, that boy is skinnier every time I see him. Get it? See him cos I’m going blind? You get it,”[/color] She laughed to herself at her own joke as she watched her baby boy roll his dark eyes. [color=A4C0CF]“Ok I’ll go, keep hard at work Charlie Jay. Love you both.”[/color] She waved before departing again, making sure to leave the door as she found it, so she could listen in. Penelope was quick to grab a cookie and stuff her face. She grabbed another one and placed it in her mouth when her eyes caught something in the 1954 yearbook. She would’ve responded to Charlie but his mom entered and she brought a yummy, yummy treat she couldn’t ignore. So, her mouth was preoccupied. With the cookie in mouth, she muttered, [color=fe6f5e]“No way…”[/color] In the sophomore year, there was a boy named Jonathan Carlisle-Mooney. Flipping through the pages fast, scanning it, she found a picture of Jonathan and Gregory together on the basketball court. In this moment, her history got ten times worse. Frantically, the cookie dropping on her lap, Poppy grabbed her phone and looked up the name to find out any information she could on Jonathan. [i][color=fe6f5e]You gotta’ be shitting me.[/color][/i] She found his obituary copied from a news article and posted on a website. Year 1986. He was the [i]cousin[/i] of Gregory and his father was the FOUNDER of Edenridge National Laboratory. He died two years after his dad, Nikolas Carlisle, at the age of 48, and was a forensic scientist for the Edenridge Police. Instead of taking a break, Penelope went into a full panic mode grabbing different books and flipping through all the pages catching onto the Carlisle name. It was because of her family… The Hangman… Last Night in Paradise... Nathaniel and Esther Carlisle… Aponi… that Charlie’s people… it was her family’s fault that… Watching his love flick through page after page wasn’t really the turn on that some might expect to be for bookworm Charlie. He got up off of his seat and made his way over to the bed where Poppy sat, bringing his mothers cookies. He sat back down next to her, placing one supportive hand on the back of her neck and the other rested gently on her thigh. [color=D3D3D3]“You ok, what was that?”[/color] He glanced down at the pages that had swept Pop’s up into whatever wave of emotion she was currently feeling. Carlisle. It was a name held both aloft and buried six feet deep in Edenridge. A plaque long since degraded and downtrodden sat towards the centre of Main Street which had that name etched onto it, along with that of Callahan, Cleary, O’Brien and O’Hara. It was a name carried on buildings and indeed on the very street which the two teens grew up and were currently sitting on. Carlisle. Named for the Judge. The man who systematically eliminated sin in the embryonic town’s early years, including his own daughter if legend and folklore was to be believed. The man who almost single-handedly drove the Indigenous population of this land away from their ancestral home because he didn’t like the color of their skin. Carlisle. The source of the so-called curse of Edenridge. Was Poppy a Carlisle? If that was the case, not only did that mean she was, quite literally, a part of the town but it also meant that if the stories were true, their ancestors were in love and that it was her family that stole everything from his. Of course that would be the case, it was Charlie and it was Poppy. Good shit never happened to them. Seemed like their progenitors suffered the same way. [color=D3D3D3]“Well shit, Pops. You’re a Foundling.”[/color] [color=fe6f5e]“No, don’t say that,”[/color] Penelope closed one of the books and grabbed the deserted cookie she had abandoned on her lap before this discovery. [color=fe6f5e]“I really don’t need to stand out more than I already do by being Rocky’s daughter.”[/color] Taking small nibbles of the cookie, she leaned back on the bed frame, her body taking Charlie with her. Impassive and empty, she stared at the yearbook that connected it all. [color=fe6f5e]“How am I supposed to write about this? I don’t want people to know that I’m related to the fucking Hangman and Roman Carlisle who owned a sex trafficking operation and the infamous Clover killer Gregory. And worse! Nathaniel Carlisle. Literally the one that started it all.”[/color] Finishing up her cookie, her dull eyes began to glint with color and life, saddening the more she realized how awful this was, [color=fe6f5e]“That’s all of the [i]known[/i] history.”[/color] She glanced over to Charlie, her Charlie, and frowned. Were they doomed from the start? Love doesn’t fare well between a native and a Carlisle. [color=fe6f5e]“What kind of fucked up misfortune is that? Sorry but my ancestors killed your people and drove them out of town.”[/color] If people knew that, how would their opinions change? Being a foundling was one thing, but being a Carlisle held so much more weight than that. To her, that name was an evil omen. [color=fe6f5e]“Sorry but every other generation my ancestors find a way to nurture the goddamn land by watering it with someone else’s blood. Sorry I’m literally the legacy of evil.”[/color] It was clear as day that Penelope knew her Edenridge history. A little too well. And she truly believed Nathaniel Carlisle was the reason this town was cursed. Call her superstitious or whatever but not too long ago her sister was murdered, which felt like payback for some sort of wrongdoing. They say she committed suicide but that’s fucking bullshit. Maxine would never do that. Truly, her family was paying for their father’s sin and they would continue to do so for as long as they had Carlisle in their blood. With an absent mind, Penelope fiddled with her teardrop necklace. As Joseph Stalin said, a single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. [color=D3D3D3]“I mean…”[/color] Charlie wrapped his arm around the small young woman and let out a little half laugh. [color=D3D3D3]“I’d go and see a band called Legacy of Evil.”[/color] He used his free hand to grab one of his mothers cookies and bring it towards his mouth. [color=D3D3D3]“I know a thing or two about shitty legacies, trust me but here’s the secret; you might have some Carlisle blood in you and you might have some weird redneck James blood too but you’re also the daughter of a hero cop and a charity worker, sister to a badass and the light that stops me, Decky, Jade and a lot of other reprobates from turning full heel. You’re not your family Pops, you’re a good person…the best person.”[/color] In true Charlie fashion, the teen demolished his cookie like a starved hyena, dropping crumbs all over his bed. Only this one was actually done for comic effect rather than the usual instance of him just being disgusting. [color=D3D3D3]“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. Shannon Alder.”[/color] The Serpent boy spoke, still with biscuit in his mouth. [color=D3D3D3]“It doesn’t matter that you’re a Carlisle, it matters that you’re Poppy.”[/color] [color=fe6f5e]“And you’re a pig,”[/color] Penelope smiled, having watched him make a mess out of himself, as he devoured the cookie. She gestured around her own lips, to convey he had crumbs on his face which was kind of distracting. He couldn’t have eaten that cookie anymore gracelessly. Of course, she was used to it but now there was a trail of crumbs circling around his lips. Things had slowed down from their research, she could be in his presence and just stare. She was a fool for him and it could be read all over her expression. She adored him. She loved him. She needed him. Carlisle or not, Charlie was her everything. Her green eyes went from his mouth to his eyes before chuckling, [color=fe6f5e]“Okay, okay. I’ll look at it more positively but I still don’t want to write about it.”[/color] It was her, it was him, and they were alone on his bed. A normal thing in their routine and yet the older she got, the more she thought about the what if. What if she leaned forward and kissed him? What if. Kiss her you idiot! The words had rattled through Charlie’s brain so many times at this point that he had all but become numb to them. Why couldn’t he just open up and tell her? Tell her how she was the most important thing in his life. Tell her that she was his reason for getting up in the morning and going through all the shit that he did. Tell her that he had been in love with her since they were five and that she was everything he always wanted. Why couldn’t he just say the words instead of writing them on a page? Why? [color=D3D3D3]“Well then we’ll just find something else,”[/color] He broke their shared gaze and returned his attention to the books string across the bed. [color=D3D3D3]“You know what you could do…tell them a story about Max. She was the best and kindest kind of person. I’m sure there’s something about her you could say. Something that would tug at the ol’ heartstrings.”[/color] [color=fe6f5e]“Mm, I certainly could try,”[/color] Penelope rested her hand on the teardrop against her chest and brought her attention to the tomes laying before her. [color=fe6f5e]“It’s still kind of… fresh. One week I feel okay, the next I have her voice replaying in my head. I just try to imagine how it all happened and I can’t help but feel sad because she was supposed to have a future. I could see her become the next Beau. They’re both selfless people that want to help others through their love of literature.”[/color] Penelope grabbed her phone and went to her photo album, going to an old picture of Maxine with her, Charlie, Decky, Danny, and Jade. [color=fe6f5e]“She deserved to live. She was such a good fucking person. Better than me, that’s for sure.”[/color] There would be no wedding bells for Max, no children, no chance to see beyond Edenridge if she ever entertained moving out. Truth be told, Penelope believed if Max was still alive, like their father, she would commit to her purpose and stay here, trying to help this town heal, even if it slowly killed her. Instead, she had none of that to look forward to and her death was quick, and hopefully painless. [color=D3D3D3]“I loved your sister too,”[/color] Charlie lamented. [color=D3D3D3]“I remember sharing books with her and maybe stealing a few from her as well but she always knew. She always knew it was me and never said a word, I…”[/color] Before he could continue, he was interrupted by the sound of his phone vibrating on the bedside counter. He moved his dark eyes to the screen and noted a slew of messages incoming, all from the same number. [color=D3D3D3]“It’s ReyRey,”[/color] Charlie sighed. [color=D3D3D3]“I’m supposed to be working tonight, we must’ve lost track of time.”[/color] Pulling himself off of the bed, he stuffed his phone into his back pocket and started to gather things from around the room. Finishing his ensemble with his signature leather jacket, Charlie made his way towards the open window that forever linked him and Poppy. [color=D3D3D3]“Feel free to stay, do your research. Mom would love the company…oh shit.”[/color] Making his way quickly back to the bed, the native boy grabbed a load of cookies and lined his pockets with them. [color=D3D3D3]“She said grab some for Decky. She’d kill me if I didn’t.”[/color] He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Poppy’s forehead. [color=D3D3D3]“You’re Poppy James. Not Poppy Carlisle. You’re a badass.”[/color] Another thing she was used to. Charlie having to leave during random times of the day. No matter, tonight was a good night and she got to spend time with him. [color=fe6f5e]“And you’re my Charlie... Stay safe out there and come back home,” [i]to me.[/i][/color][/indent][/indent][/color] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/wATEd2T.gif[/img][/center]