Pumpkin Jackdaw

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

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the wind plays a tune through the pine trees a high whistle that scratches my throat dry sap on my lips syrup on my tongue my burdens are the snow tops and i lay down a hunched mountain above the gaze of your bedrock stare

_{Location: Home - Fairgrounds
Interactions: His Daughter
Mentions: N/A}

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Words, Silvester understood, did very little to soak up silence dipped in familial tension. The kind backed up by years of omission and good intention.

"Usually it's the parent revealing the evidence of misdeed to their child," Silvester said, scrubbing his hand over his face as he leaned back into the dining room chair, "Not the other way around."

"Fuck off—"

"Mija—"

"Don't make light of this, papa," Anya gripped the paper in her hand for just a moment.

"Anya, you shouldn't be worrying over this. I'm your father; I have this under control."

"You don't even have medical insurance anymore! You're behind on your loan payments!" She stabbed her finger into the warning on the paper, "I still live here. Why won't you let me help you?"

Silvester pushed himself to stand, squeezing his eyes shut, "We're going to talk about why you even know any of that eventually. But, I'm not going to trap you here and I'm not taking money that you earned and wasting it on a failing business."

"Why don't you just sell the place and leave this fucking hell hole, then?"

"And put abuela in a home? Plus, I can't just sell the store. It wouldn't even... I wouldn't even make enough to pay off the loans I put out for it."

"Then let me help you, papa," Anya stood to follow her father, the shadows of the dimming stove light twisting the expression on her face. Silvester glanced at her for but a moment before letting his eyes fall as he leaned himself against the kitchen countertop.

"You can help me by saving up enough money with me to get you into a decent school, Anya." he lowered his voice to a whisper, reaching out to grasp her hands, "I'd rather you worry about your own future. Mine is set in stone and I don't see any point in changing that."

For a moment, Anya bowed her head, eyes dipping below Silvester's gaze. He could feel her squeeze and rub the palm of his hand and in the shadows Silvester could see her chew at her bottom lip. "You could sell out to the suits trying to buy this town out y'know. I saw the offer in the trash the other day."

The thought passed Silvester's mind a good few times a day these past few months. The last three days without power made all of it more recurring—an incessant buzz in his head. When he'd received the latest letter, his mother gave him a look. One torn between sorrow and desperation, but she hadn't spoken a word. This was his business now and he'd deal with whatever suffering came of it. Or boon, should he take whatever money they threw to swindle him out of what he could only really consider a family heirloom now over a family business.

Silvester shook his head, voice thick and wavering, "I can't, sweetheart."

Anya looked up, "Why can't you?"

"I don't... I can't get into it right now, Anya. I have to get to bed," he let go of her hands to turn toward the hallway, "You're still helping me tomorrow morning? I need to get all of the food and ingredients to the fairgrounds tomorrow before any of the festivities start."

There sat a silence that kickstarted the thrumming behind his ribs as Silvester looked back at Anya leaning against the kitchen countertop. She popped open a can of beer left to warm beside the stove and he watched her take a long draft before setting the can down and nodding her head. "Yeah, yeah of course."

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Many folks would look at Silvester and think, Oh, he probably thrives in the summer heat and Silvester would probably laugh any comment off. He tanned better than most folks and the heat didn't look to bother him as much, but Silvester had always, always been more of a fan of winter and the end of fall especially. Something about November settled his bones. Like it felt an in between in the dipping excitement of October and the rising chaos of December's great family holidays.

The summer heat, especially the humidity in Appalachia, had Silvester in perpetual discomfort, exacerbated by the whole seventy-two hours of no AC he had to top it off by buying out a stall in the middle of the fairgrounds in order to cook hot food beneath a squeaky, barely hanging onto life fan for who knows how long. At least he had the people to look forward to, not that he often looked forward to making himself uncomfortable in social situations, but the awkward exchanges helped keep his mind off the grill radiating heat onto one side of his face the entire day and evening.

"Mm, fuck why don't you make this all the time?" Anya groaned, chewing down on the rest of the half of elote she'd just taken from her father's hand.

"Probably because all that crema isn't too healthy for you."

"At least it's not butter," Anya retorted before raising her hand and jogging away, "I'll be home late tonight! Don't forget there's Bengay in the medicine cabinet for your inevitable back problems, papa!"

Silvester rolled his eyes, turning back to manage the food on the grill and hot plates, "I'm glad the whole world knows I have back issues now. Maybe mention my knees too, huh?"

Every year he'd buy out a stall just like this and every year he'd cook the whole town some good old-fashioned Mexican street food. With every item sold, from elote to fruit cups to his mother's agua frescas, he'd give out his business card and a coupon for any small item or purchases totaling 20 or 50 dollars or more. Without fail he'd see maybe one more customer, usually an out of towner, and that was it. On a good holiday, he'd maybe see five the next day or days later when they were passing through, but nothing regular. No return customers a month from then maybe looking for a refurbished couch or a nice antique lamp.

Yet Silvester toiled still. He came out to these fairs, he'd set up a booth, maybe sell some of his antiques or make food for tourists and visitors and he'd hope. Maybe hoping was foolish, but Silvester realized that maybe he’d always been content with living life as a fool. Kind of sad to think about, staring into the charcoal burn of a grill on a too hot July day. In his age, it’s far too late to complain.

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

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can life be a still dream? or do i have to watch myself ruin the brushstroke let the paint smear on my face?

_{Location: Clark's General
Interactions: Lee @SonnetNSunbeam
Mention: Theresa @Fabricant451}

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Sometimes people make decisions before giving the thought a thorough once over. Why did he need to go to Clark's before heading to his own shop? Maybe it the body knows better than a frazzled mind scrambled over hot asphalt and humid air that made his chest feel heavy when he breathed, like it filled too much with moisture and not enough with air. It made sense, knowing his eyes lingered on the old fridge box, transparent so that, even with the power off and the light gone, he could see the sweat condense over Coke bottles that still held onto that cold, cold manufactured air.

Sylvester licked his lips, a gesture he didn't mean to care over when his eyes fell onto Lee who wasn't a good deal shorter than him, just the two inches, but his eyes fell further to the sudden flop of shirt that fanned air against skin. He immediately shut his eyes, as if to block the sudden pierce of thought that flooded his mind. Sweat. Damp skin. Hot air. He swallowed shame down his throat and stumbled over words that barely formed a coherent sentence, "Just needed the hot to uh, sorry. Cold. I needed something cold before I, y'know..." He tried to brush the awkwardness off with a smile knowing how strained it looked.

A fact of life that Silvester knew even small, holding tight to his mother's hand like a lifeline, was that luck had a way of snowballing one way or the other. Maybe life was inherently Sisyphean. Up the hill; an accomplishment. Down the hill; a tragedy.

He turned toward the box of drinks far too quickly to be normal, quickly opening, grabbing a soda, and closing the display case as fast as he could to keep the still cold air from escaping. When he pulled up to the cash register, he took Lee in again, knowing they'd not often crossed paths. To be fair, this was likely the most common point of interaction on both ends, though Silvester frequented Clark's more often than anyone in this town, besides the older folk, frequented his antique shop.

"Actually I do have a used futon I've been trying to sell for a few months now. At this point, I'm content to just give it to my daughter should she find her own place, but then that'd be admitting to something I'm not quite ready to admit to," Silvester let the awkwardness from earlier slip away, content to the idol talk of every day to melt into, "How much are you offering? I'll knock a bit off the price since you were kind enough to let me in despite..." he tilted his head toward the door just in time to catch another person staring behind hit.

He opened his mouth to say something, though the call out quickly made him purse his lips. "Here, I was going to ask after your mother, but I suppose you'll probably be busy now?" Silvester dropped the exact amount on the counter, shuffling his feet as he peered over toward the woman at the door. There was something he'd recognized of her, but couldn't quite place, like she shared the face of someone familiar to him but like Lee did, though Silvester supposed that was different having known the man for a majority of his life. Another shiver of shame slid down his spine, to which Silvester bowed his head to stare and contemplate the shoe worn flooring marked with lines and skid marks that begged his attention. Or rather that he forced his attention toward.

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

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quiet in the moonlight beyond tides and still lit trees i waited for you on the roof top knowing you were nothing more than the whisper white snow drift lost on a summer dream confessions under neon lights; dead miracle in my head

_{Location: Home > Vega Household > Clark's General
Interactions: Lee @SonnetNSunbeam
Mentions: Stella @Altered Tundra}

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The moon always woke Silvester. White light slipping in through the thin strands that passed off as a curtain to dance along the curved bridge of his nose, to mingle against the length of his eyelashes as they fluttered in half-sleep to the cloying cling of sweat that caked his brow. The power hadn't gone out yet, he simply ran hot and never bothered with anything but the whirr of a metallic fan that gripped to life by the barest thread of a finger. Though, at the moment, it wasn't quite the buzzing noise of the fan that woke him, but more so the sudden hit of cold air that cooled the sweat on the back of his neck.

A string of Spanish curses spilled past his grit teeth as Silvester kicked past his own covers until his feet slapped onto the worn wood floor. "Anya, just because I fixed the AC doesn't mean you can burn money through our vents like this," he mumbled, stumbling through the dark of his home with the stubborn ache in his lower back. Once he padded the air conditioner off, Silvester nearly tripped his way into his bathroom to start the every tedious ritual of a morning routine (shower, lawn and house care, taking care of the dogs, seeing to his mother, etc.)

He'd found himself on the lucky end of the morning having made a quite large batch of omelets just to burn through the ever-present nerves of the day before submitting to the townwide blackout. If he hadn't known his own power was out, Silvester could certainly hear his daughter's announcement of it from their shared bathroom, "Fuck this fuck ass fucking stupid fucking town and it's shit ass fucking mayor for not paying the fucking electricity bill like a fucking neglectful parent who fucking spent all their money on smokes and a two-bit fucking prostitute—" the loud crash and subsequent stomps announced Anya's arrival, accompanied by a number of products she was quite furiously slamming onto the kitchen table, "Papa, I need the car for today. I'm not sitting around in this heat waiting for someone to bribe the electricity company." She was damn lucky his mother was already on her daily milling about, likely already somewhere downtown camped out with a few of the other old folks sitting around town.

"Anya, your shift starts in a few hours, where could you possibly need to be in the meantime?" Silvester said, biting back the sigh begging behind his teeth, "I need you to check on your abuelos. Stella needs all the help she can get, especially with—"

"No, I gotta-I gotta go, I can't. Papa, I just, I um," A sudden tremor hit Anya's voice that Silvester wasn't familiar with and if he could get a word in he would have mentioned it, but Anya was already shoving past him with the keys tight in her hand.

"Anya! The omelet-your breakfast and I... I got... I have to..." Silvester cursed as he trailed off, shoving a hand through his hair before gripping and tugging until he could feel the distinct, sharp tug at his scalp. A short breath shot through his nose before he quickly divided the number of omelets into neat piles within clear containers. He shoved a few in the fridge, hoping they wouldn't spoil before the power came back on and slung the rest beneath his armpit.

It wasn't the longest walk to the Vega's, though he'd have to pace himself for his inevitable trek into town. Perhaps he could catch Stella, though by the looks of it she'd already made her way into town. God willing, she'd not skipped out on food like his own daughter had. It worried him more than aggravated him, knowing how easy it was to get lost in the stress of everything and forget even the most basic necessities. That felt like a near daily occurrence to him, at this point.

"I know you've probably eaten, but I've got food just in case!" Silvester announced upon entering his other family's home, feeling, as he always did, the sudden weight of loss hit his shoulders. He'd not let it show in the liveliness of his expression or the lilt of the Spanish that rolled off his tongue, but it was there. A constant, present chain that he'd always feel tug at him anytime he passed the threshold of this home knowing full well she'd never greet him again. Perhaps that expedited his visits, only ever stopping by to drop things off or complete daily tasks or make his presence a reminder of self-care. He couldn't let the lead in his feet drag him further into the ground.

He couldn't let her absence be what finally dragged him under.

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Early morning starts often gave Silvester the benefit of a slow, steady pace to the routine of his days. He wasn't quite afforded that this morning with the sudden lack of a vehicle to slowly putter his ass into town. If he thought about it too hard, Silvester would likely feel pathetic taking the long road from Miners Street to Pines Holler's interior, but his mind never quite let him relax through the unfiltered madness of constant stress and numbers for not only his business but the one close by that fell into his niece's unwilling hands.

She looks so much like Solana, doesn't she?

His breath caught as he found himself stopped in front of Clark's, allowing himself but a moment to close his eyes and take as much air as he could in. His lungs burned as he held that air inside until it felt like the carved pit of his stomach filled just enough to give him the wherewithal to move his legs again. Only to have that air knocked out of him when he ran face first into the shack of a store's front door. Despite himself, Silvester could only stand there dumbfounded and staring into the barren interior of the town's local general store.

What did he even need here anyways? Or was it just a stop before he could open up his own shop today? Maybe the lack of power and the long walk into town addled his brain a lot more than he originally thought. He brought a hand to his head before he caught eyes with one of the workers inside, to which his own eyes widened before he looked back down at the closed sign, then back up to meet Lee's eyes again, then over toward where he assumed was a number of perishables still stocked and maybe somewhat dusty if he squinted hard enough.

All Silvester could really muster was a stiff wave before he pointed at the sign and then lifted his other hand, wrist visible, to point at his watch. He lifted his brows in what he hoped was amicable questioning rather than entitlement, but he wasn't quite sure he had that much of a handle on his expressions these days. His daughter could attest to that, having told him how lost and out of he often looked. Dissociation, she told him at one point. Or maybe that was Ellie during one of his recent medical checkups. Anya had mentioned how Stella could've been his daughter with how similar they looked when dissociating, though Silvester couldn't presume that was his niece's constant experience.

He should just skip the store visit and hop on toward the antique shop, but it couldn't hurt to grab a few items before things went south for the day. Maybe even just to check up on Clark and see if there's anything he could do. He wasn't avoidant, per se, but if he had to sit around in his empty ass shop for the entirety of the day knowing how stuffy it'd get, worrying about mold and baking in the smell of rotting wood, Silvester was certain he'd either fall into a coma or go unbelievably mad.

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

Donovan Dante Davis || Stone in his palm, waiting to be tossed || TW: Mention of Death and Illness

<sub>Faceclaim: Damson Idris // Color Code: B06491

i'm a stone's throw
away from another
broken window

mistaken for
the still glass
of calm waters</sub>
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_{Full Name:}

Donovan Dante Davis

_Nickname(s):

Don, Donny, Dante

_Age:

30

_Gender:

Male

_Sexuality:

Homosexual

_Occupation:

Self Taught Accountant

_{Place of Residence:}

157 Miners Street

_{Family and Close Connections:}

Nora Parker Davis (54) - Mother
Eugene Davis (55) - Father [Deceased]
Daniel Davis (58) - Uncle
Irene 'Iris' Davis (34) - Older Sister
Destiny Davis (22) - Younger Sister

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_Appearance:

⸙ Height: 6'1"
⸙ Hair: Black hair that's tightly curled that's very typically lowcut and well-kempt. Donovan only ever trusts himself or his sisters when it comes to hair maintenance, so he tends to keep it cut and groomed to his liking, same with his facial hair.
⸙ Eyes: Dark Brown
⸙ Body Type: More lithe than bulky, Donovan has a lot of practical muscle mostly from doing a lot of physical work both for his job and around the house. Though, he's very set on his routines and has days and times where he'll go through his workouts exactly as he's set them in his calendar. Donovan's very healthy and maintains his body incredibly well. Despite this, Donovan does have issues with his lower back due to long stretches of very still sitting.
⸙ Clothing Style: Being a Pines Holler native, Donovan tends to have a lot of hand-me-downs, so his style tends to be a bit more varied out of necessity than choice. Much of what's in his closet comes from his late father, including a snug leather bomber jacket with a wool collar he wears from fall to winter near constantly. The rest are graphic t-shirts, flannels, button downs, and a huge assortment of jeans. Though, if he had the money, he's not sure what kind of style he'd settle into. More or less, he tries his best to look good with what he's given, but doesn't really dislike anything he wears.
⸙ Body Markings: None, minus the callouses from mechanic work and the ever present one on his right middle finger from having too tight of a grip on his pencils.

_Personality:

In a world of constant unpredictability, there's comfort in control. In routines and schedules, blocked out calendars and the consistency of knowing how to navigate through every single day. Donovan is meticulous in this, to the point of driving his mother, who by some weird happenstance, is ruled by spontaneity. With sisters who have a chronic case of forgetting to call before visiting. And a father who understood, even to the very minutiae, the importance of knowing in the vastness of entropy.

Every meal planned. Every appointment slotted. Every person accounted for.

It gave Donovan peace, something he'd so eagerly sought in the buzz of his own mind under too bright lights or endless din of voices. Even with the knowledge his family possessed, they still found it difficult not to push the limits of his patience. But he had to have endless reservoirs of it, that much he learned even as a child because not many people understood the how or the why of his own behaviors.

In that, Donovan became an oddity to his peers. The quiet kid who carried a new journal every few months that he filled and filled and filled. He was silent passion and diligence who was maybe slightly too intense for others, but kind nonetheless. Though he held many at a distance, those who did get close received someone dependable who, when open, could discuss at great length the many worlds that lived in his head and the many, many stories and authors he'd fills his brain with.

_History:

Pines Holler does not offer much excitement, even in the days prior to its inevitable deterioration. Small town life tended to favor the idyllic for a reason and Donovan cannot say he much minded that. Perhaps, even as a child unknown to the nuances of his own mind or the world around him, preferred the quiet solitude this life provided. Though, providing didn't seem the most correct term when born the second child to a starving artist mother and her mechanic husband who inherited a household from slowly aging grandparents who Donovan mostly remembers from their silhouette hidden by the living room's floral curtain, quietly rocking on the porch swing in the humid, summer air.

To a child, well-hidden hardships give life more room to breathe than Donovan had the capacity for air. Looking back, it could be that this facade of pseudo-suburban life gave Donovan the chance to not just experience normalcy (well, normal for his mind) but find peace in it. Which, might seem odd for a child to desire, but it's rather easy to conflate quiet solitude and lack of worries with peace when being introspective of one's past.

Peace for a time, at least. Not everything in one's life can be controlled.

TW: Accidental Death

Sixteen-wheelers, Donovan surmised, were catastrophes waiting to happen. On the road home, two months prior to Donovan's 11th birthday, he remembered, his father's tire ran flat. Being a mechanic, tire changes seemed rote—quick and painless, like breathing. Quick and painless, like an inattentive driver swerving into a truck parked far enough on the side of the road to very well be out of harm's way.

The funeral was small. It had to be. They couldn't afford a proper one with a casket and a rented out room and a beautifully tailored suit his father would rest in many feet beneath the ground where not a soul would remember if his tie was blue or red. No, he had to be cremated with and placed into a very nondescript urn of a mottled grey color. He still rested on in the class display of their entertainment center right next to the very small, very dingy television Donovan's father saved up for, for one great Christmas morning.

Donovan's need for control became more of a coping mechanism than a mechanic of his own mind. It filtered the trauma out, replacing it with the steady flow of a constant routine. Wake up, bathroom routine, same breakfast, work out (in high school), school and then eventually work. It funneled life into something that was manageable when it felt like the one person who understood him suddenly vanished.

In this he found peace and in writing Donovan found himself. Though, it soon became very apparent that his desires would somehow fall to the wayside. His eldest sister flew the coop as soon as she could, though visited frequently once she found stability and his youngest found the vibrant spontaneity of their mother and amped it to a frequence Donovan frequently couldn't stand.

TW: Illness

Eventually, when it came his turn to leave, having achieved among the highest grades of his peers and a full ride to a state college, things would eventually take another turn. Illness found his mother, as Donovan liked to spin because that felt like the only way to make sense of the vibrant women he loved, who irritated his stalwart mind, being bent to the ravages of disease. It found her dancing in the kitchen in a summer dress. It found her painting the portrait of a women she'd never met.

He knew then that he couldn't leave. Not when her mind would slowly, slowly deteriorate over the many years she still had left. What was sinister about it all was that it wouldn't kill her, but it would eat away at her will to live the longer it progressed. Without him, Donovan knew very quickly that it would debilitate her quicker and he'd decided then that it would be unfair to ask a sister already making a life outside of Pines Holler's confines and a sister with a mountain of dreams of her own to sacrifice everything they could have or already do have.

So, Donovan staid. He stays. He works a job he doesn't care for, pays for the rent and the medicine as much as he possibly can, and locks his dreams away in another journal he stuffs in the rusted drawers of his run down desk.

_{Extra Facts // Headcannons:}

⸙ This Donovan tries not to concern himself with because, as anything, much of the state of this town is so out of his control that it's not worth processing for him. He focuses on his mother and his writing and the walls around him. That's as much as he can offer the town, despite the desire to not see it run underfoot.
⸙ Donovan adores cats and he wishes he could have a black cat that perches on his desk as he writes and writes his evenings away.
⸙ Donovan's mother, Nora, used to hold galleries for her art and sell them for quite a pretty penny when she lived in New York until she met Eugene and stole away with him back to his home town of Pine's Holler. Donovan refuses to sell her work, though he's certain he couldn't get much out of it now.
⸙ Donovan's mother has Parkinsons and her ability to create further diminishes. She still paints in spite of it all, determined not to let a disease take away her passion.
⸙ Donovan's younger sister, Destiny, is currently in her last year of college having gotten into a prestige film school on a full ride scholarship. His eldest lives in Nashville with her husband and two kids. She visits often, even offers money, but Donovan refuses knowing that, despite their salaries, they still live on a tight budget between the four of them in a city.
⸙ Donovan hates, hates, hates overhead lights (bright lights in general). They give him the worst headaches.
⸙ There's about a good few dozen journals of his writing on his bookshelves and in his drawers all neatly labeled and organized. The ones in his drawers are for braintstorming ideas or simply whenever he gets the itch to write what's on his mind. The ones on his bookshelves are for fleshed out ideas, many of which are still in progress.

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

Silvester Rafael Belasco || A quiet storm; a year without sun

<sub>Faceclaim: Pedro Pascal // Color Code: BC8F8F

do i know when the day ends
and the sun dies away behind
a fistful of clouds?
it's too late for me
chains for hands
and lead foot
sinking in the river</sub>
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_{Full Name:}

Silvester Rafael Belasco

_Nickname(s):

Lasco, Esther (jokingly), Sal

_Age:

48

_Gender:

Male

_Sexuality:

Closeted Homosexual

_Occupation:

Owner of Belasco's Antiquaries

_{Place of Residence:}

154 Miners Street

_{Family and Close Connections:}

Silvia Cruz Belasco || 66 || Mother || FC:
Solana Maria Vega (nee. Belasco) || Forever 33 (would be 46) || Younger Sister || FC: Salma Hayek
Anya Belasco || 22 || Daughter || FC:
Estrella Vega || 27 || Niece || FC: Eiza Gonzalez
Alejandro Maximo Vega || 75 || Brother-In-Law's Father || Former co-owner of Two Bits Pawnshop || FC: Edward James Olmos
Soledad Guadalupe Vega || 70 || Brother-In-Law's Mother || Former co-owner of Two Bits Pawnshop || FC: Lynda Carter
Daniela Whittaker || 47 || Ex-Wife || FC:

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_Appearance:

𐂂 Height: 6'1"
𐂂 Hair: Lightly curled brown hair that looks perpetually like he runs his fingers through them.
𐂂 Eyes: Dark Brown
𐂂 Body Type: A wide shouldered man wrapped in flannel with the sturdy sinew of practical strength, muscular but not overly so. Age is tough to deal with, but he keeps his bodied well maintained in spite of the stressors ever present in his life. Long trail runs have especially kept his legs, as some older ladies have catcalled "wide like tree trunks."
𐂂 Clothing Style: Appalachian dad describes Silvester a little too aptly. He switches between flannels with denim jackets and antiquarian chic with his old tweed sweaters and old man sweater vests. He's very prone to muted, earthy colors like dark browns and burgundies and dark mauves. He will very rarely, almost never even, wear short sleeved tops.
𐂂 Body Markings: On his shoulder, there's a large raven tattooed gripping the body of a snake that wraps all the way down to his forearm where it sinks its fangs on the inside. He refuses to talk about when and why he's gotten this. He also has his ears and left eyebrow pierced, though that's kind of a bit of a secret too. He just mentions he got the ear piercings when he and his wife were very young, which isn't at all true.

_Personality:

A quiet, almost soft presence. Silvia, his doting mother, has always described Silvester as a boy eager to blend into the weeds and the thickets than to ever have even one set of eyes upon him. That has never really changed, simply solidified into the gentle rumbling of a man more willing now to be a pillar than a voice. A man who now takes on more than his shoulders can bear when already that weight was too much to begin with.

Unwilling to ask for help. Too willing to compromise. Folds under guilt like a can crumpled underfoot. Too many secrets hidden inside his thick skull he is so unwilling to share. Words like venom from his wife. Ex-wife. Divorced wife. Wife he no longer talks to. And she's right. Silvester will admit to that, maybe too quickly. He tries too hard to maintain the peace that his peace is so easily shattered.

He loves and is too willing to let that love control him. Unsteady in the desperation to be stability for the people he cares. That is Silvester, a quiet thunderstorm beholden to an inevitable twilight.

_History:

It is perhaps with a quiet melancholy that Silvester remembers where he came from. What he wished for and where he ended up are very much on two very different extremes of a spectrum he is very unwilling to label.

Failure and Dreams.

Does anyone know, truly, when they realize how different they are? Spring of his senior year in high school in the smallest, most nowhere town in all of North Carolina (and there are a lot), Silvester fell very steeply in love. Or, maybe, he simply found out something his body already knew from the beginning. More truthfully, he'd already known a long time ago that he felt unequivocal love for a boy he knew since kindergarten with head full of tight curls and the brightest, most infectious smile he'd ever known. Danny Davis from across the street with the ratty tire tied to a sturdy oak that, today, looks worse for wear but stands like a phantom from where he can still see it from his bedroom window.

All the plans set in stone from his birth—graduate high school, take a few business classes, marry his high school sweetheart, have a child, and take over the family business—faded away the instant Danny smiled at him. Asked him to crawl out onto his rooftop with a pilfered case of lukewarm Bud Light (or maybe a shared bottle of Hennessy if Danny could get away with it). Leaned in drunk and stinking of cigarettes to steal a kiss in the wild shadows of branches and leaves hiding the illicit picture of two young boys discovering something they could never share.

He was too scared. Pulled taught between obligation and desire that, though he nearly stepped through the door to trail after Danny in his escape of this shithole of a town, Silvester ultimately couldn't. Even when he told himself that maybe next year. Or the next. Or maybe never. Maybe once this thing with Daniela was over. Or until he sold the family pawn shop. Or once he felt stable enough to care for his little girl. Or maybe once she grew up.

Silvester knew it was never. And eventually, Danny stopped trying, stopped coming back, shit he stopped texting after a while. Eventually, Silvester just sort of forgot. In the turmoil of bills, a messy divorce, an aging mother, and a resentful daughter, it seemed so much less important to have freedom. Maybe there was comfort in the chains that held him to this town even as everything crumbled to dirt around him.

_{Extra Facts // Headcannons:}

𐂂 Many things are too good to be true. Silvester knows that very, very well in fact. Like too white teeth over too wide of a mouth. Nothing good can come of whatever corporate shill spills out of their too deep pockets. Silvester also knows that some things are an inevitability. Death and taxes or whatever. So, it's hard to fight against the expansion knowing how little freedom he actually has in all tape wrapped around him.
𐂂 Owns three dogs, all mutts: Rosa, Mariska Hargitay (teenage daughters are fucking hilarious), and Sock Puppet (referred to as Sock)
𐂂 Drives around in a rundown Ford truck, very much on its last legs.
𐂂 If he had gone to college, he'd have wanted to either be an archaeologist (Indiana Jones is a childhood crush) or a museum curator. He still kind of wishes he could do the latter.
𐂂 He is absolutely not clued into what the kids are into musically these days, but he has a huge soft spot for Sza and Hayley Williams. And, well, he's hispanic so Bad Bunny and Selena are a fucking given who's surprised?
𐂂 He loves and will never part with antique book ends or insect displays. He adores nature anthology books and is regularly called a boring old man by his daughter any chance she catches him reading one.
𐂂 Belasco's Antiquaries is a very old run store passed down through many generations of which Silvester has certainly lost track of. There's a book in the shop somewhere that could probably tell him, though he's much too frazzled and scatterbrained these days to know where it is. It's quant and tucked away downtown and incredibly, incredibly tight spaced and claustrophobic. It smells like musty wood and wet books most of the time, which often rubs off on Silvester.

Pines Holler [Not Accepting]

Heeeeeeeeeeey!!!!!

Silvester Rafael Belasco || A quiet storm; a year without sun

<sub>Faceclaim: Pedro Pascal // Color Code: BC8F8F

do i know when the day ends
and the sun dies away behind
a fistful of clouds?
it's too late for me
chains for hands
and lead foot
sinking in the river</sub>
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_{Full Name:}

Silvester Rafael Belasco

_Nickname(s):

Lasco, Esther (jokingly), Sal

_Age:

48

_Gender:

Male

_Sexuality:

Closeted Homosexual

_Occupation:

Owner of Belasco's Antiquaries

_{Place of Residence:}

154 Miners Street

_{Family and Close Connections:}

Mother - Silvia Cruz Belasco
Daughter - Anya Belasco
Ex-Wife - Daniela Whittaker

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_Appearance:

𐂂 Height: 6'1"
𐂂 Hair: Lightly curled brown hair that looks perpetually like he runs his fingers through them.
𐂂 Eyes: Dark Brown
𐂂 Body Type: A wide shouldered man wrapped in flannel with the sturdy sinew of practical strength, muscular but not overly so. Age is tough to deal with, but he keeps his bodied well maintained in spite of the stressors ever present in his life. Long trail runs have especially kept his legs, as some older ladies have catcalled "wide like tree trunks."
𐂂 Clothing Style: Appalachian dad describes Silvester a little too aptly. He switches between flannels with denim jackets and antiquarian chic with his old tweed sweaters and old man sweater vests. He's very prone to muted, earthy colors like dark browns and burgundies and dark mauves. He will very rarely, almost never even, wear short sleeved tops.
𐂂 Body Markings: On his shoulder, there's a large raven tattooed gripping the body of a snake that wraps all the way down to his forearm where it sinks its fangs on the inside. He refuses to talk about when and why he's gotten this. He also has his ears and left eyebrow pierced, though that's kind of a bit of a secret too. He just mentions he got the ear piercings when he and his wife were very young, which isn't at all true.

_Personality:

A quiet, almost soft presence. Silvia, his doting mother, has always described Silvester as a boy eager to blend into the weeds and the thickets than to ever have even one set of eyes upon him. That has never really changed, simply solidified into the gentle rumbling of a man more willing now to be a pillar than a voice. A man who now takes on more than his shoulders can bear when already that weight was too much to begin with.

Unwilling to ask for help. Too willing to compromise. Folds under guilt like a can crumpled underfoot. Too many secrets hidden inside his thick skull he is so unwilling to share. Words like venom from his wife. Ex-wife. Divorced wife. Wife he no longer talks to. And she's right. Silvester will admit to that, maybe too quickly. He tries too hard to maintain the peace that his peace is so easily shattered.

He loves and is too willing to let that love control him. Unsteady in the desperation to be stability for the people he cares. That is Silvester, a quiet thunderstorm beholden to an inevitable twilight.

_History:

It is perhaps with a quiet melancholy that Silvester remembers where he came from. What he wished for and where he ended up are very much on two very different extremes of a spectrum he is very unwilling to label.

Failure and Dreams.

Does anyone know, truly, when they realize how different they are? Spring of his senior year in high school in the smallest, most nowhere town in all of North Carolina (and there are a lot), Silvester fell very steeply in love. Or, maybe, he simply found out something his body already knew from the beginning. More truthfully, he'd already known a long time ago that he felt unequivocal love for a boy he knew since kindergarten with head full of tight curls and the brightest, most infectious smile he'd ever known. Danny Davis from across the street with the ratty tire tied to a sturdy oak that, today, looks worse for wear but stands like a phantom from where he can still see it from his bedroom window.

All the plans set in stone from his birth—graduate high school, take a few business classes, marry his high school sweetheart, have a child, and take over the family business—faded away the instant Danny smiled at him. Asked him to crawl out onto his rooftop with a pilfered case of lukewarm Bud Light (or maybe a shared bottle of Hennessy if Danny could get away with it). Leaned in drunk and stinking of cigarettes to steal a kiss in the wild shadows of branches and leaves hiding the illicit picture of two young boys discovering something they could never share.

He was too scared. Pulled taught between obligation and desire that, though he nearly stepped through the door to trail after Danny in his escape of this shithole of a town, Silvester ultimately couldn't. Even when he told himself that maybe next year. Or the next. Or maybe never. Maybe once this thing with Daniela was over. Or until he sold the family pawn shop. Or once he felt stable enough to care for his little girl. Or maybe once she grew up.

Silvester knew it was never. And eventually, Danny stopped trying, stopped coming back, shit he stopped texting after a while. Eventually, Silvester just sort of forgot. In the turmoil of bills, a messy divorce, an aging mother, and a resentful daughter, it seemed so much less important to have freedom. Maybe there was comfort in the chains that held him to this town even as everything crumbled to dirt around him.

_{Extra Facts // Headcannons:}

𐂂 Many things are too good to be true. Silvester knows that very, very well in fact. Like too white teeth over too wide of a mouth. Nothing good can come of whatever corporate shill spills out of their too deep pockets. Silvester also knows that some things are an inevitability. Death and taxes or whatever. So, it's hard to fight against the expansion knowing how little freedom he actually has in all tape wrapped around him.
𐂂 Owns three dogs, all mutts: Rosa, Mariska Hargitay (teenage daughters are fucking hilarious), and Sock Puppet (referred to as Sock)
𐂂 Drives around in a rundown Ford truck, very much on its last legs.
𐂂 If he had gone to college, he'd have wanted to either be an archaeologist (Indiana Jones is a childhood crush) or a museum curator. He still kind of wishes he could do the latter.
𐂂 He is absolutely not clued into what the kids are into musically these days, but he has a huge soft spot for Sza and Hayley Williams. And, well, he's hispanic so Bad Bunny and Selena are a fucking given who's surprised?
𐂂 He loves and will never part with antique book ends or insect displays. He adores nature anthology books and is regularly called a boring old man by his daughter any chance she catches him reading one.
𐂂 Belasco's Antiquaries is a very old run store passed down through many generations of which Silvester has certainly lost track of. There's a book in the shop somewhere that could probably tell him, though he's much too frazzled and scatterbrained these days to know where it is. It's quant and tucked away downtown and incredibly, incredibly tight spaced and claustrophobic. It smells like musty wood and wet books most of the time, which often rubs off on Silvester.

Pines Holler - A Small Town SoL Sandbox RP [NOT Accepting]

im appalachian adjacent

well... suburbanly adjacent to appalachian adjacency.

anyway IM INTERESTED (maybe it's time to make that closeted single father with internalized homophobia that looks maybe a little TOO much like billy burke... 👀)

Trials of New Rome - TEMPORARY HIATUS

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"you have all of me" she says wrapping petalled fingers around my wrist "i am yours; you are mine" she whispers intertwined pair of vines beneath my skin "in dreams. in life," in the slip between night and dawn to my birth to her death flower petals in her hair vines around my wrist

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_{Location - Colosseum
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It washed over him. A tide that pushed Thomas against the back of the wall, oblivious now to the heat of bodies surrounding him.

Sometimes, he'd remember sitting at the foot of his mother's bed as she wrapped flower bracelets around his wrist. On a good day, she'd grow enough that it'd cover his entire arm, until he descended into a fit of giggles. Some days she'd tell him to breathe in, fingers hardened by garden tending and farm work rough against his soft, unblemished skin. To breathe deep, she'd whisper. And let it go. He'd look at her as she tapped a finger to each petal of a tiny flower and count while he breathed in. Pause. Then count again as he released a breath that puffed his chest up and extended his belly.

She stopped doing that when she met him. She still whispers her grief into her work, into the food she makes for him. The warmth of a blanket when he falls asleep on her couch again. He doesn't know in what ways she'll understand that it's not needed. That it never has been.

Tommy breathed in, letting heat wash over him. A warm breeze. The radiating heat of people murmuring around him. Then he opened his eyes and soaked the sight and smell of New Rome again. He counted the number of heads in front of him until he felt his attention trail away, let the sounds focus in—a couple arguing over why it wasn't fair to take money in a bet when one of the fighters forfeited and another, a row beneath him, of a mother fussing over the mess of crumbs on her daughter's face.

His hands stilled buzzed, gripping onto the seat beneath him in a tight vice when he wasn't actively forcing his fingers to relax. He slouched forward, nearly contemplating letting his head fall between his knees. Gods, he'd probably looked crazy.

This all felt so reminiscent of the times he'd wake from a nightmare, eyes already flung to the doorway where his mother would already be standing. The unmistakable shape of monsters in his dreams, ones he could name now if he looked back. Of course, his mother knew. Like it was some right of passage. Or maybe Tommy was just a special case knowing who his father was. It made him want to laugh now, but all he could do was breathe.

He ached for someone to talk to, to take his mind off the waking nightmare that'd surely continue to follow him today. At least, until he could sink into his mother's couch and yap her ear off. And she'd have some kind of creamy potato soup at the ready, almost burning in his hands. Thomas leaned against the wall, craning his head back as far as he could with a too loud, too put upon groan. A tongue click to his left cut him off and Tommy let out a cough, avoiding complete eye contact, "Sorry. Bit of a rough day."

_{Interactions: N/A
Mentions: N/A}

Trials of New Rome - TEMPORARY HIATUS

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moon beam in the wake of summer morning dew on your eyelashes smiling with the sudden warmth of the sun

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_{Location - Paradiso
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After all his deliberation, Victor ended up not far from his current resting spot. Showing his face to others felt difficult when these days hit, though he's not certain who he wanted to see him. His old 4th Cohort comrades? His mother if he knew she'd found herself a vagrant in New Rome? Or just people in general? That if he felt eyes on him, Victor would feel less obligated to let the void in his heart swallow him. Even if a majority of those eyes slipped past, as if he was a shadow on the wall blending into the paved roads and sturdy architecture.

Having found seating outside of Avery's Bistro, Victor gave a quick point to something random on the menu before handing it back. It wasn't important that he ate, just that he had something to preoccupy his thoughts. Even good food felt dull on his tongue, but at least it'd mean something.

He let his eyes wander to the rising stone walls of the Colosseum. The crowds around him chatter, footfalls against pavement, birds calling to each other across branches and rooftops. Victor heard none of it but the steady rustle of his clothes that accompanied his almost imperceptible intake of air. To the warm breeze, Victor reached out to the other end of the table—the pads of his fingers gripped the waxed wood. He pressed down against the surface, harder and harder, like it'd convince his own mind that he'd meant to do it. Not for the reason his body called for, of course not.

Because there'd be no hand there. No fingers, rough and calloused, to glide between his. To feel the pressure of another person. Friction and warmth.

Victor swallowed, snapping his head to the waiter, a petite man with a dry smile, as he sat a glass of water on his table. "Thank you," he whispered, quenching the parch that made his tongue feel like cotton expanding in his mouth, down his throat, to the pit of his stomach.

By all the Gods in the heavens right now, he was on the tail end of admitting defeat. That he needed to force someone to come bother him.

_{Interactions: N/A}