2019-05-17 - Lawn Chairs

Geoff can be found sitting on the built up porch outside of his trailer, the light off though the music coming from the radio gives away his presence there. A pair of lawn chairs sit on his porch with a cooler between them filled with cheap American beer, while not far away is a grill that's only recently been busted out to preemptively prepare for grilling season. The man himself seems to simply be enjoying the music as he watches the stars and enjoys his beer.

Lilith is yelling at the door of one of the other trailers while slamming the front door shut on her way out into the yard near where Geoff's trailer is, which surely makes her the sudden excitement of the night. She doesn't seem aware she has an audience, though, or maybe she just doesn't care, because when she's done hollering back inside, she makes a little agitated tissy stomp and flicking flail of hands before putting one of them to hold at her forehead, "Goddamnit dad, this isn't the kind of debt we talked about over the phone and you SUCK! And cans of SPAM are not fucking dinner, just so y'know! It's all fat and salt! Ugh!"

Lilith Winslow might as well be a teenager again with that exiting performance, but after a moment of frustration, she huffs a sigh and steps down off of the porch. Then her eyes catch over across the way where the music is coming from and she mutters a 'shit' to herself with chastising before lifting a tentative hand. She can't quite see -who- is over there and she just made a scene, might as well be friendly.

A rumble of gruff laughter comes the darkness and Geoff can be heard to raise his voice and calls out "Only one person I know of who can argue with old man Winslow like that. It's been a while Lily." his voice amused with a note of familiarity to it. Standing he leans against the railing and waves back "It's me, Geoff. Heard that you'd managed to escape the town so I didn't expect to be seeing you around." with a vague gesture he proffers "Seems like you could use a beer. Got a couple of old ones up here if you want to sit and have a drink."

Lilith tilts her dark head a little at the sound of the voice, drops her jaw some as she gets closer with wandering to actually see Geoff in all his muscular tattooed glory, which probably isn't how she saw him last, and then suddenly, she huffs out a laugh, closing the distance in a hurry, "Jeeeeeeesus, if I hug you, do I get squished like a... um. Something, something clever, c'mere asshole."

Apparently, being an adult now has softened her out of surly glowers and avoidance because she's coming in for a leaning hug after thudding up the stairs to where he sits on his own turf, "And oh man, beer, music, yes. Because I'm realizing that constant pain in my ass is like never gonna die. So hey, yeah. Back." Her eyes flit to the other trailer briefly with indication. She probably doesn't actually want her old man to die, he's a handful of problems, but she has no qualms joking about it with her morbid humor streak intact.

Geoff laughs as Lilith thuds up his porch, his large arms wrapping about her in a bear hug as he lifts her up and crushes her to him "Damn it's been too long, look at you, you ditched the black lipstick and fishnets." With a laugh he sets her back down and turns to dig in the cooler to get her a beer, offering it up to her "Man you're a sight for sore eyes, wasn't going to say anything but the park didn't really feel like home without you skulking around here." It's only then that he gets a good look at her and he lets out a low whistle "Well I'll be damned, it looks like you got that." he gestures vaguely up and down her "Who would have thought."

Most people wouldn't joke about someone being in jail for a significant stint, but as it stands, Lilith is not most people, and she hasn't went and caught a mouth filter as a grown member of society. She doesn't think about it for a second in terms of mean, upsetting, or tacky and just blurts, "I bet I know why you had to go and get all those muscles. First thing I thought when you went away was that you were far too fucking pretty for jail. Adaptation's a hell of a thing." And though she makes a dramatic 'gah' into the squeeze and lift, she seems to enjoy it all the same.

When landed, she takes the beer and drops down into a seat on the other lawn chair once it's cracked open, fine enough to let him stare and study her as she crosses one leg over the other, defending her fishnets, "And I'll have you know, fishnets helped pay my bills in Miami, it's was a good training phase." Then slowly, after tipping the can up for a drink, she admits, "... the arm fishnets might have been overkill back when, though. But y'know, it's better to be the hot girl guys are scared to ask out than an angsty homecoming queen, pretending like life is just -fine-."

She's wearing distressed skinny jeans, black slouch boots, and a tanktop advertising Dos Equis under her little leather jacket she takes some time to get out of and toss in sling over the back of her chair to favor cool night air. Then she does a double take at Geoff after all that commentary and settling, as if she's suddenly seeing something other than hot muscles and tatts about him too, which cuts her dry-humored words into not much else in terms of realization, "Mmhmm, and sore eyes you must have, the way they're sticking to the niceties, but hell, probably takes a few years to remember what it's like to be around pretty wom-- Oh. Ohhh."

She takes a much longer drink from her beer.

Geoff rolls his eyes as he drops down and settles down into his chair to relax and take his beer back up "Hey for what its worth, I wasn't into goth chicks before you went for it. Not that I could have ever have admitted it back then with all the grief I gave you about it." his lips pulling up ina roguish grin at that admittance.

All in all he doesn't seem too perturbed about the jail comment, having made peace with that demon a while ago "Didn't have much of a choice in prison, wasn't going to ruin my life by signing up with one of the gangs, and I wasn't going to become a bitch by rolling over. So had to settle a number of fights with my fists, one on one, three one one, whatever." with a wry tone he says "People tend to listen to pain more then they listen to common sense so I learned to speak the language they'd respect." Shaking his head he apologizes "I'm sure you don't want to hear about my fight to the top of the food chain though. Or what it's like to discover you're a freak in a contained environment with no one else remotely like you."

"Actually... I'd kind of like to hear just that if you're willing to spill it. And me? I'll tell you how fishnets became important in trade." Lilith admits to Geoff after giving a vaguely surprised loft of brow at the first bit, but the expression just turns into grin with the confessional age-old nature of it. When she's finished speaking, though, she drinks and then leans forward a bit with her arms laced to lean against on her lap, finally doing her own due diligence on eyeing him more closely without reserve. Then she tacks on with a lopsided slant of her lips, "You know. Just freak to freak. I never... talked as much as I should have about the..." Her beer waves, "So I am curious."

Then she makes her own admittance, settling back up a vague uptick of her chin, lips twitching with threat of smile, "Besides, any tales of whoopassery are totally going in the lady spank bank. Blame the tatts."

Geoff licks his lips as he thinks back on it "Well....It was rather shortly after I got there that I suddenly realized I was different. Started hilariously when I restored my shit to just like new before my eyes. After playing with that in private I learned I could cut things up from a distance with just some focus." shaking his head he says "Really thought I was a freak, no one else in there like me." He says this with a grim set to his words, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees "Didn't put me in a good mood, so one day I just got tired of a fucker trying to start shit, and threw down right there and then and beat him till the other guys had to drag us apart. Then the next day his friends rushed me and I managed to take them by cheating a little bit." turning a palm upwards "Realized that in those moments where I was fighting for my life that everything just kind of melted away, I could work out my stress and nothing bothered me. Got kind of addicted to fighting to the point where I'd throw down over the smallest thing till it was easier for them just to leave me alone and tread on eggshells around me."

Eyes dancing with a devilish mischief he says "So after that I to find another thing to lose myself in, so I got an ink gun off a guy who owed me one and started learning that trade. I'm actually damn good at it now, probably got some of the best work in the state if I do say so myself." without being prompted he tugs off his t-tshirt and reveals the inking along his muscular chest and arms as well as a few scars which definitely weren't there the last time the two of them had hung out.

Lilith whistles low through her teeth at Geoff's telling, and maybe at the tearing off of the t-shirt too. She leans over her lap with uncross of leg again to get a better look at the artwork and the scarring in the low light and wets her lips a little before her head drifts into tiny shake, "I'm going to tell you something that's going to sound like bullshit, but bear with me-- even though it was a fuck up, you were right where you needed to be to learn to use it, I'll bet, in your own way. To feel kind of... okay about it while feeling the wrong at the same time. It had utility, it made you, it saved you, that matters."

The brunette draws in a breath of air through her nose after that and levels her chin while trying to explain, eyeliner-smoked eyes squinting some thoughtfully through the trailer park, "Mine started in high school and it sucked. I saw some of the others looking how they looked and I knew I wasn't the only one, but I was bitter about it and pretended otherwise. At first, I really only knew how to break things and sometimes I never even meant to. So to cover my tracks, I started making myself put them back together again. But confession?"

Her eyes come back to Geoff and she grins helplessly in her moment of self-deprecation, "I'm still far better at hurting and breaking. And I'm scared to fuck up anything else I could potentially do. I knew I could do more. Member the old shop teacher? He saw me cheating with projects, had a talk with me, told me what I could be if I applied myself, told me what kind of raw power I had. I tried to leave it all alone, but I couldn't leave it alone, and it made me..." She pauses here, "Difficult. I -wanted- to hurt myself and others and the nightmares and the urges I got were... I dunno. It's why I cut everyone else out like I did. So you know, I ran. And it helped me leave it all alone, but everything dark was still inside me. So. Ask me how fishnets play into that."

She takes a drink to drain her beer and crushes the can for fanfare sake, eyeing Geoff speculatively, like she's trying to gauge how he's going to react after this pause to the next bit.

Geoff listens to Lilith's story before he leans forward and lightly flicks her forehead "That's for shutting me out like that, you know I would have had your back if you'd let me know. Growing up 'round here we have to look out for each other, then and now." Tilting his beer back he polishes it off before tossing the can into a nearby bin, or at least at it "I'm going to guess you didn't manage it by getting into fights. So tell me how it is those fishnets of yours played into helping you deal with all." he gestures vaguely as if to encompass the strange and the dark "This."

"Now that I'm back, I remember the way things were, but when you're so many years out and far away, you just kind of forget how weird things are. It was easy to tell myself it was just a phase, to honestly not think about it. But the marks it made inside, the urges, they were still there no matter how my mind filled gaps and told itself lies. I needed to take something apart and put it back together again, inexplicably. I was doing a lot of drugs, but a friend gave me an outlet that happened to come with decent money." Lilith preludes to Geoff with a little flinch blink and then helpless partial grin at the flick against her forehead, shoulders lamely hitching with rise and fall.

She takes a beat to toss her own can toward the bin with care for aim to sink it, then announces, "I was a dominatrix for five years with personal clients. I would take a man, figuratively break him into component parts, physically hurt him, and he paid me for it. Didn't even have to put 'em back together at the end of the day. It was good money for my own personal coping therapy." Then she sits back in her seat, stretches out her legs and rolls her hand and wrist, "You can giggle now and try to imagine it."

Geoff takes this information in stride though he squints as he looks at Lilith to try and picture her in that trade before he bursts out laughing and shaking his head "Shit, I'd have never guessed that's where little Lily would end up but having had to figure out how to cope on my own I totally get it. Hell if I could find a legal venue to fight in around here I'd be back at it in an instant." nodding along he decides "Hot, not my thing, but I bet you rock the leather and fishnet like a pro."

"So I'm guessing the old man managed to fish you back into town with his shenanigans again." digging down into the cooler he pulls out another beer and cracks it open, taking a sip before gesturing with it "I hate to break it to you, but I'm not sure our sleepy little town is going to have much demand for your rather specialized services, Lily."

Lilith doesn't bother being offended, because even though she had the whole standoffish all-black demeanor through high school and the whole angst schtick, she was never actually violent and liked kittens and rabbits a lot, just like she had in the sweet, bubbly years before adolescence hit. But she does feel the need to clarify, suddenly with a finger point, "I didn't fuck 'em, mind you. I mean, I'd go certain levels of naked-ish attire for show or motivation or reward sometimes if it was in the preferences and apt to up my pay, but I was fully dressed just as much."

Then finally, she laughs herself before going to help herself to another beer too, "I was tired of doing it by the time dad called this time with a legitimate problem. He almost lost the place entirely to debt. And here I..." She pushes her tongue against the line of her top teeth with consideration before drinking, "... I think I would actually accidentally hurt or kill someone doing it in this place. But I don't really... y'know, I tinker with a lot of things in the pawn, up the profit turnaround, and yeah, sometimes that's already getting too loud inside as a consequence, but I'm different now. So it's different." She pauses, "Mostly. I mean, weed and xanax and booze help. But I'm more willing to... accept and learn this time, I'm finding. I'm not as scared of it. Clearly. Because we're having this grand ol' reacquaintance conversation about weird shit, hey-oh."

Her beer lifts in little cheers gesture his way, "Ink shop, though, that's... actually kind of clever. You any good or do you just like stabbing from the bout of shank life?" Her lips twitch with the last bit.

Geoff laughs and shakes his head "I didn't think you went hooker, it'd take more than the supernatural to push you that far. Or at least the you I grew up with so many years ago. Doesn't mean that you weren't still hot as fuck doing your thing." This accompanied by a helpful gesture from his beer hand "Well for what's its worth I'm glad your back. It's good to have a friendly face around who doesn't completely hold those stupid mistakes I made against me."

Slipping his hand into his pocket he pulls out his phone and opens up the gallery to show Lilith, on the screen is a woman's bare back with an elaborate gray scale cherry blossom tree inked up the left side of her back with the blossoms fall down towards the right, with the further the blossoms grow away from the trunk the more color they have and the more defined shape they take till finally they are butterflies fluttering away "That's probably the most recent work I've done that I'm damn proud of. Turned out pretty good, and no I'm not just in it so I get to stab people."

Lilith strikes a cross-legged pose vamp style at the man's commentary for play and bats her mascara-heavy lashes a few times, "You know my dad, I'm totally conditioned to fuckups, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy. True story." Of course, the way she came slamming out of her father's trailer earlier might actually paint the warm and fuzzies as exaggeration, but all the same the sentiment is there well enough. She leans in to look at the image on Geoff's phone of the tattoowork he's recently done after, then makes a noise in her throat with appreciation.

The brunette's eyes suddenly turn down to her own body, one limb, then another holding out for speculative examination, "I don't have any, I suddenly feel like a lameass. I don't know where to get one. Or what to get. Are they addictive like people say they are? Is there a rush high like they say?" Then she's dubiously squinting with a comparison that ends in an eyeroll that any unmarried woman of a certain age has been exposed to, "Or is that the kind of bullshit level that women spin about how -wonderful- being pregnant is so they can try to railroad me into filling my womb post haste with womanly duty?"

"Well I haven't stopped, and I don't know if I'd say addicting but there is something about collecting such deeply personal art that makes you want to collect more." Geoff explains before looking Lilith over and offering a sage nod "Well if you want help figuring out what you want or where to get one I offer consultations, you can stop by any time."

A wry smile donning at his lips he says "Filling your womb with womanly duty sounds like the least sexy thing that could actually result from sex...Then again it involves the word duty which has no fun connotations to it." glancing out into the darkness he segues into a completely unrelated topic "So where are you staying now? I can't see you moving back in with the old man after all this time."

Lilith takes a moment to look Geoff over, him and his skin canvas for inkwork and after the offering, she nods a singular time with decisiveness, tipping up beer to drink from like word sealant, "I'll come by, we'll work out a thing. Seems like a right of passage thing to try, especially since it's nice and painful and distracting. And you -know- I'm going to have some of -those- kinds of days, living here again." Her lips quirk up with the womb duty bit afterwards and she stops investigating him and herself on a skin level to settle back again into lazed seating on the lawn chair, "The woes of being almost thirty with no spawn. Some women got themselves trapped early by drooling monsters, now there's herds of them reminding all the rest of us abut our ticking clock so they don't have to suffer on the sly alone. It's a weirdly cultish thing about being a woman. Probably explains why I don't have a ton of lady friends."

Her tongue tuts a few times and her eyes go over across the way to where her father's trailer is before she groans with the very idea of staying in there again, "So when he called, it was just after the fire, I got to be in on the rebuild of the shop with insurance... had them add an upstairs loft apartment. So I stay at the shop, thank fucking god. I figured if I was going to come back and clean up one hell of a debt hole, I'd give myself the splurge of added square footage so I can flip obligatory shits in my own private space."

Then with her own non-sequitor curious question, she wonders, "What'd you miss most, being locked up?"

Geoff nods along as she explains the horror of being a single woman and not having birthed a horde yet "Well if you need help moving in or fixing anything up feel free to ask. There's only so much we can do with our weird shit before we run into some practical hurdles, after that good 'ol muscle helps a lot." With a grin he rattles off his phone number "You should probably have that, helps to have the number of at least one person in town that's not a loan shark."

"Oh man, have I mentioned I ride now? After saving up for months and doing several decent commissions I splurged and got myself a harley. There's nothing quite like the wind in your hair as you cruise around town or even o out for a joyride out into the nearby forests." Geoff explains as he stands and walks over to the side of the porch to look down on his prized bike, even if it is still rather dark outside.

"Uh. So. This is bullshit. I come back, you're cut like wolverine, inked like an instagram model, your own cool tatt shop, -and- you ride a harley. You're like a trailer park aphrodesiac." Lilith snorts out something like a laugh while putting the number in her phone, then complains with faux frustration while pushing up into a stand to follow after Geoff a few steps for a look over the railing. She drinks her beer while looking at the gleam of chrome and paint and machine in the dark, finally coming up with a whistle, "But that there? That's what's getting my crotch for a good run. When's my first amazing hair blowing and death defying ride? I can pretend being on the back isn't total bitchmode."

Geoff leans against the railing as he looks down to the bike "I don't know, when can I get you out for a date and a ride? We can hit up the countryside, tour some of the places we used to party as kids then grab a bite to eat." Feigning exasperation he adds "And if you're really that pint up and need a good tumble I could help you there too. Really it wouldn't be fair of me not to at least offer to help if I'm the source of so many frustrations."

"Bitch, please, you knew what you were doing when you ripped that shirt off. What if I ripped my shirt off with new... fake tits to show off? They're still real, by the way." Lilith ribs Geoff in response to the feigned exasperation and offer with a grin and a toss of her emptied can at the bin. Then she just plain starts to riddle him with little pinches and fake cuffs around the midsection while he leans on the rail, "Besides, you're supposed to be very afraid of my potential for kinks after five years of stomping on various body parts with tall and sharp heels. What if I'm into auto-erotic asphyxiation and want to rope you like a bull? Huh? Huh?"

She relents after a moment, though and laughs as her hands fall away, tacking on more seriously, "I'd love to go for a ride, see the old haunts, eat a thing and drink even more. Honestly, I've been so occupied getting both shop and apartment junk moved in and settled, I think you're the first real person I've slowed down to pay attention to over the past few weeks I've been back. Maybe that's me hiding and dreading old catchup talks, though, I wasn't exactly sunshine for the general public there for a while. But hey. Angst and eyeliner happens."

Geoff winks in regard to that allegation "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't but I'm not going to complain one way or another about." with a laugh he retorts "And if you want to try it go for it, but I'm not promising I won't fight back and pin you right back against the bed. Not afraid of you, Lilith." this is said half as a fact and half teasingly as if daring her to try her worst.

"Yeah...I know what you mean about being able to talk, I haven't been able to just be open and talk about any of this shit since I got back, and it's been a couple years." bumping his shoulder to hers he says "I don't have to tell you about it being something weird you can't just bring up. Besides if I told people that bit about losing myself in the fighting they'd never let me just live my life without them always looking over their shoulders."

There's another laugh and surveying click of Lilith's tongue as she looks over Geoff and visibly decides he might be able to very well do it, even with both of them playing at cheating. She leans into the shoulder to shoulder bump sway to hit back with one of her own knowing, companionable bumps before commenting on his last piece a bit consideringly, "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. But small towns, small minds, long memories, yadda." But then her hand flips dismissively and she goes to grab her jacket from over the back of her chair, turning back to look at the man after with sober smoke-rimmed blue eyes.

"The thing is though, it doesn't really matter what the others think. You're doing a bang up job flying free again, from the looks of it. And it's not that people go into jail because they're monsters, it -makes- monsters, it -breaks- people from ever flying right again. It's not rehabilitational, no matter what they want to call it. You made it that way, tooth and nail. You came out better. And fuck anyone that can't see that with you standing here right now."

When she's finished speaking, she gets into her coat and puts her hands in her pockets to upnod the bike off the railing indicatively, "You know where to pick me up with a roar when it's time. I'll text you. It's... been good seeing you again, Scrappy."